We are so eager for the future that sometimes it seems to us that we have already arrived. Take this buzzed-about nuclear fusion story in recent days for a successful experiment in the United States. An experiment that gives hope that one day we will have infinite, cheap and clean energy available, neither carbon dioxide nor radioactive waste. The future we want. When the American announcement was made, the news was given by radio and TV newspapers with the headline “we lit a star”.
The same title used a few months ago for another successful experiment, this time in Europe, which according to our enthusiasm was a step forward against climate change and high bills. Every time we tell ourselves that we light a star. Well, it’s not like that. Meanwhile, let’s parameterize what happened in the United States: the energy produced by nuclear fusion in the test was equal to about twenty minutes of a hair dryer of the scarce ones (quote by Marco Cattaneo, director of the Italian National Geographic).
Energy
The US announcement on nuclear fusion: “A turning point but it will take 30 years for it to become a reality”
edited by Jaime D’Alessandro
If you think that the laboratory worked for thirteen years to achieve this result, spending three and a half billion dollars, you understand the enormity of the scientific effort underway. The most expensive bill in history. But not unjustified: the good news is that modest amount of energy was produced “in less than a tenth of a billionth of a second”, which demonstrates the extraordinary potential of fusion. In short, we are at the beginning of a still very long journey. Like when the Wright brothers made their first flight in 1903: it lasted 12 seconds, but sixteen years later a plane was already crossing the Atlantic.
Innovation
Nuclear Fusion: Clean Energy Startups Around the World
by Jaime D’Alessandro
Or when Alexander Bell in 1876 made the first phone call to his assistant, who was in the next room (“Watson, come over here quickly,” he said). The future, when it arrives, is discreet, it proceeds in small steps: the first message sent between two computers in 1969 was simply “Lo” because then the line was interrupted, but then that network became the Internet. When? The first billion users were reached in 2009, forty years later. And we come to nuclear fusion: when will it change our lives? The head of the American project said: “Decades. Not seven, not six, not even five.” Let’s make four. 2062. It means that this technology will not be used either for high bills or to combat climate change now. It will come in later. Meanwhile, keep calmkeep calm and build renewable energy plants.