November 8, 2011
Caught between increasing evidence of rapid warming and ever more difficult carbon-based resource extraction, those who aren't in a state of pseudo-science denial are desperately looking for a sustainable path forward. While the public's current attention is on so-called renewables (wind, bio, solar), not only is our record of sustained investment in these technologies remarkably inconsistent, there is a strong case to be made that renewables can't be scaled up in any practical manner to become the "green" energy source for the world by 2100. This leaves nuclear fission as the technologist's choice, but since the US, Russian and now Japanese accidents, there is no political will to invest here either. By a process of elimination, we are left with fusion. Fusion Energy, the solution to the world's energy needs, is the promised source "20 years in future", and has been so described since the 1950s. As physicists, we have been guilty of far too little humility concerning the degree of difficulty surrounding the physics fundamentals of fusion. Magnetic confinement technologies have proven far more expensive and intractable than anyone imagined 20 years ago: now the nation has invested in the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a $5B inertial confinement, laser-driven fusion energy device. It's purpose is to show "the way" in a demonstration of break-even fusion ignition, scheduled for this year. As this talk will make clear, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Mother Nature evidently didn't receive the memo on what she was supposed to do. Yes, NIF may be in trouble, and with this trouble the nations last sustained research program in alternative energies may fall victim to the impending budge-cutting mayhem being proffered in D.C. On the other hand, the nation's investment in the science of High Energy Density Physics, the study of materials at the extremes of density and temperatures, has yielded a set of remarkable results, and a new physics field full of large promises.
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Colloquia are held Tuesdays in Room 1410 at 4:00 pm (preceded by light refreshments at 3:30). If you have additional questions, please call 301-405-5946.