Sun in a Bottle by Charles Seife
The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking
Unless the goal is to destroy a city, fusion is hard. Really hard. That message comes through loud and clear in Charles Seifes's book Sun in a Bottle. Seife, the award-winning author of Decoding the Universe, Alpha & Omega, and Zero, has done a masterful job of providing a historical account of human attempts to harness the energy that powers the sun.
From it's conceptualization in the minds of physicists, to the latest international efforts to build a working reactor, the story of fusion makes excellent reading. Seife introduces technical terms only as needed, and defines them in easy to understand terms. His style is highly readable, and since he has personally covered some of the most interesting events in recent fusion work for major science publications, his writing rings true.
The Weaponization of Fusion
The first technical achievement in fusion research was the invention of the boosted fission atomic bomb. In boosted fission, a small quantity of tritium and deuterium fuel is placed at the center of a standard fission device, and the pressure and heat of the fission detonation fuses the fuel nuclei to significantly increase the explosive yield.
Boosted fission was the brain child of Edward Teller, a figure who played a prominent role throughout the early and middle years of fusion research. Depending on one's perspective, Teller is ether a national hero or one of the most evil men of all time. Seife treats him pretty fairly. Ever the optimist, most of Teller's ideas for developing fusion weapons didn't work, but his persistence and constant championing of the cause, did eventually lead to the first true fusion bomb—also known as the hydrogen bomb—in the early 50's.
Without gong into infinite detail, Seife proceeds to hit the highlights of fusion weapons research and progress. No matter one's view of nuclear weapons, their successful development must be recognized as a monumental scientific and engineering achievement.
Fusion as a Power Source
Fusing deuterium and tritium to make a huge fireball is easy (relatively speaking). It's a considerably greater challenge to capture that fireball, confine it, and extract usable energy from it. Not only that, but a fusion reactor is only marginally safer and more environmentally friendly than a fission reactor.
Like Teller, the early workers on the peaceful uses of fusion were optimists. Predictions of working fusion reactors for energy production "within ten or twenty years" were a common theme. It still is—although the predictions now run out to about forty years. With names like Stellerator, Perhapsatron, Shiva and Nova, the early fusion devices certainly had a romantic appeal. But as the reader quickly learns, the goal of achieving a fusion reactor that produces more energy than it takes to operate it, remains as elusive as ever.
Fusion Scams and Fantasies
Remember "cold fusion?" How about "bubble fusion." They are here too. And no, they don't really work. They are fun to read about though. Amazingly, it is possible to make a safe and true fusion device in a basement, and the book's appendix and extensive bibliography provide enough information to get started on one. Just don't expect it to produce energy.
Useful energy production will take a very hot plasma, in a multi-billion dollar machine. It might even be impossible, but the appeal of all that energy is so irresistible, we can be sure that the fusion dream will remain alive for the foreseeable future.
References
Sun in a Bottle, 2008, Charles Seife, Penguin Books, London, ISMB 978-0-670-02033-1
Cover of Sun in a Bottle
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles