Energy from fusion could be a permanent CO2 solution

Renewable Energy
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Hi everyone,

I am on this platform for the past 10 days, Initially, I wanted to read and understand before making any comments. :slight_smile: I am not sure if I ever thought of CO2 emissions at the country level, I was always sure our nation’s Co2 mission per capita will go up (Why?). That’s how we have made progress.

Here is the Co2 emission per capita of three nations - the USA, China, and India. You can see clearly, India is still the lowest and the growth rate is also under control. But like China, we might see a sudden rise - I can see strong signals of this on the ground.

CO2-per-capita-for-USA-India-China
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Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations=US-CN-IN

Here are the sources of India’s CO2 emissions

Co2-sources

Reference: Global Carbon Project (2021), Carbon Budget 2021

Note: I don’t know how this “Land-use Change & Forestry” is Carbon negative.

The source energy is the biggest Co2 contributor followed by the rest. If we also take a look at the two-wheeler and 4-wheeler sales. It seems that 2-wheeler sales are on the decline and 4-wheeler sales are on the rise. The trends are early, it would be clear in the next few years.

Sales-of-automobile
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Source: India: automobile industry sales by type 2022 | Statista

If trends stay, this way, we can imagine the future. And the real impact of our work would be in the next 4 to 5 years. This means ultimately, the source of energy is the only permanent solution.

Now almost all sources of energy have some CO2 emission - directly or indirectly. However, the recent research and early success in energy generated through fusion is something, I am personally and everyone is really excited about.

I am still understanding this in detail. However, here are some fundamentals:

Fusion is another type of nuclear energy which is a. Controlled and b. Function totally opposite to fission.
Fission: an atom divide into two or more smaller atoms and in that process it releases massive heat and energy. And the rate at which it occurs, it is uncontrollable. And hence being used as a bomb.

On the other hand, Fusion release heat and energy by combining two atoms and at the right temperature this process can be stopped. And hence controllable. Every star in this universe including our Sun release light and energy through the fusion process. Combination of Hydegron atoms into Helium.

The scientist has been working on this for a while and in the past few years there have been private investments as well. In fact, 5 MW of energy has been produced through this method and the commercialization work is going on.

If we achieve the commercialization of fusion

  1. We can offer energy at almost zero cost
  2. We can capture CO2 coming from different sources using free energy from fusion
  3. The problem of the CO2 mission can be eliminated completely

USA, China, and Russia all have built their Fusion reactor and progressing rapidly, I am yet to hear anything on fusion in India, so it would be good if we start early - support some RnD, and grant review papers would be a good start.

I have created this topic, so we can collect all the relevant info and start making progress on this…

Note: I am still thinking about the method of dispensing the heat outside our atmosphere.

Some resources to start with:

1 Like
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In reactors this will be Deuterium and Tritium combining to Helium. Hydrogen is difficult to source and requires more heat and pressure. Deuterium is abundant in sea water and Tritium is produced in the reactor itself.

We do participate in the fusion research. ITER is mega fusion project with collaboration of multiple countries, including India.

Fusion reactor is actually not that difficult to build. You can do fusion in your backyard if you have equipment to produce lot of pressure and heat. This has now become a college level project. But difficulty is in producing usable energy from the fusion reaction. ie. produce more energy than what was fed into the system in the first place. None of the independent fusion reactors have achieved this. Only recently we came to know that such net gain is practically achievable.

Everyone does fusion differently. ITER is trying to build a large scale system which comes with a lot of challenges. For example the largest electromagnet in the world right now is built for ITER to confine the fusion reaction in its own space. But there are many small scale systems which has different set of challenges. One promising project I have seen recently is Helion. Lockheed Martin also has one in development but I believe for use in space propulsion.

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Well, I was not suggesting any potential solution - this is how the Sun produces its massive energy. :slight_smile:

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I think I used the word commercialization. :slight_smile: And hence suggested, we should start with a review research paper. :slight_smile: