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If Fusion Is the Answer, We Need To Do It Quickly
Lasrick writes: Yale's Jason Parisi makes a compelling case for fusion power, and explains why fusion is cleaner, safer, and doesn't provide opportunities for nuclear smuggling and proliferation. The only downside will be the transition period, when there are both fission and fusion plants available and the small amount of "booster" elements (tritium and deuterium) found in fusion power could provide would-be proliferators what they need to boost the yield of fission bombs: "The period during which both fission and fusion plants coexist could be dangerous, however. Just a few grams of deuterium and tritium are needed to increase the yield of a fission bomb, in a process known as 'boosting.'" Details about current research into fusion power and an exploration of relative costs make fusion power seem like the answer to a civilization trying to get away from fossil fuels.
Fusion confusion
With facial hair cruisin'.
Fission frission
Bears smooth-faced derision.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Transfusion, transfusion
My red corpsuckles are in mass confusion
Never, never, never gonna speed again...
Pass the crimson to me, Jimson!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Right now we have some issues with materials and reactor designs, but the basic physics are in place and understood.
The basic physics was in place and understood in 1952. They just had some issues with materials and reactor designs.
The main problem they had with materials is that they couldn't source enough of these small, green, flexible rectangles that they could exchange for almost anything - building materials, labour, research effort, rent, food, etc.