Fusion advance raises long-term energy hopes

Energy and the huge costs around it have been a concern for most of this year, in light of the Ukraine war. The Russian invasion has flagged up vulnerabilities in European power supplies.

Among the blunders that rich, complacent nations on our continent have made is abandoning nuclear fuel.

Nuclear means fission, a 20th century leap forward in science. Yet some countries spurn it on almost superstitious grounds. Much hostility on this island to the Sellafield plant on England’s west coast was based on uninformed and exaggerated fears of the risks for here posed by of nuclear waste. The biggest opposition was in the Irish Republic, but there was plenty in Northern Ireland too.

Neither side of the border has nuclear power, yet both are high minded when it comes to zero carbon. The best route to zero is a mix of nuclear and renewables, because nuclear produces no carbon. That means France, with a large nuclear system, has one of the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the EU. Germany, which foolishly scrapped nuclear after the Fukushima accident, has much higher emissions.

But fission has a serious downside – nuclear waste, which will be a risk to future humans for millennia.

There is an energy dream – nuclear fusion, the reactions that power the Sun and could produce more clean energy than humans need.

US researchers have produced more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in. This is a big moment, even though widespread power from fusion is far off.

Meanwhile, solar power, which is less physically intrusive than wind turbines, is an ever more important form of clean energy.

For all the threats of climate change, technology is improving the lives of people around the planet. Nuclear fusion could yet be the biggest breakthrough for the welfare of mankind and Earth alike.