theceomagazine.com | 101This may be the longest shot, but the search for
always-on power is likely to accelerate fusion
funding over the next few years after decades of relative
neglect. The reward of successful fusion might be almost
limitless power, without long-lived and deadly radioactive
waste or greenhouse gases.
FUSION POWER
The principles of fusion are compelling: fuse atomic
nuclei at super-high temperatures in a magnetic bottle,
forming heavier nuclei, and harvest the heat produced to
make electricity just as we now make it by burning coal.
We know fusion works: it drives not only hydrogen bombs,
but also the sun.
But fusion requires containing a substantial amount of
gas for a substantial amount of time at high pressure and
millions of degrees of temperature. Under these conditions,
the gas become a substance called plasma. Controlling
it needs magnetic fields, which are hard to keep stable.
The first trick here is getting the reaction to the point
where it is producing more energy than it takes to get it going.
Then you have to make the heat usable, by doing things like
decelerating the neutron streams carrying the energy from the
fusion reaction. And finally, you have to do all this continuously
with an operating reactor.
All this has proved tougher than expected. Many
experts have predicted the arrival of fusion and been
made to eat their words a decade or so later. The
industry’s joke is that a commercial fusion reactor
is 30 years away – and always will be.
An international team is now building the world’s
largest experimental nuclear reactor, the US$24
billion International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (ITER), in France. It’s due for completion in 2025.
Hopes are that its successor will produce commercial power
around 2035. Just be aware that by then, the deadline could
be moved to 2065.OpenAI’s Dactyl system, for instance, can
twist a block into 50 different orientations.
Softwear Automation’s Sewbot can produce
jeans and t-shirts faster than humans can.
These systems will continue to educate
themselves. Some of the newest robots
have begun using “reinforcement learning”,
where neural net software teaches them to
manipulate simulated objects before trying
out the same task in the real world. The
simulations are imbued with an element of
randomness that simulates the messiness and
unpredictability of real-world environments.
And once they have learnt, they will not forget.
Coming generations of robots will work 24/7 to do many
of the tasks now done by people. That will change
jobs, but also slash the prices of all sorts of
goods and services, continuing a process that
has been going on for hundreds of years. We know fusion
works: it drives not
only hydrogen
bombs, but also
the sun.
The next big things | INNOVATE