We are all familiar with Nuclear Fission. We have nuclear fission plants all around the world providing energy to millions of people. This technology has been around for decades and has served society in our expansion, providing greener energy and a large amount of it. There are risks to this technology, however. While the benefits of nuclear energy are worth the risk of its production, there is defiantly room for improvement. The production of radioactive waste and the dangers associated with nuclear reactors make nuclear fission a risk, thought it is an acceptable risk. There is new technology in development, however, that can potentially replace nuclear fission; that technology is nuclear fusion.
The Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT is a center designed to educate graduate students on plasma fusion and provide them with hands on experience they need to better understand this developing technology. Plasma Fusion, once it works, will offer a great amount of continual energy with none of the risks associated with nuclear fission such as waste and explosion. The success of fusion will be similar to creating a miniature sun on Earth, a self-sustaining and massive source of energy that we will be able to draw from, never having to worry about energy again like we do now (with fossil fuels as well). Through developing this technology we are getting closer to obtaining a sort of “ultimate” energy source.
This center, however, has been jeopardized by budget cuts due to a transferring of funds to the international fusion program ITER. While this transfer is significant as ITER will provide a large enough scale attempt at plasma fusion to actually be successful, the cutting of the MIT center poses a serious risk to the US’s future involvement in plasma fusion. This hands on education is the only education provided in this country and by taking away the practical aspect of actually creating plasma fusion the government is limiting its future fusion scientist’s education. It’s for this reason that PSFC is creating a petition to keep its program running and fusion reactor operational. I strongly agree with their efforts and consider plasma fusion the future of green energy, and the loss of such an in-depth educational system will serious limit the US’s involvement in the future of energy production.