The Star Builders

by Arthur Turrell

  Anyway, developing fusion propulsion isn’t just about exploring the universe; fusion rockets could also help us prevent planetary-scale extinction of life from happening in the first place. The major challenge in preventing a humanity-killing asteroid or comet is detecting and reaching it early enough so that mitigating action—such as steering it out of the way—can be taken. Giving an asteroid a small push early on is as effective as a big push later on. Fusion-powered rockets could travel through space faster than conventional rockets, buying us more time to take action. And in the catastrophic event that we couldn’t save the Earth, the ability to travel to a new home would be the ultimate insurance policy for humanity.

  Nuclear fusion reactor–powered spacecraft bring space travel within reach. They’d cut down the time it takes to get to Mars significantly, making it possible to do round-trips within a year. They could even allow us to travel outside of the solar system. The closest star system outside of our own is centered on Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star four light-years away—that is, it takes light four years to make the journey from Proxima Centauri to Earth. Proxima Centauri has a habitable zone, a region where—in principle—life could exist. Within that habitable zone sits Proxima Centauri B, the closest exo-planet to Earth. While it’s highly unlikely that Proxima Centauri B is habitable, we don’t yet know. With a fusion rocket, a trip to Proxima Centauri B would be possible in under forty years, a remarkably short time.15

  I began this book with a crazy idea—to create a slice of star matter and do nuclear fusion reactions in it to produce energy. The scientists, entrepreneurs, and governments that have pursued this goal aren’t so crazy though. The scientists are some of the best there are. Some whom we’ve met are trusted with stewardship of the United States’ nuclear arsenal; they really know what they’re doing when it comes to nuclear physics. Others, like Professor Ian Chapman at Culham, have won multiple awards for the quality of their research. The entrepreneurs in the race to build a star are daring and ambitious, raising amounts that most start-ups can only dream of and making decades’ worth of progress in fusion in just a few years. The governments funding fusion are leading the richest countries, and represent a majority of the world’s population.

  Their motivations don’t seem crazy either. We’re causing an unprecedented change in our environment, and it’s mostly driven by our use of energy. But our use of energy has improved life in ways that would have seemed impossible to our forebears. Reducing energy demand enough to stop climate change seems impractical; if anything, we’re likely to need more energy, not less. We have technologies to get us partway there—most notably, solar and wind power, and fission too, where it’s accepted. But they won’t get us the whole way. Those pursuing this apparently crazy idea say that we can have it both ways: we can improve quality of life for many more people and protect the environment at the same time. Fusion could deliver CO2-free energy at scale and is likely to be one of the safest power sources, if not the safest, ever devised. Climate change aside, we need new sources of energy because our primary sources of energy, fossil fuels, are dwindling. The ingredients of even the most basic form of fusion, with deuterium and tritium, could last us around 33 million years. It’s not as long as the coelacanths have been swimming around, but it’s a damn good start. And those 33 million years would surely buy us enough time to figure out how to do fusion reactions that use even longer-lasting fuel.

  Even if you believe that fusion could save the planet, you might not be convinced that it’s possible to make it work. And yet nature tells us not only that fusion can happen, but that it’s by far the universe’s most ubiquitous power source—the one that lights each and every day on Earth, and maps the heavens at night. The universe’s visible matter began with nuclear fusion, and stars end with it when they go supernova. We couldn’t exist without the atoms in our bodies being forged by it. Fusion is everywhere, so, star builders say, why not on Earth too? As a species, we’ve already harnessed controlled fission (in today’s nuclear plants), and both uncontrolled fission and fusion in nuclear weapons. Is it really so crazy to think that we might be able to harness controlled fusion too?

  Star builders say “no!” and the machines that they’ve built have come very close to demonstrating that scientifically with net energy gain. Magnetic confinement fusion has reached 67 percent of gain in fusion power, inertial confinement fusion 3 percent in energy. More important, we know from pen-and-paper physics that net energy gain from fusion is possible. Experimental evidence strongly suggests that inertial confinement fusion will produce net energy gain with a big enough laser. The conditions for self-sustaining nuclear fusion, or ignition, are close, and there have been millionfold improvements toward them since the first fusion machines were built. That progress has taken a long time, and now entrepreneurs are challenging the slow-moving government laboratories, pushing progress to become faster, cheaper, and more commercially viable. While there is not complete agreement on how, and the when will depend on money and luck, star builders all say that net energy gain is coming.

  Star builders are now looking beyond net energy gain, and setting their sights on putting fusion energy on the grid. Huge engineering and commercial challenges remain. Entire plants must first produce more energy than they use (every day, and not just in individual experiments). Fusion energy must be extracted and turned into electricity in a safe and sustainable way. And fusion energy must be both widely available and affordable. To go from no fusion power to significant fusion power is a change on a scale that is difficult to appreciate, requiring thousands of plants to be constructed all over the world. But many star builders won’t think they’ve really succeeded unless fusion is delivered quickly enough, and on big enough scales, to help the planet avert a climate catastrophe that—right now—is coming toward us like a juggernaut.

  It’s been a long wait to get even this far in the race to power the planet, but it’s worth asking two questions: Is progress being made? And is the destination worth it? My star-building adventure has convinced me that the answer to both of those questions is absolutely yes. Given the potential benefits, it seems clear that we can’t afford not to do fusion.

  And if we do forge ahead, it seems highly likely that, many centuries from now, if we’re still here at all, we’ll be enjoying clean energy—indirectly, from solar power, and directly, from star machines.

  Just how close that fusion-powered future is will depend on how much we want—no, need—it to work. And the people I’ve met on this adventure say that, ultimately, we will need it: because fusion is the only power source that can take us to the stars.

  I. One of the equations at the heart of plasma physics, the Fokker-Planck equation, has recently made its way into macroeconomic models.

  II. Named after the passage in the Bible: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares.” Isaiah 2:3–4.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  So many people were generous with their time and encouragement while I was writing this book, and I couldn’t have done it without them.

  I want to begin by saying a special thank you to Melanie Windridge, who has helped at every stage. If Melanie hadn’t invited me to her own book launch for Aurora, I’m not sure I would be writing this at all. And it was Diane Banks of Northbank Talent Management who came up to me at that launch and gave me the confidence to think people might be interested in the story I had to tell—thanks for believing in me from the first moment, Diane.

  My agent at Northbank, Martin Redfern, has been an indispensable source of information on the weird workings of the publishing world and fought hard to land this book with excellent editors (which he did). I couldn’t have made the book without him, and I’d like to particularly thank him for his endless patience with my many questions. Thanks also to my former agent, Robyn Drury, (now a commissioning editor at Penguin) who somehow saw the potential of this work even in that very first draft. She also provided sage advice on how to make a book about nuclear and plasm
a physics into something people might actually want to read!

  I want to give a special thanks to those who provided feedback on individual chapters: Brian Appelbe, Stephen Pugh, Paul Robinson, Steve Rose, and Mark Sherlock. Of course, it’s because of Mark and Steve, my PhD advisors, that I got into plasma physics and fusion in the first place. Thanks also to those I discussed bits of the book with: Charlotte Palmer, Jerry Chittenden, Ed Hill, Andrew Holland, Matthew Lilley, Stuart Mangles, and, of course, Oli Pike, who first encouraged me to write a book on fusion.

  My colleagues at the Bank of England were enormously supportive while I was writing this book—I’d like to thank David Bholat in particular for his encouragement and enthusiasm.

  Thank you to everyone in academia, industry, and government who generously gave their time to help with the book in one way or another: David Kingham, Steve McNamara, Jonathan Carling, Lorne Horton, Fernanda Rimini, the stars of the A Glass of Seawater podcast and other CCFE PhD students (sorry that I didn’t get everyone’s names!), Ian Chapman, Howard Wilson, Dave Stephens, Chris Warrick, Karl Tischler, James Pecover, Guy Burdiak, Nick Hawker, Gianluca Pisanello, Nathan Joiner, Hugo Doyle, Isabella Milch, Sibylle Günter, Emma Chapman, Jeff Wisoff, Michael Stadermann, Becky Butlin, Mark Herrmann, Tayyab Suratawala, Brian Welday, Bruno Van Wonterghem, Louisa Pickworth, George Swadling, Omar Hurricane, Steve Cowley, and Jason Parisi. A special thank you to Breanna Bishop at Livermore and Nick Holloway at Culham for scheduling my visits.

  Thank you to Laurie Winkless for the advice on (science) writing.

  A big thank you to the teams at Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Simon & Schuster. Clarissa Sutherland and Beckett Rueda provided help that seemed well beyond the call of duty. I was extremely lucky to have such eagle-eyed copyeditors as Jo Gledhill and Rick Willett. And I was bowled over by the cover designs by Jason Anscomb, for the UK and Commonwealth, and Jonathan Bush, for the US. I want to thank Paul Murphy, my first editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, who immediately shared my vision for this book; I hope you’re proud of what we’ve done with it, Paul. Most of the book has come together under the remarkable aegis of my two editors, Maddy Price at Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Rick Horgan at Simon & Schuster. They are a dream team. Maddy has been phenomenally generous with advice and I’m not sure there’s a single comment of hers I didn’t ultimately put through because each and every one made the book better. Rick is quite simply a force of nature and, at every turn, has pushed me to do better for my readers and for myself as an author. I’m so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to work with, and learn from, both of them.

  Finally, my biggest thanks go to my wife, Alice Turrell, who read almost every chapter of every single draft, and was indefatigable in providing critique and encouragement; both have been invaluable.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  © ARTHUR TURRELL. PHOTOGRAPH: KAREN HATCH

  ARTHUR TURRELL has a PhD in plasma physics from Imperial College London and won the Rutherford Prize for the Public Understanding of Plasma Physics. His research and writing have been featured in the Daily Mail, The Guardian, the International Business Times, Gizmodo, and other publications. He works as a deputy director at the Data Science Campus of the Office for National Statistics in the UK.

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  NOTES

  Prologue—A Crazy Idea

  1. Bill Gates, “Two superpowers we wish we had—Annual Letter 2016” (2016), https://www.gatesnotes.com/2016-Annual-Letter.

  2. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, National Ignition Facility and Photon Science (2019), https://lasers.llnl.gov.

  3. S. Atezni and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, The Physics of Inertial Fusion (Oxford Science Publications, 2004).

  4. “The Boy Who Played with Fusion,” Popular Science (2012), http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/boy-who-played-fusion; “Young Scientist Jamie Edwards in Atomic Fusion Record,” BBC News (2014), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-26450494/young-scientist-jamie-edwards-in-atomic-fusion-record.

  5. “A Tool for Tracking Millions of Parts,” Iter Newsline (2014), https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/1887; Space Shuttle Era Facts, NASA (2011), https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/566250main_2011.07.05%20SHUTTLE%20ERA%20FACTS.pdf.

  6. “Stephen Hawking: Why We Should Embrace Fusion Power,” BBC News (2016), https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161117-stephen-hawking-why-we-should-embrace-fusion-power.

  7. “Boris Johnson Jokes About UK Being on the Verge of Nuclear Fusion,” New Scientist (2019), https://www.newscientist.com/article/2218570-boris-johnson-jokes-about-uk-being-on-the-verge-of-nuclear-fusion/#ixzz66tYUwh6k.

  8. R. F. Post, “Controlled Fusion Research—An Application of the Physics of High Temperature Plasmas,” Reviews of Modern Physics 28 (1956): 338.

  9. R. Herman, Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy (Cambridge University Press, 1990).

  10. S. Cowley, “Fusion Is Energy’s Future,” TED Talk (2009).

  11. “FOCUS FUSION: emPOWERtheWORLD,” IndieGoGo (2014), https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowertheworld--3#.

  12. J. Tirone, “Nuclear Fusion,” Bloomberg (2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/nuclear-fusion/2019/06/20/c6bd5682-938d-11e9-956a-88c291ab5c38_story.html.

  13. “PayPal Billionaire Peter Thiel ‘Becoming Key Donald Trump Adviser,’ ” Independent (2017), http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/peter-thiel-donald-trump-key-adviser-technology-science-paypal-david-gelertner-steve-bannon-a7600471.html; “Peter Thiel’s Other Hobby Is Nuclear Fusion,” Bloomberg (2016), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/peter-thiel-s-other-hobby-is-nuclear-fusion.

  14. “The Secretive, Billionaire-Backed Plans to Harness Fusion,” BBC News (2016), https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160428-the-secretive-billionaire-backed-plans-to-harness-fusion.

  15. “Oil Major Chevron Invests in Nuclear Fusion Startup Zap Energy,” Reuters (2020), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chevron-investment-nuclear-idUSKCN25831E; “The Secret U.S.–Russian Nuclear Fusion Project,” ZDNet (2013), http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-secret-us-russian-nuclear-fusion-project/; R. Martin, “Go Inside TriAlpha, a Startup Pursuing the Ideal Power Source,” MIT Technology Review (2016), https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601482/go-inside-trialpha-a-startup-pursuing-the-ideal-power-source/; “Lockheed Portable Fusion Project Still Making Progress,” Next Big Future (2016), http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/05/lockheed-portable-fusion-proejct-still.html; “The British Reality TV Star Building a Fusion Reactor,” BBC News (2017), https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170418-the-made-in-chelsea-star-building-a-fusion-reactor.

  16. T. Peckinpaugh, M. O’Neill, and A. Johns, “U.S. House of Representatives Demonstrates Support for Fusion Energy,” https://www.globalpowerlawandpolicy.com/2020/09/u-s-house-of-representatives-demonstrates-support-for-fusion-energy/ (2020).

  17. Comments given at Emergence of the Fusion Industry Breakfast organized by the Fusion Industry Association, Wednesday, March 4, 2020, in London.

  18. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, “Angela Merkel Switches on Wendelstein 7-X Fusion Device,” https://www.mpg.de/9926419/wendelstein7x-start (2016).

  19. M. Herrmann, “The Future of U.S. Fusion Energy Research—Hearing: Delivered to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Energy” (2018).

  20. “The Secret U.S.–Russian Nuclear Fusion Project, ZDNet (2013), http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-secr
et-us-russian-nuclear-fusion-project/; International Atomic Energy Agency, Fusion Device Information System, https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/fusionportal/Pages/FusDIS.aspx (2020); “China Plans Fusion Power Research,” World Nuclear News (2019), http://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/China-plans-fusion-power-research; Pravda.ru, “Russia Prepares to Test Laser More Powerful Than USA’s National Ignition Facility,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqg-tmDdEg; “Will China Beat the World to Nuclear Fusion and Clean Energy?,” BBC News (2018), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-43792655; “China Targets Nuclear Fusion Power Generation by 2040,” Euronews (2019), https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2177652/operation-z-machine-chinas-next-big-weapon-nuclear-arms-race.

  21. “Billionaires Back Fusion Energy Projects in Pursuit of a SpaceX Moment,” Seattle Times (2018), https://www.seattletimes.com/business/billionaires-back-fusion-energy-projects-in-pursuit-of-a-spacex-moment/.

  Chapter 1: The Star Builders