Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

First, if their claims were correct, a blistering barrage of neutrons would have radiated from the glass of water, killing Pons and Fleischmann. (In a typical fusion reaction, two hydrogen nuclei are slammed together and fuse, creating energy, a helium nuclei, and also a neutron.) So the fact that Pons and Fleischmann were still alive meant the experiment hadn’t worked. If their experiments had produced cold fusion, they would be dying of radiation burns. Second, more than likely Pons and Fleischmann had found a chemical reaction rather than a thermonuclear reaction. And last, the physicists concluded, palladium metal cannot bind hydrogen atoms closely enough to cause the hydrogen to fuse into helium. It would violate the laws of the quantum theory.
    But the controversy has not died down, even today. There are still occasional claims that someone has achieved cold fusion. The problem is that no one has been able to reliably attain cold fusion on demand. After all, what is the point of making an automobile engine if it works only occasionally? Science is based on reproducible, testable, and falsifiable results that work every time.
    HOT FUSION
    But the advantages of fusion power are so great that many scientists have heeded its siren call.
    For example, fusion creates minimal pollution. It is relatively clean, and is nature’s way of energizing the universe. One by-product of fusion is helium gas, which is actually commercially valuable. Another is the radioactive steel of the fusion chamber, which eventually has to be buried. It is mildly dangerous only for a few decades. But a fusion plant produces an insignificant amount of nuclear waste compared to a standard uranium fission plant (which produces thirty tons of high-level nuclear waste per year that lasts for thousands to tens of millions of years).
    Also, fusion plants cannot suffer a catastrophic meltdown. Uranium fission plants, precisely because they contain tons of high-level nuclear waste in their core, produce volatile amounts of heat even after shutdown. It is this residual heat that can eventually melt the solid steel and enter the groundwater, creating a steam explosion and the nightmare of the China Syndrome accident.
    Fusion plants are inherently safer. A “fusion meltdown” is a contradiction in terms. For example, if one were to shut down a fusion reactor’s magnetic field, the hot plasma would hit the walls of the chamber and the fusion process would stop immediately. So a fusion plant, instead of undergoing a runaway chain reaction, spontaneously turns itself off in case of an accident.
    “ Even if the plant were flattened, the radiation level one kilometer outside the fence would be so small that evacuation would not be necessary,” says Farrokh Najmabadi, who directs the Center for Energy Research at the University of California at San Diego.
    Although commercial fusion power has all these marvelous advantages, there is still one small detail: it doesn’t exist. No one has yet produced an operating fusion plant.
    But physicists are cautiously optimistic. “ A decade ago, some scientists questioned whether fusion was possible, even in the lab. We now know that fusion will work. The question is whether it is economically practical,” says David E. Baldwin of General Atomics, who oversees one of the largest fusion reactors in the United States, the DIII-D.
    NIF—FUSION BY LASER
    All this could change rather dramatically in the next few years.
    Several approaches are being tried simultaneously, and after decadesof false starts, physicists are convinced that they will finally attain fusion. In France, there is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), backed by many European nations, the United States, Japan, and others. And in the United States, there is the National Ignition Facility (NIF).
    I had a chance to visit the NIF laser fusion machine, and it is a colossal sight. Because of the close connection with hydrogen bombs, the NIF reactor is based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the military designs hydrogen warheads. I had to pass through many layers of security to finally gain access.
    But when I reached the reactor, it was a truly awesome experience. I am used to seeing lasers in university laboratories (in fact, one of the largest laser laboratories in New York State is directly beneath my office at the City University of New York), but seeing the NIF facility was overwhelming. It is housed in