LONDON: Five seconds that produced heat ten times greater than the sun in a British lab has pointed the way to an energy revolution that has the potential of transforming the world. It’s the most promising step yet in the direction of powering India with nuclear fusion energy that former prime minister Manmohan Singh had set out.
But the success has pointed also to India’s failings in keeping up commitments to benefit from that promising partnership.
Scientific success came Wednesday through the Joint European Torus (JET), an experimental fusion machine near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. It generated 11 megawatts of energy in five seconds through nuclear fusion.
Nuclear energy generated at present is through fission rather than fusion. The two processes are essentially opposites. Fission splits an atom into two or more smaller ones; fusion fuses two or more small atoms into a larger one. Either process releases massive bursts of energy, but with fusion the energy released is several times higher than through fission.
It is the equivalent of creating a miniature sun and channelling out release of its energy. Critically, the fusion process does not bring a radioactive fallout.
The energy released through fission is a million times greater than with comparable chemical reactions. Fusion multiplies that million several times. It has the potential to create radioactive free and practically limitless energy for the world into the foreseeable future. Which is what had excited Manmohan Singh when he negotiated India’s entry into the nuclear club.
India
India joined the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) programme based in France on July 6, 2007 following a cabinet decision chaired by Manmohan Singh. ITER is a major international alliance based in Cadarache in southern France to develop fusion power. India became the seventh country to join the alliance after the US, Russia, South Korea, Japan, China and the European Union.
India has committed Rs 20,000 crore to the cost of the project. In return, it will get 100 percent intellectual property rights to develop nuclear fusion reactors. The present government has not quite followed up on that initiative. It has limited its fund flows and human resources to partner the project.
Since 2017 India has not kept up its cash commitments to the project, and that has begun to strain the alliance, and India’s position in it. That position has otherwise been strong. The Cryostat, the 3,800-tonne vacuum vessel in which fusion would take place has already been supplied by India. But the withholding of its promised cash contribution is threatening to delay if not derail the project.
India has sent in only a quarter of the staff it was expected to, and committed to. Without full staffing India can neither contribute enough to the project, or learn enough from it to then build and manage fusion reactors in India. China has lost little time in making up for such shortages with staff of its own.
Modi’s message
In a message to mark the beginning of the assembly of ITER in July 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent the project a message saying: “By seeking to simulate the Sun’s energy production on earth, it (ITER) is attempting a task of cosmic proportions. This shared endeavour for our common good is a perfect symbol of the age-old Indian belief — Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — that the entire world is one family!”
The project needs Indian money more than Indian messages.
Now the success of the JET experiment in Britain has brought new hope that ITER can deliver. And it has raised new fears that India may get left out of the benefits of one of the partnership that could place it at an advantage to meet all its energy needs.
Prof Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Agency that co-funds and operates JET, said in a statement after the successful experiment: “These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.”
Fusion is four million times more efficient than burning fossil fuels for energy. The JET experiment is not quite a mini-ITER. But any success in fusion brings fresh hope of speeding up mass energy generation. India is now getting left out of that hope, after joining it early.
— London Eye is a weekly column by CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri, which gives a peek at business-as-unusual from London and around.
(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)
First Published:
IST
LONDON: Five seconds that produced heat ten times greater than the sun in a British lab has pointed the way to an energy revolution that has the potential of transforming the world. It’s the most promising step yet in the direction of powering India with nuclear fusion energy that former prime minister Manmohan Singh had set out.But the success has pointed also to India’s failings in keeping up commitments to benefit from that promising partnership.Scientific success came Wednesday through the Joint European Torus (JET), an experimental fusion machine near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. It generated 11 megawatts of energy in five seconds through nuclear fusion.Nuclear energy generated at present is through fission rather than fusion. The two processes are essentially opposites. Fission splits an atom into two or more smaller ones; fusion fuses two or more small atoms into a larger one. Either process releases massive bursts of energy, but with fusion the energy released is several times higher than through fission.It is the equivalent of creating a miniature sun and channelling out release of its energy. Critically, the fusion process does not bring a radioactive fallout.The energy released through fission is a million times greater than with comparable chemical reactions. Fusion multiplies that million several times. It has the potential to create radioactive free and practically limitless energy for the world into the foreseeable future. Which is what had excited Manmohan Singh when he negotiated India’s entry into the nuclear club.IndiaIndia joined the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) programme based in France on July 6, 2007 following a cabinet decision chaired by Manmohan Singh. ITER is a major international alliance based in Cadarache in southern France to develop fusion power. India became the seventh country to join the alliance after the US, Russia, South Korea, Japan, China and the European Union.India has committed Rs 20,000 crore to the cost of the project. In return, it will get 100 percent intellectual property rights to develop nuclear fusion reactors. The present government has not quite followed up on that initiative. It has limited its fund flows and human resources to partner the project.Since 2017 India has not kept up its cash commitments to the project, and that has begun to strain the alliance, and India’s position in it. That position has otherwise been strong. The Cryostat, the 3,800-tonne vacuum vessel in which fusion would take place has already been supplied by India. But the withholding of its promised cash contribution is threatening to delay if not derail the project.India has sent in only a quarter of the staff it was expected to, and committed to. Without full staffing India can neither contribute enough to the project, or learn enough from it to then build and manage fusion reactors in India. China has lost little time in making up for such shortages with staff of its own.Modi’s messageIn a message to mark the beginning of the assembly of ITER in July 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent the project a message saying: “By seeking to simulate the Sun’s energy production on earth, it (ITER) is attempting a task of cosmic proportions. This shared endeavour for our common good is a perfect symbol of the age-old Indian belief — Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — that the entire world is one family!”The project needs Indian money more than Indian messages.Now the success of the JET experiment in Britain has brought new hope that ITER can deliver. And it has raised new fears that India may get left out of the benefits of one of the partnership that could place it at an advantage to meet all its energy needs.Prof Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Agency that co-funds and operates JET, said in a statement after the successful experiment: “These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.”Fusion is four million times more efficient than burning fossil fuels for energy. The JET experiment is not quite a mini-ITER. But any success in fusion brings fresh hope of speeding up mass energy generation. India is now getting left out of that hope, after joining it early.— London Eye is a weekly column by CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri, which gives a peek at business-as-unusual from London and around.(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)First Published: Feb 10, 2022, 05:56 PMIST