Just how soon might we be able to build fusion power plants that generate enough electricity to provide for the world's increasing energy consumption? Unfortunately, many experts believe such prospects in the foreseeable future are bleak.

One reason for such pessimism is the decrease in federal support in funding fusion research. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research has been cut forty percent (to around $230 million in 1998), forcing the program to undergo extensive restructuring. Uncertainty reached such a height that one book predicted in 1997 that the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, one of the most powerful in the world, "will likely" be shut down by 1998 (Blair, 1997).

Budget constraints and the difficulty in producing and maintaining a net energy in a fusion reactor have forced scientists to conclude that no one country can achieve success alone. Even with funding issues aside, the task is so daunting as to be widely considered the greatest technological challenge yet unrealized. Currently, Russia, the United States, Europe, and Japan are jointly developing The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).

An artists' drawing of the current ITER design. courtesy the DOE

The fate of the ITER may be indicative of the future of fusion as a whole. As reported in Science ("Fusion Facility Faces Fall Deadline", Aug 7, 1998), the entire project is threatened because of technical and financial disagreements on a prototype design. Given the $10 billion price tag of that prototype, some researchers are now exploring a simpler and cheaper way of achieving the goal of fusion.

The future of fusion, it appears, will ultimately depend on our willingness to take great economic risks now in trying to prevent a global crisis that is yet to come for some time.