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This week, Living on Earth looks at the promise of fusion energy. It's ea sy to see why physicists say fusion is the energy source of the future. The Levitating Diapole Experiment at MIT is designed to achieve fusion, o r the energy of the stars, on Earth. It may sound too good to be true, but physicists say while the technical challenges are enormous, it is possible. Over the past sixty years, scie ntists have been developing larger and larger devices in their labs that will mimic the way fusion energy is produced in stars. And recently, th e international science community announced the construction of the larg est fusion device ever conceived and predict it will demonstrate that fu sion really is the "energy source of the future." But critics say the tw elve billion dollar experiment will never be economically viable and qui p, fusion is indeed the energy source of the future and always will be.
Cold Fusion: A Heated History March 23, 1989 is the beginning of whats been called "the greatest contr oversy in basic science in the 20th century." Thats the day two scienti sts at the University of Utah told reporters at a news conference that t hey had created fusion in a test tube at room temperatures. Professor Peter Hagelstein of MIT draws a diagram illustrating cold fusio n theory. A scientific panel convened by the Department of Energy concluded so-called "cold fusion" was not a nuclear reaction and did not produce excess energy. But over the last sixteen years later a small group of scientists have co ntinued to investigate the phenomenon, and say not only is cold fusion i s alive, real, and reproducible, it will soon provide unlimited, and vir tually pollution-free energy.
Nuclear power held great promise when it came online in the 1960s and 70s . Utilities promised nuclear plants would produce electricity that was c lean and cheap, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. The kernel laboratory of the experimental pebble bed modular reactor. But today, nuclear power may be experiencing a comeback. High oil and gas prices and the threat of global warming have forced many to give nuclea r energy a second chance. Living on Earth travels to South Africa to tak e a look at pebble bed reactors--small-scale, affordable, high temperatu re plants. Scientists there say this technology will bring nuclear energ y thats safe to the developing world and other nations.
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