Though it is 93 million miles away from the earth, in only 15 minutes, the sun radiates as much energy as people use in all forms in an entire year. Now scientists have found a way to replicate certain conditions found in the sun to generate massive amounts of energy and oil producers are right to be jittery.
On December 13, scientists in the United States announced they have for the first time produced more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it — a major breakthrough in the quest to harness the power from the process that powers the sun.
Those who advocate for fusion hope it could one day displace fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. The energy produced is supposed to be carbon-free unlike dirty fossils and could power homes and factories.
Skeptics believe it is still the stuff of science fiction, perhaps decades away but the breakthrough announcement marks a significant leap forward.
“It’s almost like it’s a starting gun going off,” said Dennis Whyte, a professor, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leader in fusion research. “We should be pushing towards making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security.”
Instructively, many dismissed the announcement of shale oil as fantasy. Yet, it sounded the death knell for Nigeria’s oil in the American market.
How it works
The sun and stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions. In the core of the sun, hydrogen is converted into helium. This is called nuclear fusion. It takes four hydrogen atoms to fuse into each helium atom. During the process, some of the mass is converted into energy.
In reality though, the process is much more complex. According to an article by the Western Washington University, the sun has different layers with different properties, these layers are composed of material that is about 75 percent hydrogen and 25 percent helium by mass.
The sun is essentially a great ball of gas, hot enough to glow in every tier. In the very innermost part of the Sun, called its core, the temperature is about 15 million Kelvins, the density is 150 times that of water, and the pressure is over 200 billion times greater than atmospheric pressure here on Earth. This heavy, sweltering place is where the Sun’s energy is produced via a process known as thermonuclear fusion.
These conditions are difficult to replicate on earth because the temperatures are not high enough for hydrogen nuclei to smash together and form helium nuclei, to release huge amounts of energy in various forms. The sun’s intense heat – estimated at millions of degrees Celsius – and the pressure exerted by its gravity that allows atoms that would otherwise repel each other to fuse.
It is in the replication of this condition that makes the discovery a breakthrough after decades of failed attempts. Current efforts focus on fusing a pair of hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — according to the Department of Energy, which says that particular combination releases “much more energy than most fusion reactions” and requires less heat to do so.
The reaction happens when two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. Because the total mass of that single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei, the leftover mass is energy that is released in the process, according to the Department of Energy.
Scientists have long understood how nuclear fusion has worked and have been trying to duplicate the process on Earth as far back as the 1930s. In 2022, they finally found a way.
Fusion works by pressing hydrogen atoms into each other with such force that they combine into helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy and heat. Unlike other nuclear reactions, it doesn’t create radioactive waste.
While it may still be a long way to go to turn fusion into a usable power source, the researchers say the lab’s achievement makes them optimistic that someday, fusion could be the ideal power source that emits no carbon and runs on an abundant form of hydrogen that can be extracted from seawater.
One approach to fusion turns hydrogen into plasma, an electrically charged gas, which is then controlled by humongous magnets. This method is being explored in France in a collaboration among 35 countries called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, as well as by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a private company.
The future of oil
Soon after the announcement of the nuclear fusion breakthrough, memes appeared on Twitter lampooning oil executives in a state of panic. Others began to share conspiracy theories about possible moves by the oil lobby to claw back financing for nuclear fusion research.
If history is a guide, the potential for nuclear fusion to disrupt the current energy market cannot be wished away. In the 1970s, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) invested $92 million into research to stimulate the development of domestic natural gas from shale.
With the help of the technological developments brought on by this investment, US shale gas output has increased and now accounts for more than 8 billion cubic feet per day, or roughly 14 percent of the nation’s total dry natural gas production.
By 2035, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a division of DOE, predicts that the proportion of shale gas in US natural gas output would rise to 45 percent. Additionally, according to the EIA, 827 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may now be extracted from American shale deposits using technology that is now in use, an increase of almost 500 trillion cubic feet from earlier projections.
For now analyst interviewed for this story see no immediate threat to oil markets but noted that the current shift towards transition to cleaner energies spurred by climate concerns will attract funding to nuclear fusion and could cut back on how long commercial application is developed for the technology.
“For oil producers, the concern is whether nuclear will continue to shine as a major force in the energy transition,” said Etulan Adu, and oil and gas production engineer “If yes, then oil producers should utilise the near term opportunity for oil and gas to power society.”
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Some analysts say Nigeria and other producers especially in Africa whose natural resources have not translated to much value for their people should focus on extracting the best possible value before the era of fossil fossil passes.
“Nigeria and other African nations need to ramp up their oil and gas production, (utilising energy sources they have a comparative advantage in) to be able to meet the growing demand for energy in Africa and to be able to improve the standard of living of its people,” said Olufola Wusu, partner and head of oil and gas at Megathos Law Practice.
This is the strategy employed by some of the world’s biggest oil producers like Saudi Arabia. The oil rich kingdom is investing massively in petrochemicals, renewable energy and technology to hedge against the risk of a world moving inexorably away from crude oil.
