Of course they will get much more energy from the sun and wind, also from the tides and the waves, from biomass and from the earth itself (geothermal energy).
But all this together will still not meet the needs of future societies.
Researchers around the world are working on a fascinating future technology – nuclear fusion.
It promises clean, carbon-neutral, secure energy in abundance.
A nuclear fusion reactor is designed to mimic the starfire inside the sun, where hydrogen nuclei fuse together under tremendous pressure to form helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy in the process.
On the Sun, this has been working perfectly for about five billion years.
Physicists on Earth have been attempting to do the same for over six decades, but their quest has a dreadful number of pitfalls.
A bad word goes that the first fusion reactor is always 30 years away - even in 30 years.
So is the research field dead?
But on the contrary.
This week, European scientists reported on an experiment they succeeded on December 21 last year at the Joint European Torus (JET) near Oxford, England.
In the unique test facility, they actually fused the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium together at a temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius, thereby generating energy: Eleven megawatts per second.
Because the experiment only ran for five seconds, the energy yield was limited, but it was a new world record.
But that's not the point: the JET experiment has shown above all that fusion research is making progress and is getting closer to being used in reality.
The result gives hope that ITER,
I spoke to one of the physicists involved: Athina Kappatou, 35. The Greek researches at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching near Munich.
In an exciting interview, she says that she believes it is entirely possible to see the first fusion reactor in operation before she retires.
Of course, the way there is rocky, but that doesn't deter her in any way: "I'm an experimental physicist: It's part of the job that things don't work at first and you have to solve problems," she says.
More than 4,000 scientists and engineers are working on nuclear fusion in Europe alone, and according to Kappatou, in the interests of future generations, there is no alternative: »We have to do it – now«.
Heartfelt
Your Marco Evers
I also recommend you:
Pooping dogs:
On sidewalks it is notorious as an anti-personnel mine, but now a study shows that dog poop is more dangerous than previously thought.
It can even throw fragile nature reserves out of balance.
Mafia state in antiquity:
corruption, organized crime and bloody competition - a German historian paints a bleak picture of ancient Rome.
Alien invasion:
The first brains in the animal kingdom developed more than 500 million years ago.
A Heidelberg scientist has found out how this happened.
My colleague Johann Grolle visited him - and there he learned what humans have in common with annelids.
Arsenal of virus killers:
Drugs such as Sotrovimab and Paxlovid can prevent severe courses of Covid-19.
But how serious are the side effects of the new drugs?
Greenwashing:
Companies advertise that they will be “climate-neutral” in the future.
But instead of great deeds, it's all about marketing and PR, claims a report.
German companies like Volkswagen and E.ON also get off badly.
Covid-19 and its consequences:
those who have recovered have a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Vaccinations could mitigate the effect.
Dying lake:
The Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah shrank more than ever in 2021.
Environmentalists are already organizing water donations.
Can the unique ecosystem be saved in this way?
Survivalists in the Arctic Ocean
: Bizarre deep-sea sponges feed on the remains of extinct ecosystems.
quiz
How many vertebrae does a human have on average?
How many teeth does an adult have?
At what temperature do Celsius and Fahrenheit thermometers read the same?
*The answers can be found at the bottom of the newsletter.
picture of the week
A culinary crisis may be looming in Japan:
The harvest volumes of the universally appreciated and very expensive wasabi, sometimes also called water horseradish, are declining.
Smallholders in mountainous regions produce the spicy plant by hand.
For their fields, which resemble rice terraces, they depend on clean spring water, which is increasingly rare in the old quality.
Many farmers give up their traditional trades and find no successors in their families.
This does not change anything for restaurant visitors in Germany: the green paste, which is sold in Germany as »Wasabi«, actually contains hardly any wasabi.
(Feedback & Suggestions?)
*Quiz answers: 33, 32, -40°
