The Future of Fusion Energy (Popular Science)

The gap between the state of fusion energy research and public understanding is vast. In an entertaining and engaging narrative, this popular science book gives readers the basic tools to understand how fusion works, its potential, and contemporary research problems.

Written by two young researchers in the field, The Future of Fusion Energy explains how physical laws and the Earth's energy resources motivate the current fusion program — a program that is approaching a critical point. The world's largest science project and biggest ever fusion reactor, ITER, is nearing completion. Its success could trigger a worldwide race to build a power plant, but failure could delay fusion by decades. To these ends, this book details how ITER's results could be used to design an economically competitive power plant as well as some of the many alternative fusion concepts.

• Motivation:
  • The Hydrogen-Powered Civilization
  • Energy in Numbers and Graphs
• The Basics:
  • Fundamentals of Fusion Energy
  • Plasma Confinement
  • Fusion Technology
• The State of the Art:
  • The Past: Fusion Breakthroughs
  • The Present: ITER
  • The Future: Designing a Tokamak Power Plant
• Special Topics:
  • Alternative Approaches to Fusion Energy
  • Fusion and Nuclear Proliferation
  • Fusion and Space Exploration
• Conclusions:
  • When Will We Have Fusion?