“The Strategic Dimensions of the Fusion Energy Challenge”
Good morning. It is for me a great pleasure to be with all of you, sharing the
opening session of this annual Conference on fusion energy and I would like to
thank the International Atomic Energy Agency for its kind invitation.
As the chairman has mentioned, my background is in history, and I have spent
the last 30 years dealing with geopolitical issues and international relations. In
my already too long experience I can tell you that energy and energy sources
are a key issue in these fields. When we speak of energy we have to bear in
mind their very significant social, economic, political and international
dimensions. Only then can we understand the role that energy has played in
human development since our beginnings as a species on this planet until the
present day.
The homo sapiens stands out for his ability to reason and to develop and apply
his reasoning skills. Since the very moment we stood straight on two legs to
scan the horizon, we have seek to solve problems to improve our security and
quality of life. We looked around and discovered energy sources whose use
enabled us to do more things. We used the heat from the Sun to warm up our
body and to germinate the crop seeds. We learned how to light a fire and to
take advantage of it to keep us warm and to cook our food, improving therefore
our health. The fire enabled us to develop the metallurgy, which led to the
transformation of our weapons and to an improvement of our hunting and
defense techniques. But also we were able to develop the mastery of working
precious metals and we began to trade with them. We shared the Earth with
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other animals and we realized that they could not only provide us with energy
as food. We learned to domesticate them and to use them in our benefit. (Slide
2)
The generation of energy from nature allowed us to carry out the great
revolution of the Neolithic period, the settlement of human groups and the
emergence of the first City-States in Mesopotamia. In all these cities the culture
flourished. Writing, law, philosophy, and science emerged. (Slide 3) Thanks to
the advances in mathematics and geometry we were able to build complex
buildings as well as astonishing engineering works which solved pressing needs
for urban life, such as water supply or the construction of bridges.
We often hear categorical statements on the role played by the economy or the
science in the historical process. The reality is much more complex and does
not bear any simplistic approach. There are many elements involved, and of a
very different nature. In the short term psycho-social and cultural aspects stand
out: the passions, feelings, prejudices and fears. Do not forget that stupidity is
one of the great driving forces of history. However, in the medium and long
term, the "deep forces", about which the master Duroselle wrote, prevail and
among them the economic and scientific elements stand out. Underneath the
rumor of the daily life noise, we see how scientific advances alter our life often
causing revolutionary processes. (Slide 4)
As we were progressing in scientific knowledge we ventured into new forms of
exploitation of natural sources of energy. The wind allowed us the first sailing,
the coastal shipping, the cabotage, changing forever the trade routes. The
iconic city of Petra, capital of the Nabataean people, enriched over the centuries
by the trade between the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean, was
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depopulated as a consequence of the new form of transport. (Slide 5) Sailing
cautiously along the coast, the traders could place their Indian or Chinese
products in the port of Aqaba and, after a short journey by land, in Alexandria,
Gaza and Jaffa. There they could even run into Vikings drakkars that gained
their access to the Mediterranean following the coast or going up the main
rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea. Little by little we went into the open seas,
learned to navigate and after mastering the winds we discovered new
continents. Cultures that had until then lived in complete isolation began to
communicate with the rest of the world, moving forward into the process of
globalization which today we are so deeply concerned about and that takes up
a lot of our time. For thousands of years the sapiens had scattered across the
planet, developing different cultures. With the sailboats this process began to be
reversed in a sense that continues today.
With the rise of trade emerged the company, owned by one or more persons,
with a complex management and with the capacity to generate resources from
profits or credit. With those resources they could afford to invest, in the medium
and long term, on a much larger scale than before. In relation with this renewed
commercial activity, many cities or “burgus” appeared and developed and with
them the “bourgeois”. This concentration of population and wealth facilitated the
development of schools and universities. More and more young people had
access to education, with extraordinary consequences.
Changes happened slowly. (Slide 6) A little over two hundred years ago the
steam engine did not exist. The largest part of humanity lived in a way very
similar to the days of the Roman Empire, eighteenth centuries before. (Slide 7)
But in just two hundred years, the intelligent use of water, steam, electricity,
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hydrocarbons, nuclear fission have led to a succession of revolutions in the
economy and industry, which in turn have drastically changed the life of man on
earth. (Slide 8)
The first industrial revolution focused on the steam engine and resulted in a
remarkable development of mechanical engineering. If the largest waterwheel in
Europe, built for the Palace of Versailles in 1682, could produce 75 horsepower,
a first stage steam engine produced without problems more than 1000
horsepower. (Slide 9) The development of the steam engine gave a great
impulse to the textile industry, the classic example of manufacturing
development, and it was also gradually introduced into paper and flour mills,
distilleries, hydraulic works... and of course into coal mining, so necessary for
the production of steam. (Slide 10) Towards the 1830s the use of steam spread
from industry to the maritime and land transport, which facilitated the movement
of goods and led to the articulation of new routes and markets. The railway
became an important engine of industrialization. It was the great enterprise of
the 19th century. (Slide 11) The labor market changed greatly. The production
was concentrated in factories owned by capitalist. The productivity increased
considerably. The costs became cheaper. (Slide 12) Towns sprang up, thanks
to the establishment of the new factories and their workers. The sustained
population growth, that has characterized Western Europe since the beginning
of the eighteenth century, promoted and supported these historical changes.
After the Industrial Revolution the industrial and business environment radically
changed. Large banks emerged ready to channel the financial resources
needed to deal with projects much more expensive, much bigger and,
often, located at a great distance. Companies grew in numbers, more
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owners, more workers and more activity. They frequently joined together
with the support of the Administration to deal with challenges that
escaped their capabilities individually. The scale varied forcing them to
adapt to a reality in rapid change. How to establish a railway network in a
country? How to electrify it?
Since then, this has been a constant in human progress.
The second industrial revolution, by the second half of the nineteenth century,
meant an enhancement of the technologies developed during the first one, a
process that accelerated the changes. (Slide 13) It was directly linked with the
use of new sources of energy: electricity and oil. The use of oil allowed to
replace the steam engine by the engine of explosion. Its development led to
experimenting with new systems of transportation (automobile, aviation) at the
end of the century. The case of the electricity is particularly interesting.
Scientists had been working on it since the 18th century, but they had found
several basic problems: how to generate it in large quantities or how to
transport it. Finding the answers to these and other challenges meant a huge
economic and social change. (Slide 14) The development of an effective
electric motor brought the tram to our cities. The street lighting was installed
and electricity came to households. Communication experienced a huge
revolution with the emergence of the Telegraph, telephony, radio etc. (Slide 16)
New business models, characterized by the division of labor and mass
production, were introduced. (Slide 17) There was a demographic explosion. It
was the start of the metropolis, the really big cities, which played an important
role in the migratory movements characteristic of those years. The rivalry
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among imperialist powers increased as a consequence of the need for raw
materials.
The third industrial revolution, which began in the 1960´s, was the electronics
revolution, characterized by the information technologies and the automated
production. We don't have time to go any more deeply into a topic that is well
known to you. (Slide 18) I just want to remind you that the first IBM PC 5150
came on the scene in 1981, had no hard disc and cost more than $ 1500.
Today you, the scientists, are thinking about how to use robots for the
maintenance of the fusion reactor. Less than 35 years have passed since then.
I believe that I don't need to explain you how personal computers, laptops,
tablets and smartphones are changing our lives. (Slide 19)
New challenges required ever-increasing investments. As a result of this
process nowadays we notice that the State is losing weight as an international
actor, that many companies have annual budgets much larger than those of
most of the States of the world and that some of the great challenges we face
require a multinational and multilateral approach.
Today, we are witnessing the fourth industrial revolution, where the advances in
physics, biology and the cyber environment impel us at astonishing speed to a
new and uncertain world. Energy continues to be an essential part of the
foundations of almost any human activity and it is still a guarantee of progress
and welfare. Without it we cannot understand the generalization of the health
services, of the education or the increase on average life expectancy. Without it
we would not be discussing the possibility of buying self-driving cars, of
colonizing Mars or the effect that the androids are going to have in our lives.
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It was only a century ago when thanks to Ernest Rutherford and his team at the
University of Manchester we had news of the existence of the nucleus of the
atom. Since then many were the teams of scientists devoted to the study of the
structure of the atom and the possibility of releasing atomic energy. However,
the development of the discovery required the involvement of the political power
and his firmly determination to invest in it for strategic interest. Fission energy is
today a reality because its technology could be developed by a single country.
In November 1985, at the much-invoked Summit of Geneva between Reagan
and Gorbachev, the starting point for the joint research on fusion energy was
established. But it was not “for the good of the science”. The challenge was
there, they knew they had to face it together, but this progress was possible
only because the tension between the two superpowers was at its highest peak
and they were forced to explore new ways of understanding.
Since then and up to the present day, the political support to fusion energy has
been intermittent. If our governments are convinced that they can have a
secured supply of affordable energy, their interest in new forms of power
production that involve huge investments and complex international
agreements, decreases. However, if they fear for a disruption of the supply,
high prices, or diplomatic blackmail, then their interest in scientific progress
increases significantly. The Middle East is going through a stage of crisis that
can last a long time and that will have serious political consequences. Public
opinion increasingly rejects fission power for its risks and hydrocarbons due to
the related pollution. Solar and wind energy are expanding, but their capacity is
limited and they caused a huge landscape destruction. Given these
circumstances, some Powers seek to make the supply dependent on diplomatic
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interests, a matter of great concern. In this context, it is not surprising that the
ITER project has attained a historical level of support, setting an example of
multinational collaboration in a very expensive project and over an extended
period of time. We are again dealing with political leadership and strategic
interests.
I often hear that the main obstacle to fusion is its cost. To be honest, this
statement in the twenty-first century does not make sense. There is money
available and we have shown that when we are interested in a project,
scientists, managers and politicians with very different origins, can work
together. It is our leaders’ responsibility to establish priorities in the
administration of the budget. The politicians and also the citizens, both, need to
know if fusion energy is technically possible and if it will be worth it. If the ratio
between investment and profit is adequate, then the only issue is to set up a
project. If its scale exceeds the capacity of a single State, the option should be
a multinational approach.
Nikola Tesla was an extraordinary figure in the history of science, a reference
for understanding the development of the second industrial revolution. He
wanted to investigate and help the people. His main goal was to ensure that the
energy reached all households at a minimum cost. He was not an industrialist
and he was not able to maintain a stable long-term partnership with a great
company. In the end, characters such as Edison or Marconi used blatantly his
works for their own benefit. Tesla made a lot of money and invested it in his
own research. He died alone and ruined in a hotel room. He had capital, but
there was no space for a scientist working in isolation. (Slide 21)
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Today the Large Hadron Collider is the opposite example. A European initiative
open to the world in which the CERN Member States contribute huge amounts
of money for research, so that centers and universities work together. The
Collider cost $4.75 billions. Since 2008 it is operational, with an annual cost of
approximately $1 billion. Some projects require their own funding. According to
Forbes an additional $ 5 billion were required to discover the Higgs boson. The
Collider has gone through bad times and has needed money, time and support.
Today we all feel very proud of its achievements. So much so, that the design of
its successor is already under way. It is scheduled to begin operating in the year
2040, with ten times more energy in collisions (13 TeV 100 TEV) and 100 km in
circumference. (Slide 22)
If we want to progress from ITER to a central, we need much more money for
research. To this end it will be necessary to mobilize public opinion and the
political power. The general public interested in these topics has already
assumed that power generation by fusion will be a reality. In the famous film
Aliens, back in 1986, Lieutenant Ellen Ripley referred to the fusion reactor of the
Colony Hadleys Hope, established in the Moon LV-426 of a solar system next to
ours. When we, the uninitiated, the layperson, see a documentary of
Astrophysics in television we are not surprise to hear renowned physicists
explaining to us that the future of universe exploration goes through the fusion
reactors. We are open to this idea, but we have also assumed that in short and
medium term fusion is confined to the laboratories, where physicist and
engineers are working hard to solve technical problems. Millions of people are
waiting to hear that we are prepared to make the great leap. That the fusion is
ready to exit the laboratories to start a new scientific revolution that will enable
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us to have sustainable energy, at a reasonable price, without environmental and
political constraints. It will be the great opportunity for less developed countries
but also for new industries which require a large amount of energy. It will be
time to rethink space exploration.
Physics and biology are possibly the two scientific disciplines that have made
more progress in the last century and they are the ones that will make more
significant contributions to knowledge in the coming decades. They are turning
the humanistic discourse upside down, creating moral and political problems.
They are testing the ability of our engineers to response to so many and so
fantastic challenges. I have no doubt that nuclear fusion is going to be one of
the signs of identity of the twenty-first century and that it will cause very positive
changes in our world. We will be able to do more; we will be freer; less
developed countries will be in a position to accelerate their transformation and
we will consider scientific undertakings which today are confined to the
documentaries of Astrophysics or to the scripts of the science fiction films. You
have on your hands one of the great scientific revolutions in the history of
humanity, which will have tremendous impact on the lives of our children and
grandchildren. This revolution is possible and is closer than we think.
Despite this, none of the here present ignore the difficulties that lie ahead.
There are many and complex. This is why you are here today, because it is a
great challenge that probably most of those present will not see completed. Just
as we will go to a better place without knowing what is the dark matter, the dark
energy or how to harmonize the relativity with quantum mechanics. We are part
of a community of researchers that, generation after generation, responds to the
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challenges with intelligence, imagination and great effort. And, generation after
generation, we achieve it.
ITER is the immediate challenge and the great opportunity. And we will
succeed, because we need to solve problems in physics and engineering, but
also because we want a better world and we can do it.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION and YOUR PACIENCE.
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