fusion energy foundation

_The Young Scientist.What IsEnergy?Energy is hydro, oil, coal, gas, nuclearfission, and fusion. Except invery special circumstances, it is notsolar, wind, or biomass. Why do Idistinguish between these two typesof energy sources? Don't they bothprovide ienergy? What is energy anyway?Let's consider three exarhples:1. Lightning strikes a tree in a dryforest. Tpe tree ignites, and soon thewhole frest is ablaze, releasing tremendousamounts of heat.2. A 20-year-old electrical generatorburns hundreds of tons of coal aPopulation(millions)5,000WORLD ENERGY USE: ENERGY ISNT RUNNING OUTThe world population has constantly increasedlits use of energy. The graphshows how energy consumption per person has increased as the worldpopulation increased. The dotted line represents the world population; thesolid line is energy use measured in calories.day to provide electricity for homesand industries in an old Midwesterncommunity.3. A floating nuclear plant off thecoast of India begins to provide heatand electricity to develop modern agricultureand industry for an area includingseveral million people.What are the differences amongthese cases? Obviously, in the firstcase, no useful work is being donewith the large amount of energy releasedby the forest fire. In the secondcase, further transformation (changein composition) of the form of energyis responsible for useful work. In thethird case, larger amounts of moreconcentrated types of energy arebeing used to increase the efficiencyof useful work.All these separate ideas can becombined into one: Energy is thestored-up potentiality (the ability todevelop) that can be used to transformnature in such a way that (1)useful work is done, or (2) a greaterpotentiality is created for future usefulwork, or (3)—most important—both things happen. The energy potentialis contained in the organizedstructures of the physical universe (forexample, fuel). This energy potentialis made into usable energy by thechange of organization and work thatoccurs when it is used.Therefore, the important thingabout energy is that if the propertypes are properly used, we can increasethe amount of energy availablein the future and the benefits fromthe use of each unit (piece) of thatenergy. To do that, however, we mustuse science to constantly discovernew types of energy and new ways toeffectively use that energy (technology).This means that we have to developnew types of energy faster thanwe use up existing energy sources.But at the same time we have to useexisting energy fast enough to givethe world population a high enoughstandard of living to make possible ahigh rate of scientific progress.Will Energy Run Out?How does the history of energy useshow us that it is self-developing andself-expanding? The accompanying78 FUSION September! 1980