False Foundations for Nuclear Fusion

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By Steven B. Krivit
June 21, 2022

This video analysis is one of three parts of a multimedia New Energy Times investigation that we are publishing today about fusion fuel claims. Here are the links to the two articles, “The Failure to Plan for Fusion Fuel” and “The Missing Miracles of Fusion Fuel.” We have provided the scientific and historical details in earlier New Energy Times articles.

Introduction

For at least 50 years, fusion scientists have been telling the public that the fuel for nuclear fusion is “abundant, virtually inexhaustible, and equally accessible to everyone, everywhere.” They have been saying that there is enough fuel in ocean water to provide power for humanity for billions of years.

The consensus in the fusion field is that the optimal fuel mixture for nuclear fusion is a 50/50 mixture of deuterium and tritium. These are isotopes of hydrogen. Normal hydrogen won’t suffice. Deuterium alone won’t work well enough. Neither will tritium by itself.

Fusion scientists, only occasionally, disclosed to the public that tritium did not exist in nature as a fuel source. When they did disclose it, they said that sufficient quantities of enriched lithium-6, from which tritium could be made, were available. They are not.