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The Green-Energy Movement’s Fusion Distraction

by Alex Epstein
December 22, 2022, 8:11 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 7 mins read
A A
3

fusion reactor livermoreThe green energy movement, including the Biden Administration, is celebrating a technical breakthrough in nuclear fusion to distract from the catastrophic consequences of its anti-fission, anti-fossil-fuel policies.

In its first 2 years the Biden administration, through its anti-fossil fuel policies, has helped cause the worst energy crisis since the 1970s.

Instead of reversing course, it’s using a technical breakthrough in fusion to pretend everything is going great.1

“This is what it looks like for America to lead,” Energy Secretary Granholm recently said in celebration of a recent fusion breakthrough.

But a research breakthrough that, optimistically, will be useful in several decades, doesn’t change the fact of today’s ruinous energy policies.

Real energy leadership by the US would mean passing policies that make possible energy abundance today using fossil fuels and nuclear fission and enabling technologies such as nuclear fusion in the future.

Instead, this Administration has opposed fossil fuels and done nothing to decriminalize fission.2

Nuclear fission—generating energy by splitting (fissioning) the nuclei of atoms—has been an epic and preventable tragedy for the past 50+ years thanks to the Green movement, which has demonized it as dangerous and regulated it to the point of effective criminalization.3

In the 1970s, we had fission [nuclear energy] that was cost-effective—producing low-cost, reliable electricity in the cleanest and safest way ever achieved.

And yet the Green movement’s false portrayal of fission as dangerous has made it so regulated that fission costs many times what it used to!

Real nuclear leadership means radical reform to “decriminalize” fission, such as: banishing the pseudoscientific “linear no-threshold model” from public agencies and eliminating the ability of anti-development activists to be involved in the nuclear permitting process.4

Instead of acting to decriminalize fission, this administration has at best called for new subsidies. But these won’t unleash fission’s potential. Consider: Since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established in 1974, no nuclear plant has gone through the full process of conception to completion.

While doing nothing meaningful to unleash fission’s potential, the Biden Administration has engaged in meaningful destruction of the fossil fuel industry—the only industry that, for the foreseeable future, can provide cost-effective energy to billions in a world that needs more energy.5

The reason the green energy movement is hostile not just toward fossil fuels but also nuclear fission and also hydro is that “green” — “minimal human impact” — is an anti-energy idea. If you don’t want us to impact Earth, you must ultimately oppose every form of energy.

Observe that “green” activists are now successfully opposing the massive mining, transmission-line-building, and development involved in solar and wind—because of the large impact these have on nature.6

The core reason that the “green” movement opposes energy is that using energy by its nature impacts Earth. Energy is “the capacity to do work,” which means transforming our environment. The more energy we use, the more we transform Earth, and the more impact we have.

The fundamental hostility of the “green” movement to energy explains why throughout its history it has never supported current, cost-effective sources of energy and only “supported” imaginary sources of energy that might exist in the future.

“Green” leaders supported nuclear—until it became cost-effective, at which point they demonized and criminalized it. “Green” leaders supported natural gas—until it became cost-effective on a global scale thanks to shale energy tech, at which point they demonized it as “fracking.”7

Because the “green” movement is anti-energy, any enthusiasm its leaders express for fusion is phony; while they may claim to want clean, cheap, abundant energy before it exists, they will not like the impact it has once it exists. And in the past, green leaders admitted this.

Amory Lovins, the leader of the modern “green energy” movement, said in the 1970s: “It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we would do with it.”8

When asked in 1989 about the prospect of fusion by the LA Times, Jeremy Rifkin said: “‘It’s the worst thing that could happen to our planet.’ Inexhaustible power, he argues, only gives man an infinite ability to exhaust the planet’s resources, to destroy its fragile balance…”9

When asked in 1989 about the prospect of fusion by the LA Times, leading “green” thinker Paul Ehrlich said that given society’s dismal record in managing technology, the prospect of cheap, inexhaustible power from fusion is “like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.”10

The world needs to reject the “green” movement and instead embrace a “human flourishing” movement that embraces intelligent human impact on Earth as a good thing, and embraces both today’s most cost-effective energy sources—above all, fossil fuels—and is eager to improve on them.

To understand why fossil fuels are so valuable for the foreseeable future, and why their benefits far outweigh their negative side effects including climate side effects, read this summary of my new book Fossil Future.11

From a human flourishing perspective, the recent development in fusion is indeed exciting. Researchers were able to create a fusion reaction—fusing together the nuclei of multiple atoms—that for the first time released more energy than the laser initiating the reaction used.12

Given that fusion is our sun’s energy source, the prospect of harnessing it for human purposes is thrilling. But we must recognize that the recent development is a research breakthrough—and that there’s a huge gap between a research breakthrough and an economic breakthrough.

Research breakthroughs make possible technical breakthroughs, which make possible economic breakthroughs.

E.g., the research breakthrough that rockets can reach escape velocity made possible the technical breakthrough of going to the moon. But we still don’t have economic moon travel.

What we need for the recent research breakthrough in fusion to become an economic breakthrough as fast as possible are a pro-human, pro-technology attitude and legal framework. This must include the rejection of pseudoscience that shuts down new technologies as “unsafe.”

“Safety” pseudoscience is a leading reason that nuclear fission has failed to live up to its amazing potential. If we allow the green movement to engage in “safety” pseudoscience with fusion then fusion will meet the same fate.13


Alex Epstein is an energy expert bringing clarity to energy, environmental, and climate issues. He is the author of the NYT bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and his latest Fossil Future.

Read rest at Energy Talking Points

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Comments 3

  1. David Lewis says:
    3 years ago

    One thing we need to realize is that the recent advance in fusion power isn’t as significant as it seems at first glance. Yes, for the first time the hydrogen pellet emitted more energy than was put in to cause the reaction. However, the lasers used to compress and heat the pellet run at one to three percent efficiency. So the over all reaction is very negative as far as the energy put in and the energy produced.

    The article is very correct in that there is an anti-energy movement. It doesn’t matter what the energy source is. Part of this is we know from defectors that some groups are working for de-industrialization. The best means to this goal is making energy scarce and expensive. In the 1970’s it appeared that we were running out of fossil fuels. Nuclear would be the replacement. Thus the anti-energy and de-industrialization groups worked hard on the anti-nuclear movement and were successful. Now that fossil fuels are obviously viable this is the new focus of these people.

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