Peak Oil and Fusion Energy Development

Abstract

If industrial civilization does not figure out how to survive and thrive without cheap fossil energy, then technological civilization will be a short blip in the history of our species. A child born in 1990, if s/he lives a long, healthy life, may see the end of the age of oil. The peak of global petroleum discovery was about 1962. You cannot extract more oil than has been found. The oil will take decades to run out, US oil peak was in 1970, the issue is when supply no longer keeps up with demand, not when it runs out, and after peak oil, the OPEC countries in the Middle East will have most of the remaining oil. We can not eat cellular phones, computers and internet, we should eat food. Oil (Energy) is critical to plant food. Now many kinds of energy sources are investigated and some of them are already contributing little bit. Additionally, 439 Nuclear Power Plants under operation on the Earth. It should be more and more to some extent. But, it has safety, transmutation and political hurdles. So, fusion is the only known technology capable in principle of producing a large fraction of world’s electricity without any serious issues. We should burn our oil to develop Fusion Power Plants. Most of big countries in the world like EU, US, Japan planned to construct commercial fusion power plant around 2040 as same as Korea. The testing of key technologies should be done by ITER (International Thermo-nuclear Experimental Reactor) in advance.