The photobook 'The Promise' is a view inside the development of one of the most promising technologies, fusion energy.
Since mankind knows about the energy inside the atom and build their first fission reactors scientist from all around the world also try to tame the process that produces the suns energy.
The technology sounds too good to be true. It‘s supposed to be cleaner than the burning of fossile fuels, less limited than renewable energy and safer than nuclear energy.
We don‘t create energy.
We only convert it from one form to the other.
Greg de Temmerman
Managing director of Zenon research,
a think tank focussed on analysing innovations required to transition to a low-carbon world.
Energy from fusion is said to be always 30 years away. Some of the scientist like to compare it to the building of a church. The first, who laid the foundation in the 1950s, will never see their seeking come to an end.
Corridor of the Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnatique in Cadarache, France
Inside the sun hydrogen atoms fuse to helium under conditions of high pressure and temperatures of million degrees. Earths gravitational field is much smaller than the suns. In order to make fusion happening on earth even extremer conditions need to be created. A fusion reactor has to be 10 times hotter than the sun. 150.000.000° Celsius.
Camera image of plasma inside JET tokamak.
The most efficient reaction is the fusion of two hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium.
Glas capillary containing 0.00016 gramm of Tritium. Fused it could release as much energy as 1.728 kilogramm of coal. Therefore the fuel needed for a fusion power plant in a year could fit inside a car. While a coal power plant with equal power output consumes a whole train worth of fuel every day.
The international science institute ITER is build in St. Paul les Durance, France.
Its plasma is supposed to be the first to produce ten times more energy than was needed to run the reactor. Resulting in ITER being the crucial proof of concept.
The Promise
2023
The photobook 'The Promise' is a view inside the development of one of the most promising technologies, fusion energy.
Since mankind knows about the energy inside the atom and build their first fission reactors scientist from all around the world also try to tame the process that produces the suns energy.
The technology sounds too good to be true. It‘s supposed to be cleaner than the burning of fossile fuels, less limited than renewable energy and safer than nuclear energy.
We don‘t create energy.
We only convert it from one form to the other.
Greg de Temmerman
Managing director of Zenon research,
a think tank focussed on analysing innovations required to transition to a low-carbon world.
Energy from fusion is said to be always 30 years away. Some of the scientist like to compare it to the building of a church. The first, who laid the foundation in the 1950s, will never see their seeking come to an end.
Corridor of the Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnatique in Cadarache, France
Inside the sun hydrogen atoms fuse to helium under conditions of high pressure and temperatures of million degrees. Earths gravitational field is much smaller than the suns. In order to make fusion happening on earth even extremer conditions need to be created. A fusion reactor has to be 10 times hotter than the sun. 150.000.000° Celsius.
Camera image of plasma inside JET tokamak.
The most efficient reaction is the fusion of two hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium.
Glas capillary containing 0.00016 gramm of Tritium. Fused it could release as much energy as 1.728 kilogramm of coal. Therefore the fuel needed for a fusion power plant in a year could fit inside a car. While a coal power plant with equal power output consumes a whole train worth of fuel every day.
The international science institute ITER is build in St. Paul les Durance, France.
Its plasma is supposed to be the first to produce ten times more energy than was needed to run the reactor. Resulting in ITER being the crucial proof of concept.