Читать книгу Business Trends in Practice - Бернард Марр, Bernard Marr - Страница 31

Technology and energy are inextricably linked, so we can't discuss tech mega-trends without referring to new energy solutions. Renewable energy solutions, specifically wind and solar, have certainly grown in efficiency, affordability, and availability in recent years. But let's look at a couple of new energy sources that may be on the horizon: nuclear fusion and green hydrogen. (Head to Chapter 3 to see how the wider energy sector is undergoing a transformation.)

Nuclear fusion is often touted as the clean and potentially inexhaustible energy solution for the future, but realizing this dream has proven frustratingly elusive – the main sticking point being that maintaining a fusion reaction takes more energy than it produces! This understandably makes nuclear fusion not terribly viable on any large scale. But now scientists have taken a big step closer to making nuclear fusion viable. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project – which is a collaboration between the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States – is currently building a prototype fusion reactor (called a tokamak), which could be ready to conduct its first tests in 2025 and be generating full-power fusion as early as 2035.²¹ There are more than a dozen similar research initiatives under way around the world.

Fusion is not to be confused with fission, the energy source in current nuclear power stations, which is created by splitting an atom's nucleus. Fusion, which is what powers the Sun, is created when two light atoms fuse into one under extreme temperature and pressure conditions – and because the mass of the newly created single atom is less than the original two atoms, the “spare” mass is given off as energy. Maintaining the extreme temperatures and intense pressure needed has proven difficult, but this is where recent progress has been made, largely thanks to advances in magnet technology. And this means we may see a nuclear fusion reactor deliver a net power output by 2035.

Green hydrogen is the other zero-carbon energy source that has tempted scientists for decades. When hydrogen burns, the only by-product is water, which is what makes hydrogen such a tempting energy source. Unfortunately, the traditional process for producing hydrogen involves exposing fossil fuels to steam, which obviously isn't very green at all. That is why this traditional process is known as “gray hydrogen.”

In contrast, green hydrogen splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, creating no other by-products. This is done via a process of electrolysis, which, historically, has taken so much electricity that it has made green hydrogen unfeasible. That may change thanks to renewable electricity sources. As excess renewable electricity is becoming available on the grid, that excess energy could, in theory, be used to drive the electrolysis of water. What's more, electrolysis machines are becoming more efficient. As such, some companies are already working to develop electrolyzers that can produce green hydrogen as cheaply as gray hydrogen within the next decade.²² For sectors that rely on gas and coal, where wind and solar power isn't feasible, green hydrogen could be a vital part of the solution.