Fussion

Author: Alfredo Colunga 

The E Day” is defined as the first day on which a lamp at home will be turned on by an apparently unlimited energy, understood as such an energy whose abundance allows the competence for its use and not for its possesion. Fusion energy is considered to be the one. The “E Day” will therefore be the day when fusion energy enters the productive processes.

APPROACH

Fossil energies are considered to be under an energy limitation. There is no real possibility to locate new deposits which due to their abundance they avoid a zero-sum game, a “for you or for me”, regarding the remaining energy available.

As a consequence of locating and owning the whole of the available reserves the only way the companies implied in its exploitation have to grow is their absortion by other companies, which leads to the concentration of posesion.

On the other hand, the posesion of an essential and unlimited good is only possible with the active defence by the armies.

The oil economy, by its double characteristic of being essential and unlimited, is progressively separated from the markets and connected with the states.

The evidence of the existance of an essential, limited and non renewable good leads to war as rational choice.

The oil problem is not worsened by “conflictive location” of the reserves, but the geopolitical conflictivenes is the unavoidable consequence of its limitation. The proposal is to imagine any other geographic disposition of the available reserves in order to understand that it would be equally conflictive.

Technological innovation is advocated as the substitute to war as rational option when the time comes to face energy limitation. However, innovation shall be understood within the economic field, that is, not just the generation of new ideas or products but their insertion in the market.

It is considered that, when facing the current energy limitation, the only sufficient innovation and the only viable alternative to rational war will be given by the appearance of an Apparently Unlimited Energy, which shall be so abundant that it is posible to compete for the efficiency in the use and not in the possesion.

The Energy which offers better perspectives to fulfil this requirement is the Fusion Energy.

The availability of this Energy will be the only alternative to be able to do without the armies and give the leading role back to the markets.

THE ITER PROJECT

An international Project, known as the ITER Project (http://www.iter.org/), has been started to stop this limitation. The ITER project is driven forward by the EUROPEAN UNION, USA, JAPAN, RUSSIA, CHINA, INDIA AND SOUTH KOREA.

However, this initiative is estimated to have two aspects considered to be strategically wrong.

The first has to do with its approach. The investment in the project is strictly R+D, it does not consider exploitation.

Nevertheless, it is fundamental that this investment includes an exploitation plan from its very beginning, its use by the markets in order to have an effect on the real economy.

Not doing so, NOT ACTING as if access to this energy were guaranteed for the future, will not stop the processes towards a rational war.

This way, despite the advance of the research process, THE RATIONAL WAR COULD TAKE PLACE ANYWAY. It could even start the day before the scientists announced the energy success in the company. The ITER PROJECT, conceived this way, does not stop the process of the concentration of energy possession.

To avoid this, it is considered that the ITER PROJECT SHALL necessarily INCLUDE A THEORETICAL DATE, an E DAY which GUARANTEES THE COMMERCIAL USE OF THIS ENERGY. This date, despite being understood as theoretical, this is, that can be moved in time depending of the advances and difficulties experimented in the Project, shall equally be connected to compromise from the states in order to allocate all financial, technological and human resources to its fulfilment.

INSUFICIENT FUNDING

On second terms, the foreseen investment in ITER (10,000 million Euros in 30 years) is insignificant when compared with the advantages it provides and their objective need. It is not proportional to the investor effort in this process, which makes war unnecessary; with the investment in weapons that is in fact taking place now (only the increase in weapon investment in the USA in 2006 as compared with 2005 was of 26,000 million dollars).

NO IMPLICATION BY SOME OF THE INTERESTED PARTIES

And this investment of 10,000 is furthermore linked to technologically advanced countries and does not count on investors among some of the most interested parties: the oil-producing countries, which can and must see in it the opportunity to change, as an active part, from being owners of the present energy to being owners of the future energy.

It is necessary to imply the current owners of the energy in this process, by means of such a formula which allows them to have a part in the profits of the future energy, proportional to the investment, in a way that they are considered as beneficiaries of the energy transformation.

THE ITER PROJECT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

As an added value, climate change is not considered to be solved with an unreal, -except in a recession case- diminishment of energy consumption because it is not viable, but with the use of a cleaner energy. It is enough to imagine which would be the state of the atmosphere if the current energy consumption was still based on coal.

THE E DAY

“The E Day” is conceived as an open Project in order to open a debate on the search for an apparently unlimited source of energy by means of a formula able to imply the current owners of fossil fuel in the Project in Exchange for a percentage in the possession and profits of the future energy.