“Mankind's existence is based on the fact that mankind is the only species of which we know, which has the willful power to increase the energy-flux-density of life as a whole, on our planet Earth, and beyond.” —Lyndon LaRouche

Two current strategic dynamics could not be more at odds.  In one of them, breakthroughs in the development of fusion energy herald a new future for the United States, one where our manufacturing, infrastructure, and thirst for new frontiers of scientific exploration are fully nourished and rebuilt.  It is a future which includes development of the Moon and journeys to Mars, as well as wondrous development of this earth, firing the imaginations and spirit of our young people. 

That other dynamic consists of the killing fields of Ukraine and the dedication of our neo-Con madmen to expanding them --madmen in both the Republican and Democratic “Washington consensus,” who would doom the human race on the supposed alter of “democracy” versus “autocracy.”  That is why a huge breakthrough in fusion development which occurred at Lawrence Livermore laboratories in December has only generated an additional $2.3 million in fusion funding here while billions flow to the Ukraine proxy war.

As President Trump rightly says, we have never been closer to World War III.  The time to end this War and the security state Leviathan from which is emerged, is now, as Trump noted in his address last week.  He promised to do exactly that in a second term. We must replace the endless war policy with a national mission of scientific progress and full set economic development.

In this post, I’ll l highlight some of the exciting ongoing research and development in nuclear fusion. I am providing quite a few links so that you can read yourself into this exciting journey.

Nuclear fusion reactions are what powers the sun and other stars. In a fusion reaction, nuclei of lightweight elements fuse together to form nuclei of heavier elements; as a byproduct, various forms of useful radiation are released (such as sunlight). The amount of energy released per mass of fuel used in fusion (its energy density) is far greater than that of nuclear fission, coal or other fossil fuels, or any other forms of energy processes.

The introduction of fusion power as the primary driver of economic activity would not only give us cheap, unlimited energy, but would lift the economy into a completely new higher realm of organization of human society. Lyndon LaRouche used the measurement of Energy Flux Density as the primary measurement of economic activity. EFD measures the quantity of energy passing through an economic process at the point of its application to accomplish work. This measure has been called the “measurement subsuming all other economic measurements.”

As we miniaturize while simultaneously increasing our power to do work, we move up the EFD scale. For example, with energy dense fusion power and propulsion systems it becomes an ordinary process to send people to Mars in a few weeks and develop civilization there. The same power would allow us to green the American Southwest or the African Sahara. This is why development of fusion power will put society on a new platform of growth and general prosperity for all. This is a central theme we will continue to develop throughout LaRouche PAC’s Project Prometheus Campaign.

This is also why we cannot as a nation, or society, continue to tolerate the zero growth, environmentalist, Malthusian agenda. It is a death cult religion. That monstrously pessimistic heresy is the reason why brainwashed “progressive” environmentalists, once embodying the term “peacenik” have become the leading war mongers both in Washington and throughout Europe.

On December 5, 2022, a team at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs’ National Ignition Facility, NIF, conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach and surpass the milestone of fusion breakeven. The experiment in Inertial Confinement Fusion created more energy from fusion than was applied by the lasers used to drive it. The experiment was conducted with 192 ultraviolet lasers fired at a 1mm wide deuterium and tritium capsule placed inside a hohlraum container. The lasers delivered 2.05 Megajoules of energy onto the capsule, generating 3.05 Megajoules of fusion.

Following the announcement of this breakthrough achievement, Brian Lantz detailed its implications in his post on this website entitled,"We have Ignition: At the Threshold of Fusion.”  He highlighted key programs, started under President Trump, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2021, "Bringing Fusion to the Grid.”

The world's most ambitious fusion energy project, ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) was launched back in 1985. It has been an international joint experiment in fusion. Member countries include China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States. These countries have taken part in a 35-year collaboration to build a demonstration fusion reactor. ITER is using the Tokamak design, first developed in the late 1960's by the Soviets. You can read more about the Tokamak design here.  It is based on magnetic confinement rather than the laser bombardment at the heart of the inertial confinement approach used at Livermore.

Right after the December NIF breakthrough, fusion developers in Britain announced breakthroughs in magnetic fusion which will advance that approach. They created super magnets which they believe will allow for the commercial development of “spherical tokamaks” producing fusion power. 

Since the NIF breakthrough, more funding has been awarded to fusion energy start-up companies.  But that new funding only amounted to $2.3 million, a pittance when compared to the more than $100 billion devoted to human destruction in the war in Ukraine. The INFUSE program established in 2019 under President Trump received the new funding. INFUSE, (Innovation Network for Fusion Energy) was established by the Department of Energy’s (DOE's) Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) and is managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The DOE selected projects from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Energy Driven Technologies LLC, Focused Energy, General Atomics, Princeton Stellarators Inc., Tokamak Energy Inc., and Type One Energy Group to partner with the National Laboratories to test and complete fusion engineering projects.  Abstracts for those start-up companies and their fusion projects can be viewed here.

While the approach of public/private collaboration is right, the scope of the funding is not.  We need a crash program approach now and we need to stop funding war mongers and death cults to the tune of billions.

Yet, despite decades of sabotage and deliberate cuts in Federal research funding for commercial fusion applications development, the United States still maintains a lead among the ten most advanced countries in Nuclear fusion. An article recently published in Forbes entitled, “Five Enabling Technologies a fusion Industry Will Need,” highlights milestones outlined by the DOE for nuclear fusion development set forth during a webinar by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

Research is proceeding on these milestones which must be met in order to produce commercially viable nuclear fusion power systems. Again, the concepts are correct, meaning that with adequate funding and a corrected national priority, these milestones can be met. The five areas highlighted include, fusion-proof materials, materials that can withstand extreme heat and bombardment, a Tritium breeder, exhaust systems, more efficient lasers (it took 300 megajoules to power the lasers used in the NIF experiment), and lastly, mastering the repetition rate for ICF systems (more efficient lasers able to fire several shots per second instead of a few shots per year). An article from the December 13^th issue of Science magazine pointed out that “a power plant based on NIF would need to raise the repetition rate from one shot per day to about 10 per second.”

A new global report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) highlights a variety of experimental fusion devices that have been designed and constructed over the years, including tokamaks, stellarators, and laser-based technologies. IAEA has stated that there are “currently 130 experimental public and private fusion devices operating, in construction, or planned around the world, based on different approaches to providing fusion reactions and having a variety of designs.”  That is vast expansion of the research and development field reflecting the overall optimism that the age of fusion is now imminent.

Again, when you dive in to the research I have cited to you, you will realize just how close we are to realizing the dream of unbounded and unlimited energy. I believe it will also show you just how insane and destructive it is for anyone to tolerate those advancing their preferred world war.