One of the greatest challenges that faces the modern world is the effort to meet everyone’s energy needs in an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective manner.  Unfortunately, energy generation also contributes as one of the largest factors in pollution and global climate change, according to the organization Fusion For Energy. “Energy consumption results in 78 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions,” the article said.
   Nuclear fusion is a new potential alternative source of energy, which avoids both greenhouse gas emissions and radioactivity.  Although nuclear fusion is theoretically possible, the factors that will keep the general public from seeing it replace traditional energy sources for the next few decades are political concerns, the progress of scientific research and the economic and engineering impracticalities of reactor facilities.
    Magnetic confinement uses strong electromagnets in a toroidal structure called a tokamak to contain energetic plasma in a magnetic field that enables a reaction to trigger.   This sought-after fusion reaction is called ignition, a process wherein the energy released from fusing materials like deuterium, tritium and lithium into helium nuclei and neutrons exceeds the energy input to start the reaction.  Inertial confinement uses high-intensity laser bombardment to superheat small pellets of heavy metals that explode, causing their fusionable contents to implode and reach the critical energy densities required for ignition.  
    The cumbersome international politics and funding concerns contribute to slow the development of fusion power.  The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project began in 1985 at a summit of world powers, but it took years to make any progress as the United States dropped out for a time, the USSR disbanded and several East-Asian nations joined in late.  Consequently, the project did not officially begin until 2007, according to iter.org.
    According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), research funds for nuclear fusion are hard to come by.  
   “Sufficient funding is difficult to obtain due to the bulk of fusion research being focused on a few large-scale projects, most notably ITER,” reports the WNA.  
    Nuclear fusion cannot become a viable competitor with other energy sources until there are electrical power plants that use fusion reactors.  The Demo facility is one of very few planned power plants, set to begin operations in 2033, while all the reactors that exist right now are for scientific research, not power generation.  ITER plans to produce a short burst of power output that is 10 times larger than the necessary input, but it is merely a small-scale proof of concept.  
    The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California is similar; it tries only to perfect the mechanism of laser-powered inertial confinement and has not yet achieved a total energy output greater than the lasers input.  Though NIF has achieved fusion, the higher energy output required for ignition and ultimately for electrical power generation is still missing.  Tim Folger of “National Geographic” said NIF bumps into technical problems getting the facility to operate at maximum efficiency.  
    “According to NIF’s computer simulations, the fused hydrogen should generate more energy than the lasers put in — a process called ignition. Nature, unfortunately, has stubbornly refused to cooperate. There has been no ignition at the National Ignition Facility,” Folger said.  
   The complicated logistics of making an electrical power generation plant around the fusion reactor that effectively converts heat into electricity may also prevent the use of nuclear fusion for energy generation.  Getting the thermal energy out of such an intensely hot reactor and mitigating the constant neutron bombardment and subsequent radioactivity in the reactor will remain problematic for future resolution according to Daniel Clery’s report in “Science” magazine.
   Nuclear fusion poses more than just a question of scientific advancement and engineering capability. It also involves economic practicality.  Natural gas on the rise as a potentially environmentally-friendly and cheap alternative to dirty fossil fuels will likely reduce interest for new energy sources. The scientific and economic problems that we must overcome in order for nuclear fusion to become a viable energy source are significant and may be too great to surmount in the foreseeable future. We may one day see nuclear fusion used in select scientific and engineering cases, but it will likely be a long time before it makes it to the world market and will probably never be able to satisfy the world’s pollution problems.