La energía nuclear de fusión: aspectos históricos.

Mauricio Schoijet

doi:10.48160/18517072re22.452

Authors

Mauricio Schoijet Departamento El Hombre y su Ambiente. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilco.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48160/18517072re22.452

Keywords:

fusion, nuclear, unpredictability, unfeasibility, irrationality

Abstract

The possibility of controlled nuclear fusion as a source for an unlimited energy supply was suggested since the 1940s, and the first experiments were carried out in the United States in 1951. It has become a large technological research and development enterprise in several countries, but little known by the public. It has shown effects never previously observed for any technological system, involving the need of large size machines in order to demonstrate its scientific viability –which has not yet been established. The time established for its commercial operation –which in the 1950s was believed to be of the order of twenty years– has now been extended to the middle of our century. Therefore, in case of probing its functioning, it would be the most delayed technological system (between first experiments and commercial operation) in the history of technology. This goes against ideas about the acceleration of the scientific and technological progress. I suggest that the persistence of the scientific and technological community involved in nuclear fusion, in spite of these enormous difficulties, might represent a form of irrational behavior.

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