A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy (Hardback) by Daniel Clery

Energy production is a massive topic all by itself and has been for a long time, but it becomes even more tricky when you approach it from the angle of a technology that hasn’t yet been realised by scientists, which is why A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy (Hardback) by Daniel Clery could be such an interesting read. With an ever increasing global need for energy, underpinned by the increasing importance of green energy production, fusion physics has been considered a possible long-term solution to the problem. In Clery’s book he argues that it could all be within our grasp much sooner than we think if we can just shade our eyes from the glare of the impossible.

Set for hardback release on the 20th June 2014, it looks set to be an interesting insight into where we are with fusion technology and a call to increase the attention on the scientific development within the field.

On the negative side, the synopsis for the book is pretty fatalist, talking about our coal and oil reserves burning away and renewable energies like solar, wind and water power being decades from replacing it. While there’s obviously long term merit to this thought process the more pressing point right now has got to be the environmental impact of energy production and it’s here that the argument for fusion power becomes most powerful.

The book takes its cue from our most fundamental understanding of fusion energy, the sun. It’s been quietly burning for around 4.6 billion years and it is nuclear fusion that is responsible for large quantities of its energy output in terms of light and heat, providing fusion scientists with the inspiration to conduct their work on the potential of the cheap, clean and renewable energy.

If you’re new to the science of fusion technology, the power that it harnesses is given off when two atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus. In the sun, this takes the form of hydrogen nuclei fusing together to create helium through a series of steps called the p–p (proton–proton) chain. For more information on the process, you can read up on the Wikipedia page on fusion power at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power and the solar core at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core.

In A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy (Hardback) Clery argues that by harnessing this power, humanity can attain the power we need to survive long term, reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and nuclear power as we know it today. His central point is that nuclear fusion on a large enough scale to supply power to us all is scientifically possible, flying in the face of the many skeptics that view it as a future technology that we may never realise.

It’s a fairly bold standpoint for the Science magazine reporter, who goes on to argue that it’s this very skepticism and shortsightedness that is keeping us from giving the fusion scientists what they need to make the technology a reality. However, it’s all underpinned by an accessible style that will make A Piece Of The Sun an easy book to pick up whether you’ve got a PHD in particle physics or not.