RITZ-CARLTON LUMINARA: DAY 13--The History of Fusion

 

Our ship docked in Halong Bay, and I've had a lot of recent coverage because of our Diamond Princess cruise through this area, so I will today focus on Fusion, the greatest hope for sustainable energy into the long-term future,  Today, only a history.

There are two kinds of nuclear reactions.

• Fission:  splitting a heavy nuclei, like Uranium.  An Atomic Bomb gets energy from fission.
• Fusion:  joining light nuclei, like, like isotopes of Hydrogen, Deuterium and Tritium.  A Hydrogen Bomb uses fusion.

Some fusion history.

• In 1920, British physicist Francis Aston discovered that the mass of four hydrogen atoms is greater than the mass of one helium atom, which implied that energy can be released by combing hydrogen atoms to form helium.
• This concept provided the first hints of how stars produced energy.

• 
  Henry Russell observed that a star's heat came from a hot core rather than the entire star.
• Mark Oliphant, working with Ernest Rutherford and others, produced fusion by using the nuclei of Helium-3 and Tritium.
• In 1938, Arthur Ruhlig observed deuterium-tritium fusion.  D-T fusion will be the path to initial man-made commercial fusion because it requires the lowest temperatures and pressures.

• 
  Hans Bethe in 1939 investigated a form of of fusion in the Sun's core that in 1967 won him a Nobel Peace Prize in Physics.
• The first fusion reactor patent wa regisered in 1946 by George Paget and Moses Paget for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
• 
  In 1950-51, the Soviet Union team of Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov first discovered a tokomak-like approach.  This is the donut or torus fusion reactor.

• 
  In 1951, Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam at the Los Alamos National Laboratory(LANL) developed a design for a multi-megaton yield fusion bomb.  They ended up having a major feud,
• No one really knows much about Ricard Garwin, who Teller assigned to design the H-Bomb.

• 
  The first true fusion weapon, a Hydrogen Bomb, was 1952's Ivy Mike (10.4 megaton--Little Boy, the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb, had a yield of only 0.015 MT), exploded on Enewetak in the Pacific Ocean, about 3000 miles away from Hawaii.  

• 
  Here is a photo of a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb explosion Starfish Prime coming from  Johnson Island, as seen from Waikiki Beach, Hawai at 11PM local time, 900 miles away.  As this bomb was detonated 250 miles above the atoll, the resultant flash was so intense, that it lit up the night sky in Hawaii just like sunset.  Severe damage was caused to several communications systems.   Watch this interim documentary. Here is a personal reaction:

We stood in the ghastly green and yellow glow, unlike any sunlight I’d ever seen. Over the next 40 minutes, the sky’s color changed from yellow to red and then a deep blood red that lingered, which seemed appropriate. Then the sky turned icy blue, then indigo, and then it was night again. It remains the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. 

• In 1954 came Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll, the first practical H-bomb.  In this weapon, a fission explosion initiated the fusion reaction.

• 
  It was AEC chair Lewis Strauss, in Project Sherwood, who in 1954 foresaw electricity as "too cheap to meter."
• The first controlled thermonuclear fusion experiment was Scylla I at LANL in 1958.  Concept was abandoned because calculations showed it could not be scaled-up for reactor fusion.

• 
  John Nuckolls in 1960 published the concept of inertial confinement fusion, using a laser.
• In 1961 the Soviet Union tested their 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful H-bomb ever.  Scarily, they purposefully scaled back what could have been 100 megatons for fear of unacceptable radioactive fallout.

• 
  The Soviet Union in 1968 attained considerable success with their tokamak concept.
• In the 70s, Princeton built a tokamak, and attained similar results.
• In 1972, John Nuckols' idea led to the building at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) of a laser-fusion reactor.

• 
  LLNL constructed a 20-beam Shiva mega laser for $25 million, covering a size approaching that of a football field.
• In the mid-70s and 1979 I worked at LLNL on laser fusion.  My PhD in 1972 was one where I built a tunable laser before one could be purchased.
• In 1998, the T15 tokamak was completed by the Soviets.

• 
  The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) coalition was proposed in 1985 by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to President Ronald Reagan, and formed in 2007, involving Europe, Japan, the Soviet Union and U.S.

• 
  Cold Fusion was publicly announced by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah in 1989.  I'll later review where this field is today, and where it could be headed into the future.
• Various privately backed fusion companies launched in the early 2000s.  Among those involved were Jeff Bezos (General Fusion) and Paul Allen (Tri Alpha Energy).
• General Fusion and Tri Alpha Eergy operated their systems in the 2014-2017 period.
• 
  In 2021, the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recorded a record-breaking 1/3 megajoules of energy created from laser fusion, and in December 2022 ACHIEVED THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC BREAKEVEN CONTROLLED FUSION EXPERIMENT.

Here is an October 2025 article on six global tends.  Finally, I asked Google AI what was the current state of fusion.

Nuclear fusion

 is in a "decisive new phase," marked by massive global investment (>$10B private), major scientific milestones like achieving net energy gain (2022), growing public-private partnerships (ITER, SPARC), and rapidly accelerating timelines, with many startups aiming for commercial power by the 2030s or 2040s, shifting from pure research to practical energy solutions. Key trends include record plasma durations, new facilities (IFMIF-DONES), and a global race, especially between the US and China, to build the first grid-connected reactor. 

So on to our 13th day on the Ritz-Carlton Luminara in Halong Port, where lunch was again at Mistral.

Hamburger, truffle fries, frozen margarita and beer.

Ended with dessert and cappuccino,

Then on to my final and best tasting session at The Living Room Bar.  Today, 12 gins and 3 ports.  Started with these three gins

Next three.

Third three

Fourth three

At this point, it was difficult to pick the best.  However, I then proceeded to eat some White Truffle Chips, and a surprise.  Perhaps the result could have been different if I had steak or cheese or something else.

#1 was Plymouth Gin, from Plymouth, England.  It has been made since 1973 using a unique recipe of botanicals and Dartmoor water.  Known for its softer, less juniper profile. Typically costs $50/bottle.

That bottom glass has all the leftover gin over rocks.  Then, Tomas, from Portugal comes to supervise over the bar, and proceeds to provide a lesson in Port wines.  For example, I did not know there was a white port.  So we tasted the regular dark one, a tawny port and a white port.

Took a long nap and struggled to get to Azur for dinner.  Had a wedge salad and linguini Agli Olio, with an Italian red wine.

Dessert was fancy.  Mandarin and another called Wasa something or another.  Sweet, nothing to with the orange or wasabi.

Finally, to The Living Room with the Luminara Band.  A few songs, plus a special ending.  Passengers were asked to wear white.

Then, the finalé was a robust performance of Sweet Caroline.  Maybe the all-white, perhaps being the final song of the night, and really for the entire cruise.  But this was electric.  The one most memorable moment for me of the entire trip.  This you got to watch this to the end.

Walked 1794 steps.

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