Christopher Llewellyn Smith:
Thermonuclear fusion is a step toward humanity's future

The outstanding physicist Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith (Great Britain) gave a public lecture “On the way to thermonuclear energy” at the conference hall of the Lebedev Physical Institute (Russian Academy of Sciences) on May 17, 2009.
The lecture was organized by the Dynasty Foundation in cooperation with the International Center for Fundamental Physics in Moscow.

Christopher Llewellyn Smith is now the chair of the ITER Council, which is engaged in the project of building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The name ITER was initially an acronym for “International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.” But it is officially not an acronym now and is interpreted as «iter"—a Latin word meaning “the way.” Llewellyn Smith's lecture for scientists, journalists, and all others interested in science was devoted to the way mankind must proceed to create a safe and ecologically clean energy source.

The famous scientist greeted the audience in Russian and began his lecture with the following confession: “I am especially pleased to have the opportunity to speak here today. I worked at LPI forty-one years ago, and now I am back to speak about what has been done and what needs to be done in the field of thermonuclear physics.”

Llewellyn Smith began work in the theoretical department of the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (LPI, Moscow) in 1967 after completing a DPhil in theoretical physics at Oxford. This choice was not accidental: tokamaks—thermonuclear reactors in which the plasma has a toroidal shape and is confined by a magnetic field—for a long time were built and studied only in the Soviet Union. A plasma temperature of 10 million degrees Celsius was reached under the direction of the academician L. A. Artsimovich at the tokamak T-3 (Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy) in 1968. This fact was confirmed by British scientists. And only then were the prospects of thermonuclear fusion development recognized. “We knew that thermonuclear fusion is possible in the end of the 1960s” noted Smith. “However, until the end of the 1980s nobody was interested in alternative sources of energy—natural fuel seemed inexhaustible. Now these illusions are being dispelled.”

In the nearest 100 years mankind will burn all the fossil fuels that now give 80% of the energy consumed on Earth. “My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son will fly an airplane, and my grandson will ride a camel again,” Llewellyn Smith quoted a modern Arabic saying. In the country that leads all others in extracting and exporting oil, they understand that natural resources are limited.

Llewellyn Smith believes that people must already start thinking about their future and the future of their children in a world without fossil fuels. Twenty-four 100-watt lamps constantly burning is the energy volume consumed by an average representative of western society. According to forecasts, energy consumption will increase by 50% by 2030. Because a quarter of the world population now lives without any electricity, even if western society decided to give up excessive energy consumption, this would not solve the problem. Total energy consumption will continue to grow as a result of countries for which energy is vitally important for economic development.

Atomic power plants depend on accessible cheap uranium, whose reserves will be depleted in 100–200 years according to various estimates. Using wind, water, and sun energy will not be able to completely satisfy the energy demands of humanity. Therefore, we must pay special attention to thermonuclear fusion, which allows obtaining energy from practically infinite fuel resources without danger to the environment and without radioactive contamination. The fusion reaction of nuclei of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium (D-T) is the most accessible. Deuterium is contained in regular water, and the technology for obtaining it is well developed. Tritium can be obtained from lithium. “Imagine that one can get as much energy from the lithium contained in one standard battery for a notebook and 40 liters of water as from burning 70 tons of coal,” the outstanding scientist commented on the prospects of developing thermonuclear power industry. It is obvious even to a person without a degree in physics how cheap, profitable, and effective such an industry can be.

Llewellyn Smith has experience in implementing the project of the world's largest magnetic confinement fusion experiment JET. Since 2007 the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has been under construction in France. The goal of the project is to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of obtaining energy from thermonuclear reaction. ITER is four times larger than JET and will produce ten times more energy. The partners in the project are the European Union, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Russia, and the USA. Llewellyn Smith estimates that ITER will be completely built in ten years. Twenty years will then be needed to accumulate scientific knowledge and about another ten years to build the first thermonuclear power plant. “My colleagues and I are theoreticians,» says Llewellyn Smith ironically, «and that's why just our words are not to be trusted. Everything we assert should be proved experimentally.”

Many people erroneously believe that building thermonuclear reactors will be very costly. But the annual turnover of the whole fuel market is 4–5 trillion dollars, and only about 4% of this sum is needed for developing the new technology. Moreover, the cost of the energy produced will be about 10 eurocents for 1 kilowatt-hour, while 1 kilowatt-hour now, for example, costs 50 eurocents in Germany.

Closing the lecture, Llewellyn Smith spoke again about his experience working in Russia: “Many years ago I started my scientific career under the supervision of the excellent Russian scientist Lev Andreevich Artsimovich. One day I asked him when a source of thermonuclear energy would be developed. And he answered, 'thermonuclear energy will be obtained when it becomes necessary for humanity.' I believe in what he said and think that this moment is close at hand.”

Christopher Llewellyn Smith
The outstanding theoretical physicist is now the chair of the ITER Council, head of the Consultative Committee for EURATOM on Fusion (CCE-FU), President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science Applications in the Middle East), Vice President of the Royal Society in Great Britain, and also a visiting professor in the physics department at Oxford University.
From 1987 to 1992 Christopher Llewellyn Smith was head of the physics department at Oxford University—one of the best in the world. From 1994 to 1998 he served as Director General of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). During his tenure the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project was finally approved and its construction began. Also, CERN's flagship accelerator the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) was successfully upgraded. From 1999 to 2002 Llewellyn Smith was President and Provost of UCL (University College London). From 2003 to 2008 he was head of the Culham Science Center at UKAEA (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) and led the program of developing nuclear energy in Great Britain and the project JET (Joint European Torus).

About other lectures of world-class scientists organized by the Dynasty Foundation