Fusion Power Achieved - Two Ways It Can Fight Global Warming

WASHINGTON - Dec. 13, 2022 - PRLog -- Reports that a nuclear fusion reactor has created more energy than was put into it - i.e. has for the first time generated net power - suggests that in the long run we may be able to fight global warming in two ways which do not involve drastic worldwide cuts in the use of fossil fuels, predicts Professor John Banzhaf.

Fusion power generation could help reduce global warming in at least two ways, says Banzhaf, an MIT-trained engineer with two U.S. patents.

FIRST, fusion reactors could eventually and over time replace the need to use oil and coal, with their unavoidable emissions of greenhouse gases, to heat buildings (and even whole cities) and to generate vast amounts of electricity.

SECOND, fusion might be able to provide sufficient energy to make it possible to increase earth's orbit by the tiny amount necessary to overcome global warming; an approach now being discussed which has been called cosmic nudging.

Prof. Banzhaf has calculated that increasing Earth's orbit by only 0.3% could completely offset global warming; thereby serving as an alternative (or as a supplemental approach) to achieving worldwide cooperation in slashing emissions of greenhouse gases.

While even this tiny 0.3% change in Earth's orbit would require enormous amounts of energy - energy which might be generated by nuclear fusion - the change could be achieved in a number of different proven ways: e.g., employing an electric thruster (an ion drive), constructing a huge solar sail, or utilizing a gravitational sling shot by changing the orbits of asteroids.

Moreover, calculations by a cosmic physicist, as outlined in a new paper, have also lent more credence to Banzhaf's original cosmic nudge idea.

"We propose using the gravity-assist by the asteroids to increase the orbital distance of the Earth from the Sun. We can manipulate the orbit of asteroids in the asteroid belt by solar sailing and propulsion engines to guide them towards the Mars orbit and a gravitational scattering can put asteroids in a favorable direction to provide an energy loss scattering from the Earth. The result would be increasing the orbital distance of the earth and consequently cooling down the Earth's temperature."

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