WILLIAMSBURG — A professor of Physics at William & Mary will discuss the promises and challenges of fusion energy at the upcoming Fall Tack Faculty Lecture at the university Oct. 22.
“Building a fusion machine can be compared to building a star because that is where the stars get their energy from,” explained Mordijck in an interview with the university. “But one of the challenges is trying to put a star in a box. The sun is extremely hot. How can you even keep something that hot contained in any way?”
The university notes it has been 100 years since Cecilia Payne revealed stars are made primarily of hydrogen and helium, and scientists have long worked to recreate the process of fusion on Earth, drawn by its many potential benefits. One key advantage is its incredible energy density, meaning fusion requires only a small amount of fuel.
It adds fusion is also a clean energy source in that it doesn’t produce carbon dioxide or long-lived radioactive waste, and is also inherently safe as it doesn’t allow for catastrophic runaway type of reactions.
But despite a century of progress, fusion still faces significant hurdles, leaving experts divided between those who believe fusion has always been 40 to 50 years away and will never be achieved, and proponents who believe the first commercial fusion power plants could be online before 2035, according to the university.
“As a scientist, I’m going to be somewhere in the middle,” Mordijck told W&M. “I see the advances we’ve made but also understand enough of the challenges ahead. I know and trust in the ingenuity of human beings, and where there’s a will, there will be a way to develop fusion energy.”
The university highlights some of that research is happening at William & Mary, where Mordijck and her team, supported by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, are working to understand how to fuel a fusion device.
The team works with major facilities and projects around the world, from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility and Large Plasma Device in California to experimental reactors in the UK.
At the same time, it adds researchers at William & Mary are developing new diagnostics with the school’s quantum optics group and are using artificial intelligence to help interpret and run fusion experiments.
Mordijck hopes her Tack Lecture will inspire a deeper appreciation for fusion’s potential and outline the path forward for its development.
“I would like people to come away from the lecture understanding that fusion is an amazing endeavor for humankind, and that we’ve made huge strides forward, but that we still have a way to go before we’ll actually see the first fusion power plant,” she said, adding despite the challenges, she believes the benefits to society underscore why it merits continued investment.
To learn more about fusion energy, check out the resources page put together by William & Mary Libraries, which includes articles, games, and pop culture references.
