Carbon Dioxide, Fusion, and Stellarators

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of rational decision-making in addressing carbon dioxide issues, highlighting direct air capture and stellarator fusion as promising solutions with rapid demonstration potential.

Contribution

It emphasizes the need for quick demonstration and deployment of carbon reduction options, advocating for stellarator fusion as a key candidate.

Findings

Stellarator fusion is poised for rapid demonstration.

Direct air capture is a fundamentally important carbon removal method.

Cost and timescale considerations are crucial for deploying solutions.

Abstract

Much emotion is expended on the dangers of carbon dioxide, but solutions require reason and recognition of facts: (1) The cost of developing options is approximately a thousand times less than their deployment. (2) Timescales involve two questions: (a) How quickly can an option be demonstrated? (b) How quickly can the required equivalent of thousands of units be built. Two questions are implied: (1) What options would most fundamentally change the carbon-dioxide problem? (2) For each option, how could it be demonstrated most quickly? An option of fundamental importance is direct air capture of carbon dioxide. The option that appears most attractive for carbon-free energy production is the stellarator fusion concept, which is poised for a rapid demonstration.