The key question is, "When are we going to get fusion?" It's really been a long time since we've known about fusion. We've known about fusion since 1920, when Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington and the British Association for the Advancement of Science conjectured that that's why the sun shines.
關鍵問題是:「我們何時才能使用核融合?」 事實上我們知道核融合的存在已經很久了。 早在1920年我們就知道核融合的存在, 當時 亞瑟·斯坦利·愛丁頓爵士 與 英國科技促進協會 推測核融合就是太陽發光的原因。
I've always been very worried about resource. I don't know about you, but when my mother gave me food, I always sorted the ones I disliked from the ones I liked. And I ate the disliked ones first, because the ones you like, you want to save. And as a child you're always worried about resource. And once it was sort of explained to me how fast we were using up the world's resources, I got very upset, about as upset as I did when I realized that the Earth will only last about five billion years before it's swallowed by the sun. Big events in my life, a strange child. (Laughter)
我總是在擔心資源問題。 我不知道你們的狀況, 當我媽媽給我食物 我總是把不喜歡的分成一組, 把喜歡的分成一組。 我會先吃不喜歡的, 因為你會想把喜歡的留下來。 只是一個小孩就知道擔心資源問題了。 某天我突然發現 世界上的資源被我們耗用有多快時, 我開始煩腦, 就像我當知道 地球大概只剩50億年的壽命 之後就會被太陽吞噬一樣令我煩惱。 這些是我生命中的大事, 真是個奇怪的小孩。 (笑聲)
Energy, at the moment, is dominated by resource. The countries that make a lot of money out of energy have something underneath them. Coal-powered industrial revolution in this country -- oil, gas, sorry. (Laughter) Gas, I'm probably the only person who really enjoys it when Mister Putin turns off the gas tap, because my budget goes up.
能源產量目前受制於資源的存量。 因為能源賺了很多錢的國家 地底下都有許多資源。 這些國家經歷了燃煤動力的工業革命 - 石油,天然氣(和屁同一個字),抱歉。 (笑聲) 當 Putin 關掉天然氣閥門時, 我大概是唯一高興的人, 因為我的預算會變多。
We're really dominated now by those things that we're using up faster and faster and faster. And as we try to lift billions of people out of poverty in the Third World, in the developing world, we're using energy faster and faster. And those resources are going away. And the way we'll make energy in the future is not from resource, it's really from knowledge. If you look 50 years into the future, the way we probably will be making energy is probably one of these three, with some wind, with some other things, but these are going to be the base load energy drivers.
我們正受制於那些 被我們快速消耗的東西。 而當我們試圖幫助第三世界、 發展中國家數十億人們脫離貧困時, 我們正加速使用能源。 這些資源終將耗盡。 未來我們取得能源的方法 不再是利用資源, 而是依靠知識。 未來的50年, 我們大概會用下列三種方式 來獲取能源(太陽能、核分裂、核融合), 加上風力以及其他方式, 但這三項將是主要來源。
Solar can do it, and we certainly have to develop solar. But we have a lot of knowledge to gain before we can make solar the base load energy supply for the world. Fission. Our government is going to put in six new nuclear power stations. They're going to put in six new nuclear power stations, and probably more after that. China is building nuclear power stations. Everybody is. Because they know that that is one sure way to do carbon-free energy.
太陽能可以當主力,我們也勢必要發展太陽能。 但我們還需要許多知識 來讓太陽能變成世界的主要能源。 核分裂。 我們的政府將要蓋六座新的核電廠。 他們蓋了六座新的核電廠, 之後可能還會蓋更多。 中國正在蓋核電廠。每個國家都是。 因為他們知道這是確定可以 獲取無碳能源的方式。
But if you wanted to know what the perfect energy source is, the perfect energy source is one that doesn't take up much space, has a virtually inexhaustible supply, is safe, doesn't put any carbon into the atmosphere, doesn't leave any long-lived radioactive waste: it's fusion. But there is a catch. Of course there is always a catch in these cases. Fusion is very hard to do. We've been trying for 50 years.
如果你想知道什麼是完美的能源來源, 完美的能源來源是那種 不會佔太多空間, 幾乎可以無限制的供應, 而且安全,不會釋放任何碳進入大氣中, 不會留下任何長久的放射性廢棄物, 那就是核融合。 但其中有個難題。美好的東西都有些困難。 核融合很難達成。 我們已經試了50年。
Okay. What is fusion? Here comes the nuclear physics. And sorry about that, but this is what turns me on. (Laughter) I was a strange child. Nuclear energy comes for a simple reason. The most stable nucleus is iron, right in the middle of the periodic table. It's a medium-sized nucleus. And you want to go towards iron if you want to get energy. So, uranium, which is very big, wants to split. But small atoms want to join together, small nuclei want to join together to make bigger ones to go towards iron.
好。什麼是核融合呢?要講核子物理學了。 不好意思,這話題讓我很興奮。 (笑聲) 我是個奇怪的小孩。 核能產生的原因很簡單。 最安定的原子核是鐵,在週期表的正中央。 它是一個中等大小的原子核。 想得到能量就要趨向鐵原子的大小。 所以,像鈾這種很大的原子傾向於分裂。 但小的原子傾向於融合, 小的原子核傾向於融合在一起 以接近鐵原子的大小。
And you can get energy out this way. And indeed that's exactly what stars do. In the middle of stars, you're joining hydrogen together to make helium and then helium together to make carbon, to make oxygen, all the things that you're made of are made in the middle of stars. But it's a hard process to do because, as you know, the middle of a star is quite hot, almost by definition. And there is one reaction that's probably the easiest fusion reaction to do. It's between two isotopes of hydrogen, two kinds of hydrogen: deuterium, which is heavy hydrogen, which you can get from seawater, and tritium which is super-heavy hydrogen.
以這種方式你就能獲得能量。 事實上這就是恆星所做的事。 在恆星的中心,氫原子聚在一起形成氦原子, 氦原子聚合在一起形成碳原子, 然後形成氧原子, 你體內一切物質都是如此產生的。 但這是很困難的過程, 因為恆星的中心是非常炙熱的, 至少定義上是如此。 有一種反應, 大概是最簡單的核融合反應。 發生在兩個氫的同位素之間,是兩種氫原子, 一個是氘,也就是重氫 可以從海水取得, 一個是氚,也就是超重氫。
These two nuclei, when they're far apart, are charged. And you push them together and they repel. But when you get them close enough, something called the strong force starts to act and pulls them together. So, most of the time they repel. You get them closer and closer and closer and then at some point the strong force grips them together. For a moment they become helium 5, because they've got five particles inside them.
當這兩種原子核距離很遠時,他們因為本身的電荷, 把它們推近時會相斥。 但當你把它們推的夠近時, 一種叫強交互作用力的力量就會開始作用 將它們拉近在一起。 所以大部分時候它們會互斥。 逐漸將它們靠近到達某一個距離時 強交互作用力就會把它們拉近在一起。 這時他們會形成氦5, 因為總共有5個粒子。
So, that's that process there. Deuterium and tritium goes together makes helium 5. Helium splits out, and a neutron comes out and lots of energy comes out. If you can get something to about 150 million degrees, things will be rattling around so fast that every time they collide in just the right configuration, this will happen, and it will release energy. And that energy is what powers fusion. And it's this reaction that we want to do.
這就是最簡單的核融合反應。氘和氚聚合在一起 形成氦5。 氦分裂出來時,會釋放一個中子 還有大量的能量。 如果你能讓某個東西到達一億五千萬度時, 裡面的原子會快速亂竄, 當它們正確碰撞在一起時, 這個反應就會發生,並釋放出能量。 而這能量就是核融合的能源。 這就是我們想進行的反應。
There is one trickiness about this reaction. Well, there is a trickiness that you have to make it 150 million degrees, but there is a trickiness about the reaction yet. It's pretty hot. The trickiness about the reaction is that tritium doesn't exist in nature. You have to make it from something else. And you make if from lithium. That reaction at the bottom, that's lithium 6, plus a neutron, will give you more helium, plus tritium. And that's the way you make your tritium. But fortunately, if you can do this fusion reaction, you've got a neutron, so you can make that happen.
這個反應有個棘手的地方。 當然讓它達到一億五千萬度也很棘手, 但在反應之前還有一個棘手的地方。 相當麻煩。 那棘手的地方是反應中需要的 氚 並不存在於自然界。 你必須由其它方式來得到它。 你可以由鋰得到它。反應式寫在下面, 這是鋰6,加上一個中子, 就會形成氦以及一個氚。 這就是獲得氚的方法。 所幸,如果你能進行核融合反應, 你就可以得到一個中子,也就可以產生氚。
Now, why the hell would we bother to do this? This is basically why we would bother to do it. If you just plot how much fuel we've got left, in units of present world consumption. And as you go across there you see a few tens of years of oil -- the blue line, by the way, is the lowest estimate of existing resources. And the yellow line is the most optimistic estimate.
那麼,為什麼我們要大費周章做這件事? 這就是原因。 如果你把我們剩下的燃料 以全世界的耗用量作為單位 畫成這張圖。 你就可以看到 石油只剩幾十年--對了, 藍線是對現有資源最低的估計。 黃線是最樂觀的估計。
And as you go across there you will see that we've got a few tens of years, and perhaps 100 years of fossil fuels left. And god knows we don't really want to burn all of it, because it will make an awful lot of carbon in the air. And then we get to uranium. And with current reactor technology we really don't have very much uranium. And we will have to extract uranium from sea water, which is the yellow line, to make conventional nuclear power stations actually do very much for us. This is a bit shocking, because in fact our government is relying on that for us to meet Kyoto, and do all those kind of things.
你就可以看到 我們還剩下幾十年, 也許100年的化石燃料。 而我們還真的不想把它全部燒掉。 因為這樣會產生大量的碳跑進大氣裡。 此外,還有鈾。 以現有的技術而言 我們其實不剩多少鈾。 我們將得從海水中萃取鈾, 也就是這條黃線, 好讓傳統的核電廠 繼續運作 這很令人震驚,因為事實上我們的政府 正倚靠它來遵守京都議定書的協定 以及其他相關的事情。
To go any further you would have to have breeder technology. And breeder technology is fast breeders. And that's pretty dangerous. The big thing, on the right, is the lithium we have in the world. And lithium is in sea water. That's the yellow line. And we have 30 million years worth of fusion fuel in sea water. Everybody can get it. That's why we want to do fusion. Is it cost-competitive? We make estimates of what we think it would cost to actually make a fusion power plant. And we get within about the same price as current electricity.
接下來,還有增殖技術。 增殖技術是種高速增殖反應。非常危險。 最重要的一項,在右邊, 就是世界上蘊藏的鋰。 鋰在海水之中。就是這條黃線。 海水中約有可使用3千萬年的核融合燃料。 每個人都能取得。這就是為什麼我們要核融合。 它是否有價格競爭力? 我們以我們所知道的來估計 建造核融合發電廠所需的花費。 算出來的結果 與現有的電廠差不多。
So, how would we make it? We have to hold something at 150 million degrees. And, in fact, we've done this. We hold it with a magnetic field. And inside it, right in the middle of this toroidal shape, doughnut shape, right in the middle is 150 million degrees. It boils away in the middle at 150 million degrees. And in fact we can make fusion happen. And just down the road, this is JET. It's the only machine in the world that's actually done fusion.
那麼我們要怎麼去實現它呢? 我們必須把一億五千萬度的東西裝起來。 而事實上,我們也辦到了。 我們運用磁場。 在這個超環形,甜甜圈形狀的東西裡面, 就能維持一億五千萬度。 裡面在一億五千萬度高溫下沸騰著。 而事實上,我們也有能力產生核融合了。 已經在預備中,這就是JET。 世界上唯一進行過核融合的機器。
When people say fusion is 30 years away, and always will be, I say, "Yeah, but we've actually done it." Right? We can do fusion. In the center of this device we made 16 megawatts of fusion power in 1997. And in 2013 we're going to fire it up again and break all those records. But that's not really fusion power. That's just making some fusion happen. We've got to take that, we've got to make that into a fusion reactor. Because we want 30 million years worth of fusion power for the Earth. This is the device we're building now.
當人們在說核融合是30年後的技術,甚至永不可能發生時, 我會說:「真的啊,但我們已經做到了呢。」不是嗎? 我們可以做到核融合。我們在1997年的時候 在這裝置的中心做出一千六百萬瓦的核融合能量。 而在 2013 年我們將會再次啟動它 打破之前的紀錄。 但這還不是核融合的能源。這只是讓核融合發生而已。 我們必須把反應移到核融合反應爐裡。 因為我們希望地球有維持三千萬年的核融合能源。 這是我們正在建造的裝置。
It gets very expensive to do this research. It turns out you can't do fusion on a table top despite all that cold fusion nonsense. Right? You can't. You have to do it in a very big device. More than half the world's population is involved in building this device in southern France, which is a nice place to put an experiment. Seven nations are involved in building this. It's going to cost us 10 billion. And we'll produce half a gigawatt of fusion power. But that's not electricity yet. We have to get to this. We have to get to a power plant. We have to start putting electricity on the grid in this very complex technology. And I'd really like it to happen a lot faster than it is. But at the moment, all we can imagine is sometime in the 2030s.
這項研究非常花錢。 儘管有那些胡扯的冷融合理論, 你始終不可能在桌子上進行核融合。不是嗎? 不可能的。你必須在非常大的裝置裡進行。 在法國南部,有將近全世界一半的人口都在參與建造這個裝置。 那是進行實驗的好地方。 有七個國家參與建造工程。 這將會耗費一百億美金。而我們將產生五億瓦的核融合能源。 但這還不是電力。 我們還必須這麼做再走一步。 我們還必須蓋一座電廠。 用很複雜的技術 將電力輸送到電網中。 我真的很希望能儘早達成。 但我們現在只能期待2030年代的某個時候成功。
I wish this were different. We really need it now. We're going to have a problem with power in the next five years in this country. So 2030 looks like an infinity away. But we can't abandon it now; we have to push forward, get fusion to happen. I wish we had more money, I wish we had more resources. But this is what we're aiming at, sometime in the 2030s -- real electric power from fusion. Thank you very much. (Applause)
我很希望不用那麼久。因為我們現在就需要它。 在未來五年內, 能源問題就會出現。 所以2030年像是個遙不可及的未來。 但是我們不能放棄,我們必須朝目標前進, 要讓核融合實現。 我希望我們能有更多經費,我希望我們能有更多資源。 但這就是我們的目標, 在 2030年代的某個時候 - 能有核融合的真正電力。謝謝大家。 (掌聲)