First, We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin

Friday, March 20, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
| Tags: innovation, desalination, open innovation, nuclear fusion, professor john beddington, manhattan project, jet

Kennedy began the US space race. Obama is going to cure cancer. And the United Kingdom, is, er, um, going to – make the trains run on time, maybe. Personally, that seems a little too mission impossible for my kind of optimism. How about? “This generation of Britons will harness controlled nuclear fusion for civilian use.”

No kidding. The UK needs a Manhattan Project, and it might as well be a retooled version of the original. Between the 1930s and 50s the United States achieved minor successes with nuclear fusion, for military purposes, as part of the nation-wide Manhattan Project research exercise. Stable, controlled, nuclear fusion suitable for civilian use has never been achieved, and the political appetite for nuclear fusion has been diminished by time.

When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress some weeks ago, he tilted his hat to the audacity of hope with a declaration to find a cure for cancer. Now, that’s fine, but cancer isn’t a single disease. Implied in his statement is the funding and vision necessary to ensure a radical acceleration in the skills, and facilities, needed to halt the spread of cancers.

With cancer as the focal point of a health revolution, the diverse excellence of scientific disciplines can harmonise.

Curing cancer requires a new level of open innovation and rapid prototyping. The role of government is to set the target, and set it high, then fund it again, and again, until the job is done. Economically, curing cancer potentially offers a magnificent return on investment, not just in healthcare benefits but from spin-off technologies and knowledge advancement. How much more is to be gained from effectively harnessing fusion?

The UK Government’s Chief Scientist, Professor John Beddington, has prophesied, as chief scientists are prone to do, a ‘perfect storm of scarcity’ by 2030. Food, water, and energy will be in short supply. He states that the UK’s food production is at a 50 year low, and we need to produce 50% more by 2030. The good news is, if you’re wealthy, you’ll have food, water and energy. But wealth doesn’t protect our homes and businesses from the social unrest trailing a perfect storm of scarcity.

Nuclear fusion, which occurs naturally in stars, can not only solve global energy needs, it can help with food production, and every other manufacturing process known to man, including desalination – that’s the absence of water scarcity. But here’s the most important reason we should invest in our own Manhattan Project – it creates jobs. It creates employment, hope and aspiration, and that’s just what we need right now. Now, here’s the really clever bit of our new found economic stimulus package - we already have a Manhattan project. It’s called JET, the Joint European Torus Situated at Culham in the UK. JET is run as, a collaboration between European fusion organisations and with the participation of a global team of scientists. You almost certainly didn’t know that, and yet we should position JET as the pinnacle of our industry ambition. The plasma used at JET heats to about 100 million degrees – one hot idea don’t you think? So, bail out another bank? Or bankroll the biggest of ideas? If another bank is bailed out, the nation will sigh. Tell the UK that it is going to lead the world in innovation, that we are going to harness nuclear fusion, educate our people with new skills, teach our children to excel, and they will believe. We believe, when we see that the moon can be touched, that sickness can be cured, and that energy can be at our command.

See the video