Ten Times Hotter than the Sun

Two major fusion initiatives are making headway in the decades
long goal to find the ultimate source of clean energy. In this
episode of Grid Talk, we visit with Laban Coblentz who is the
head of communications at the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in the south of France.


Coblentz described the long quest for fusion and its
implications. 


“Fusion has the potential to give a baseload source of energy
without only a fraction of the waste concerns of fission, without
the safety concerns of fission, but with the ability to provide
clean energy for a planet in a concentrated way.” 


It will be safe and should not trigger many of the concerns of
conventional nuclear reactors that have been around for decades.


“Fusion will not be without waste, but it won’t have any
long-lived, high activity radioactive waste.”  


“The fact that the physics don’t allow a meltdown or that kind of
thing; you could in fact place it in greater proximity to cities,
to industry if you get the local—if you get the regulatory
authorities to agree.”


The European Union and the United States are two of the seven
key, international players in ITER.


“ITER is not just a fusion device, it’s an exercise in what
happens when the global community believes so much in a common
goal and in a better future for our kids that we are willing to
put aside our known ideological differences to try to pool our
best expertise, something that science has done for a
longtime.” 


Laban Coblentz has been with ITER since 2015. He is an
entrepreneur and consultant with leadership roles at several
companies. He has been involved with communication, energy
policy, advanced science and technology, and entrepreneurship
since attending the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School in the 1980’s.


He holds an M.A. in English, English Literature from San
Francisco State University and a B.A. in  degree in English,
Psychology from Malone University.