It has to be admitted that we are a very contradictory species. On the one hand, we purse to build a better world in a wide context. On the other one, most of these, more or less successful, efforts are mostly triggered by wars or military conflicts as, paradoxically, they are "favourable" for the man's inventiveness. Will then a thermonuclear fusion be an exception in a so defined rule? Secondly, how will it position us in the KHECTALe Scale?
Before we will continue our considerations, the above-mentioned, I guess, a little puzzling, abbreviation need to be explained, firstly. It stands for: Kardashev's Hypothetical Extraterrestrial Civilization Technical Advancement Level Scale and is a kind of an interchangeable name of the idea genuinely proposed by Nikolay Kardashev in 1964, and later developed by other scientists. The main criterion of the classification was the source of energy used by the given ETC.
The latest (2024), a very promising experiment, run by the South Korean scientists, seems to smoothly bridge the hitherto theory with practice. Namely, thanks to the instrument called in short KSTAR, from Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research, the engineers managed to gain a temperature seven-times higher than in the core of our Sun, i.e. 100 million degrees Centigrade, and sustain it for more than 100 seconds. Indeed, a truly extraordinary result.
This way an artificial Sun was created in the laboratory conditions. Why it is so important for the future of energetics? Simply, a thermonuclear fusion constitutes a revolutionary and clear source of energy and, thereby, a remedy to many problems with fossil fuels. However basically, it is a characteristic process for the cores of stars but now, as the experiment has proved, can be created and controlled by a man. This is just the begging, as a true breakthrough is expected to happen in 2025 when the ITER* tokamak is in operation. Unfortunately, according to latest updates (August 2024), ITER probably won't start next year.
If all problems are finally overcome, perhaps soon (in two, three decades) we will make another significant step in the development of mankind, by strenuously following the guidelines defined by KHECTALe Scale. This, however, won't mean our complete capability to control our parent star. Undoubtedly, there is still a lot to do in this matter but these "additional points" could move us towards, let's say, scale 0+. By comparison, a physicist Michio Kaku defines us as a zero-type civilization.
Nevertheless, thanks to these efforts, a dream about pure, safe and efficient source of energy becomes much more real at present than yet a couple years ago. Moreover, the achievement of the above mentioned milestone will mark a dawn of a new, post-atom era in energetics. This will not only allow us as to avoid disastrous events like Chernobyl or Fukushima – with all of their, both short and long-term, aftermaths – but meet our still growing demand for energy. For sure, we'll also have to face many new challenges, so perseverance is a must.
Placing the whole issue in the cosmic background of the KHECTALe Scale, it's an open question whether, and to what extent, commercialized thermonuclear fusion will draw the ETCs' attention making them to look into a blue corner of an inconspicuous galaxy…
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* see more at: www.iter.org