Potential Energy. . .

(Potential Energy. . .)

Call it a "physics," package. Anybody who has studied that topic and who perhaps dreaded the class in high school, should remember that, when it comes to energy. one starts with two kinds. The first is "potential" energy. That is what something has when it is staying still. When it starts to move, however, it then becomes what is called "kinetic" energy. Those are the basics. Energy be released in various levels. The biggest would-be nuclear explosions and nuclear reactors. These explosions and reactions run on the principle of nuclear fission, where a heavy element, like Uranium or Plutonium. Basically, a quantity of each substance goes through a chain reaction. Like a set of dominos gets toppled. As the reaction progresses. a lot of energy is released. It was this energy that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But, there was always a look for a bigger bang for the buck. That is how the hydrogen bomb, or thermonuclear weapon, that operates on the principle of nuclear fusion, where lighter elements, like hydrogen, get fused and releasing even more energy than an atomic bomb, which is required to set the fusion reaction off, the was developed. When in the movie Wargames, when Matthew Brodrick "let's play thermonuclear war," that is what it means. This is the basic power that runs the sun. Now, if that energy could be harnessed, put the sun in a bottle, as it were, the potential energy from there would be all but limitless. There is no pollution. There is no radioactive waste. An ideal source of power.

But that outcome still has to be realized. Research into controlled nuclear fusion has been ongoing for decades but, till now, no reaction produced more net energy than was applied in the first place. Practical applications are still decades in the future but what has just been discovered is the basic fact that such technology is possible and one only need time to see the potential realized.

All that being said, it is ironic that such a development is taking place in the war on energy Biden Administration, Energy Secretary Granholm, the one who found it amusing when one suggested opening domestic drilling. Granholm is emblematic of this whole approach to energy. She will have it curtailed now in the expectation of clean and virtually un-limited energy. But that's here yet. What does anybody think to do in the meantime ?