Peter Morand

Closing the gap between policy implementation & high impact technologies

By Dr Peter Morand

At the Canadian Science Policy Conference to be held in Toronto October 28-30, the topic of one of the panels is Governance of Emerging Technologies. The panelists will use case studies to illustrate the gap between "the pace of knowledge discovery and innovation and the pace of policy development, and what can be done to diminish that gap."

In the recent past we have witnessed how seemingly insurmountable challenges such as landing a space craft on the moon and mapping the human genome became achievable not only as a result of accelerated gains in the advancement of knowledge but by having in place viable policy frameworks, national for the former and international for the latter. In these examples policy formulation was in step with enabling technologies.

Similarly, the landmark discovery of the human papilloma viruses (HPV) that cause cervical cancer by Nobel laureate Harald zur Hausen led Australia to implement timely vaccination policies whereas Canada continues to flounder in a morass of indecision.

Our continued existence on this earth is being threatened on many fronts and it is evident that our ability to develop sustainable and more environmentally friendly energy sources would contribute significantly to a better quality of life. Much progress has been made in reducing the negative environmental impact of hydroelectric generators, nuclear fission plants and hydrocarbon fuels and in improving their respective efficiencies. Also encouraging is the emergence of various devices and systems for harnessing wind and solar energy. While all very positive, the reality is that global energy needs will far outpace what can be generated from these sources.

Fusion power, the energy source of the sun and the stars, is produced by the fusion of two light nuclei to form a heavier nucleus and for many decades has been touted as an achievable goal to meet our insatiable energy needs without doing irreparable harm to our planet. The appeal of fusion power is that the fuel (hydrogen isotopes), whose mass is converted to energy, is readily available, intrinsically safe with no production of CO2 or atmospheric pollutants and produces relatively short-lived waste. In the 1950s, there was optimism about harnessing fusion power. The US, the UK, Japan and Russia have been leaders in fusion power research.

Until recently research efforts focused on magnetic confinement fusion for reaching the ultra high activation energy needed to initiate the fusion process. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project began in 1985 as a collaboration between the European Union (through EUROATOM), the US, Japan and what was then the Soviet Union. Subsequently, China, South Korea, India and Canada joined the collaboration but Canada ended its participation in 2003. In 2006 the partners reached agreement to build a fusion reactor in France that is being designed to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power sustained for several minutes. With an anticipated completion date of 2018 or later, this constitutes one of the most expensive technical projects undertaken by an international consortium.

While the ITER project has been plodding along, groundbreaking advances in the development of high-energy lasers have signaled that the latter may be a more viable approach for reaching the ignition point needed to trigger fusion. Recognizing that this may be a "leap-frogging" technology, there has been a frenzy of activity to explore the feasibility of applying laser technology for generating fusion power.

Leading the charge is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California whose National Ignition Facility (NIF) houses the biggest and highest-energy laser in the world. The goal of this facility is to achieve "nuclear fusion and energy gain in the laboratory for the first time — in essence, creating a miniature star on Earth."

At the same time, plans are underway for the construction of the High Power Laser Energy Research facility (HiPER) in the European Union. This is an experimental inertial confinement fusion device that uses much smaller lasers for the ignition of the fusion process in the expectation that the "fusion gain" will be significantly higher than what can be produced by larger lasers. In Japan, a conceptual design was put forward this year for building a Fast-ignition Advanced Laser fusion reactor CONcept with a Dry wall chamber that promises a fast-ignition capability that can attain the necessary fusion gain for commercial operation.

In retrospect, and in view of these promising new developments in the quest to generate fusion power, Canada's decision to abandon its participation in ITER seems to have been the right one. But what is even more important is that a group in Alberta has been working diligently to ensure that Canada, with its exceptionally strong track record in photonic and laser research, will participate in this new approach to make fusion power a reality.

A proposal has been submitted to Alberta and federal government agencies to establish an Alberta/Canada Fusion Energy Program and subsequently an Alberta/Canada Fusion Energy Institute that would put Canada back in the picture. Time is of the essence if we want to forge alliances with key research centres in other countries at this early stage and train highly qualified personnel.

Canada has much to gain by being an active participant in an ambitious project aimed at meeting global energy needs while providing a solution to the greenhouse gas crisis. This being the case, why does the government continue to appoint policy advisory groups that seem content to keep churning out analyses of our shortcomings in productivity and innovation rather than providing action-oriented policy advice that keeps pace with changes in enabling technologies?

To maintain our standing in the global community of nations and for the benefit of all citizens, it is incumbent on our decision makers to place the highest possible priority on ensuring that Canada is a leader in timely policy development and implementation. A step in the right direction would be to establish, at both the provincial and federal levels, a well-defined process to assess and recommend on technology-driven proposals that are national/international in scope. Such a defined process would alleviate the current frustration experienced by the research community in bringing innovative and timely action plans to fruition.

Peter Morand is former dean of Science and Engineering at Univ of Ottawa, past president of NSERC and past president & CEO of the Canadian Science & Technology Growth Fund. petermorand@rogers.com.