In Chap. 1, we summarized the scientific evidence for global warming caused by carbon dioxide emitted by human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels. In Chap. 2, we summarized the known facts on fossil-fuel reserves, especially the critical shortage of oil. We showed the difficulty of and dangers in extracting the last reserves as well as the expense in sequestering the greenhouse gases emitted in their use. In Chap. 3, we surveyed alternative energy sources and found that none of them, except nuclear energy, can provide dependable backbone power, although many are suitable as supplementary power sources.

F. F. Chen, An Indispensable Truth: How Fusion Power Can Save the Planet,

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7820-2_11, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

In Chaps. 3-5, we introduced the concept of fusion power and explained why a magnetic bottle holding a hot plasma is needed to fuse hydrogen into helium to get energy from water. In Chaps. 7 and 8, we explained the physics of plasma contain­ment in a device called a tokamak and summarized all the difficult problems that have already been solved. In Chap. 9, we gave details on all the extremely difficult engineering problems that have yet to be solved. Finally, in Chap. 10, we showed other ways to achieve fusion power which have not yet been explored extensively but which may make better reactors than the tokamak.