P-B 11

Plot Summary

Year 2025. Dawn of the Hydrogen age. A nuclear research center of the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency is on the verge of producing electrical power in the world’s first Aneutronic Fusion Reactor AFR-1.

Based on the Boron-Hydrogen reaction, this technology would make fossil fuels worthless and all other sources of energy obsolete, leading to a global energy revolution. It is not so easy, however, to smash the existing setup and create a new world.

Energy investments come to a halt worldwide, and tumbling power and energy shares trigger the deepest economic crisis ever. As existing economic systems and political doctrines topple irreversibly like domino tiles, the new bipolar world braces itself for the worst case scenario: World War 3!

At the dawn of the hydrogen age, mankind faces the severest test in history. Pandora’s box has come wide open.

Synopsis (partial)

PROLOGUE

As the global economic crisis slowly deepens, shrinking industrial production creates a favorable environment for technological investment. The party that sweeps the 2015 elections in Turkey takes a revolutionary first step.

Ministry of Science and Technology is created with a budget of twelve billion USD -in the face of fierce criticism and opposition- in order to build up an infrastructure and human resources capable of innovative technological leaps. Turkey’s development strategy thus shifts radically from industrialization to research and development.

A number of large scale R&D projects are then launched, initially in comparatively new areas such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, quantum computers, and robotics, with the focus gradually shifting to plasma physics and nuclear fusion.

TAEK (Turkish Atomic Energy Agency) sets up two different nuclear research centers in 2016, one at the Acikir site at Polatli, Ankara and the other at the old wolfram mine at Uludag, Bursa. PNAM (Polatli Nuclear Research Centre) focuses on neutronic deuterium-tritium fusion, whereas UNAM (Uludag Nuclear Research Centre) conducts R&D in aneutronic fusion.

Asian Fusion Development Agreement (AFDA) is signed the same year between Turkey, Russia and China. AFDA focuses on R&D in neutronic fusion at first. An experimental tokamak is built at PNAM as a first step. This reactor, named ASYA, is the biggest of its kind.

The reactor at PNAM goes on stream early in 2019. Several experimental fusion reactors based on “Deuterium-Helium3” and “Proton-Boron11” (Hydrogen-Boron) reactions are then built in the light of data from PNAM. Aneutronic fusion R&D at UNAM gains momentum.

The objective is finally attained in neutronic fusion on January 12, 2020. AFDA achieves steady state net power at its experimental tokamak reactor ASYA. European Fusion Development Agreement EFDA also announces net power generation at their experimental tokamak reactor ITER. The race for fusion power has begun.

On the other hand, no short run developments are expected in aneutronic fusion, which promises a revolutionary breakthrough in the long run. This outlook, which has long been dominant in this field, alleviates any fears in the power industry about fusion power. Nevertheless, a path breaking advance was soon to be made in aneutronic fusion.

UNAM’s FRC (Field-Reversed Configuration) type experimental fusion reactor KTTR-4 (Compact Toroid Thermonuclear Reactor) succeeds in generating non-steady power on March 29, 2022. The aneutronic project, from which no results had been expected for at least another 20 years, has now become a burning reality.

This is kept “top secret”, and the control over PNAM is gradually turned over to the armed forces. This development leads to an international crisis that rapidly escalates in the next nine months. The project is now a serious threat to the energy sector and the whole global economy. (1)

Another concern that leads to even greater worry is that Russian capital is gradually pulling out of the global power industry. Energy investments in Russia have virtually stopped by 2023, while Russian capital flows into medicine, arms and heavy industry. (2)

2023 also heralds a period of time when plots and speculations over the Turkish peninsula abound. It is now quite clear that both Russia and China are inclined to back an “energy revolution”, and the ongoing project at UNAM is now a full threat to the global power industry. Dazzling offers from the West (unconditional membership and a leading role in the EU, partnership in international megaprojects, etc…) create high tensions in Turkey.

Finally on January 21, 2024, the People’s Republic of China ratifies the “Restricted Privatization Act” and announces a global public offering of Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC shares. Global markets perceive this as a sign of impending crash, and power shares go into a steep decline. Global economic crisis is now turning into global chaos.

Turkey breaks off its ties with the West and signs a series of economic and military cooperation agreements with Russia and China. These are announced to the world on April 17, 2024 in what would later come to be called the “Ankara Declaration”. The international crisis reaches a peak as Iran leaves OPEC to join the new group.

Turkey is openly accused by the US, EU and OPEC members of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Turkey is expelled from NATO, and military bases are evacuated. A blockade is in effect.

Meanwhile TAEK announces the generation of steady state power in the seventh and latest FRC type reactor called AFR-1. The target is now to produce net power!

Three huge corporations are set up at this time by Turkey, Russia, China and Iran: UFC (United Fusion Corporation), UHC (United Hydrogen Corporation), and the Ankara-based BAA (Bank of Asia and Africa).

The East block takes shape with the addition of Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, North Korea, Vietnam, Argentine, Bolivia, Chili and Cuba. Russia and China are putting pressure on Turkey for an “Ankara Pact” which would make the new block formal.

Turkey, however, plays on Swiss-type neutrality in this new bipolar world. Turkey wishes to be a part of the East, while remaining partly outside the alliance. This leads to added strains within the East bloc. (3)

Accused by the West of manufacturing WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), Turkey applies to the United Nations to gain time. IAEA (International Atomic Enery Agency) sets up a commission to inspect Turkey for WMDs.

The next move will be net power generation at AFR-1, the world’s first aneutronic fusion reactor, thus triggering the energy revolution. The objective is to achieve clean, reliable, cheap and unlimited electrical power generation worldwide, and to usher in the hydrogen age! (4) (5) (6)

CHAPTER 1: Energy Revolution and Dawn of The Hydrogen Age

Please Note: Will not be published online.

CHAPTER 2: The Spark of War

Please Note: Will not be published online.

CHAPTER 3: The War

Please Note: Will not be published online.

CHAPTER 4: The Last Hope

Please Note: Will not be published online.

Footnotes:

(1) All other resources used in producing electrical power (including alternative resources such as solar and wind) will lose all their economic value when aneutronic fusion reactors are available.

(2) This anxiety is expressed from a different point of view in an essay in the Global Economist: the increasing share of western capital in Rusian energy corporations in the last seven years should be regarded as the sign of a global split rather than of globalization, because Russian capital in power industry is substantially moving into Russian arms and heavy industry.

(3) This strategy is adopted for two reasons. The first is to take advantage of accelerated development by dancing around two centers of gravity rather than by orbiting a single center of gravity – which is why Turkey had been able to make these advances in the first place. The second and more important one is to minimize losses in a probable WW3.

(4) Aneutronic fusion is a source of non-radioactive nuclear power, the fuels and wastes of which are completely harmless. Aneutronic fusion is clean and safe nuclear power that creates no potential for armaments.

(5) The handicap that actually prevents a hydrogen economy is the cost of producing hydrogen under the present circumstances. This hurdle can be overcome if a clean, safe, cheap and unlimited resource for generating electrical power can be created. Aneutronic fusion is the only potential source of energy that fully meets this condition.

(6) The FRC ( Field-Reversed Configuration) type aneutronic fusion reactor AFR-1 based on the Boron-Hydrogen reaction ( p⁺ + ¹¹ B → [3 ⁴He + (8.7 MeV)]) is the pioneer of clean and reliable thermonuclear energy systems that do not produce radioactivity. This technology also eliminates thermal conversion by converting the energy released in the plasma directly to electricity (The high energy alpha (⁴He) particles produced by the p⁺ + ¹¹B reaction induce a cyclotron, generating an electrical current in its coil), and provides a cheap, unlimited resource with which no other energy resource can compete.