Taylor Wilson: Why we need nuclear energy

Taylor Wilson: Why we need nuclear energy

by Lee Gliddon

Editor's note: Taylor Wilson first became fascinated with nuclear power at the age of 10. The Nevada teen-ager is the youngest person in the world to build a nuclear fusion reactor and has won dozens of national science awards. Now 18, he is now aiming to use his vast knowledge of nuclear physics to try and make nuclear fusion a viable source of power.

By Taylor Wilson, Special to CNN

(CNN) - Many of the problems we face as a society are rooted in energy. Conflicts are driven by our unending quest for fossil fuels. Clean water, stable food supplies and manufacturing and innovation are all driven by this unquenchable appetite for energy.

As a society we lack that stable supply of energy. There is, however, one source that is completely clean, immensely powerful and incredibly abundant: nuclear fusion.

When the power of the atom was first discovered in the 1930s, scientists immediately realized the atom’s potential not only as a weapon but as a force of good - one that could provide abundant energy, ensure stable food supplies and eradicate disease. In the 1940s, the crash program known as the Manhattan Project brought together the greatest minds in the country to unlock this strong nuclear force. During the next two decades, the promise and peril of nuclear technology was demonstrated and entered American popular culture.

I recently went with a group of friends to see the new "Avengers" movie. It’s impossible to avoid how nuclear technology directly influenced many of characters, from the peril of Bruce Banner’s alter ego, the Hulk, to the promise of Tony Stark’s Arc Reactor. These characters were first penned during the height of American nuclear research in the early 1960s. Popular culture as a whole recognized that while threatening, the newfound power of the atom was the future.