Fusion energy is the extraction of energy from the fusion of light elements and isotopes such as hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, and helium. It contrasts with fission, which breaks down heavy nuclei. Fusion powers the Sun, and scientists hope to harness it for human needs. H-bombs are fusion-based and more efficient than fission-based A-bombs. Two approaches to fusion power generation are magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion, with significant funding for both. All attempts at fusion power generation since 2008 have consumed more energy than they have produced.
Fusion energy is the extraction of energy from the bonds between particles in the nuclei of atoms by fusing those nuclei together. To obtain the maximum energy, light elements and isotopes such as hydrogen, deuterium, tritium and helium must be used, although any element with an atomic number lower than iron can produce net energy when melted. Fusion contrasts with fission, the process whereby energy is generated by breaking down heavy nuclei such as uranium or plutonium. Both are considered nuclear power, but fission is easier and better developed. All current nuclear power plants operate on the basis of fission energy, but many scientists hope that a fusion power plant will be developed before 2050.
There are nuclear bombs based on both fission energy and fusion energy. Conventional A-bombs are fission-based, while H-bombs, or hydrogen bombs, are fusion-based. Fusion more efficiently converts matter into energy, producing more heat and temperature when the process is channeled into a chain reaction. Thus H-bombs have higher yields than A-bombs, in some cases more than 5,000 times higher. H-bombs use a fission “booster” to reach the temperature required for nuclear fusion, which is around 20 million degrees Kelvin. In an H-bomb, about 1% of the reaction mass is converted directly into energy.
Fusion energy, not fission, is the energy that powers the Sun and produces all its heat and light. At the center of the Sun, about 4.26 million tons of hydrogen per second are converted into energy, producing 383 yottawatts (3.83×1026 W) or 9.15×1010 megatons of TNT per second. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually quite mild when you factor in the total mass and volume of the Sun. The rate of energy production in the Sun’s core is only about 0.3 W/m3 (watts per cubic meter), more than a million times weaker than the energy produced in a light bulb filament. Just because the core is so large, with a diameter equivalent to about 20 Earths, it generates so much total energy.
For several decades, scientists have worked to harness fusion energy for human needs, but this is difficult due to the high temperatures and pressures involved. Using fusion energy, a unit of fuel the size of a small ball bearing can produce as much energy as a barrel of gasoline. Unfortunately, all attempts at fusion power generation since 2008 have consumed more energy than they have produced. There are two basic approaches: using a magnetic field to compress a plasma to a critical temperature (magnetic confinement fusion) or firing lasers at a target so intense that it heats it beyond the critical threshold for fusion (inertial confinement fusion). Both of these approaches have received significant funding, with the National Ignition Facility (NIF) attempting inertial confinement fusion and going live in 2010, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) attempting magnetic confinement fusion and which went into operation in 2018.
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