#Sun fusion vs fission series#

Then there is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)-the world’s most ambitious fusion project which, all going well, will be operational by mid-decade.ĭrawing on data from the soon-to-be decommissioned JET program, the far larger ITER facility in southern France is being constructed from materials that can withstand much higher temperatures, allowing, in theory, for fusion experiments to run long enough to produce more power than they consume. Earlier this year, Chinese scientists managed to sustain a 17-minute fusion reaction-albeit with a fuel source which isn’t viable for large-scale power production. JET’s record-breaking experiment used significantly more power than it produced-net energy gain from fusion is yet to be demonstrated anywhere-while the magnets used to contain the plasma warmed too quickly for extended operation. Huge hurdles remain for global fusion research, however. “We now have a blueprint for scaling up operations in the future, with the goal of maintaining output for much longer than a few seconds.” “A five-second pulse and 59 MJ of energy production might not sound like a lot, but it shows that we’re capable of achieving a sustained discharge that produces a high fusion yield,” says Joelle Mailloux, a nuclear physicist co-leading the JET research team. A little less than 60 megajoules (MJ) of energy was generated-just enough to boil a few dozen kettles-but it marked a significant step forward in the quest for sustained fusion energy. Defeating its own world record for fusion power, the U.K.-based JET laboratory recently managed to produce and maintain a comparatively high level of thermal energy over a five second period. The Joint European Torus (JET) is a pioneer of the latter.

In California, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is developing the use of high-powered lasers to compress fusion fuel into a tiny space, while researchers in other parts of the world favor confinement via strong magnetic fields. In the core of the sun, atoms combine at approximately 10 million degrees Celsius on Earth, where gravitational forces are far, far smaller, at least 10 times as much heat is required.Īs no known material can withstand contact with such scorching temperatures, scientists have devised different methods of confining super-hot plasma-a cloud of charged particles in which fusion occurs-to allow for continuous energy output. With the funding taps open, significant progress has recently been made to overcome a litany of scientific challenges-not least the enormous temperatures required to trigger a fusion reaction. From a safety standpoint, nuclear meltdown is practically impossible, and only a small volume of relatively short-lived radioactive waste is produced.įusion’s incredible promise is being pursued by a consortium of global physicists supported by China, Russia, the United States, and several European governments. When this happens, an immense amount of energy is released: four times as much as fission, and nearly 4 million times greater than the burning of fossil fuels. Whereas nuclear fission-the process that drives conventional nuclear power plants-involves the splitting of atoms, fusion takes place when a pair of light atomic nuclei combine to form a single heavier one.

#Sun fusion vs fission series#

With sweeping international collaboration and billions of dollars of public and private investment, scientists have recently made a series of meaningful advances in both the duration and power output possible from fusion reactions.