There is some great news for all environment lovers. The nuclear fusion project has been given the go ahead, and hopefully, it will not be long before the team of physicists led by Mike Dunne of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford, UK, will be able to successfully reproduce the power of the sun on earth.
Amazing is it not? To think how far science has progressed, and that now we will be able to replicate the sun’s energy! Nuclear fusion is the answer for the energy crisis which is looming ahead of us.
What is nuclear fusion? It is a nuclear reaction, in which, two light nuclei (like hydrogen) combine to form heavier nuclei (such as helium). Excess binding energy is released during this process, and it is this energy which scientists hope to harness fruitfully.
Nuclear fusion is not as easy as it seems, because, a considerable energy barrier must be overcome before fusion can occur. The energy barrier is produced because two naked nuclei always repel each other due to the presence of electrostatic force between their positively charged protons.
Do you know it is for the last 50 years that research is undergoing for the production of fusion power? It has definitely not been easy. Hydrogen bombs have been the most successful fusion reactions produced till date.
Well, one fervently hopes that scientists will soon be able to produce fusion power, and thus lessen our dependence on the fossil fuels.
Comments
Here is a much better bet:
Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion
It has been funded:
Bussard Reactor Funded
I have inside info that is very reliable and multiply confirmed that validates the above story. I am not at liberty to say more. Expect a public announcement from the Navy in the coming weeks.
The above reactor can burn Deuterium which is very abundant and produces lots of neutrons or it can burn a mixture of Hydrogen and Boron 11 which does not
The implication of it is that we will know in 6 to 9 months if the small reactors of that design are feasible.
If they are we could have fusion plants generating electricity in 10 years or less depending on how much we want to spend to compress the time frame. A much better investment that CO2 sequestration.
BTW Bussard is not the only thing going on in IEC. There are a few government programs at the University of Wisconsin and at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana among others.