Fusion on Earth - is it possible ?

     We know that nuclear fusion is the secret of sun behind its continues energy production. We heard a lot about nuclear fission which is the principle of atom bombs and nuclear power plants. In nuclear fission an atom splits and form two small atoms and plenty of energy will be released. But in nuclear fusion the amount of energy released is very high. If we do nuclear fusion we could solve all over energy crises. over the fission, fusion have many advantages. fusion reactions produce absolutely enormous amounts of energy, much more than fission reactions. The other main advantage is that fusion does not produce radioactive, toxic waste products like fission does. Fusion produces large amounts of energy, but it also requires large amounts of energy to get started.  But if a large enough reactor could be built and gotten started with a huge input of energy, the energy produced can cause a self-sustaining reaction that could produce energy for a long time. The Sun is probably the ultimate example of a fusion reactor.
   
     Our current energy landscape is heavily dependent on the fast-depleting fossil fuels, with 80% of the global energy consumption being based on fossil fuels, and changing this dependence is critical to meet the growing energy demands and to cut down on the greenhouse gas emissions. Once harnessed, fusion has the potential to be a nearly unlimited, safe and CO2-free energy source.

     On the Sun, the process of fusion is driven by the Sun’s immense gravitational force and high temperatures. But the Earth does not have the immense gravitational force required to confine the hydrogen nuclei. So a different approach is needed to achieve fusion reactions on Earth.

    In order to achieve fusion on Earth, gases need to be heated to extremely high temperatures of about 150 million degrees Celsius. That is 10 times more than the temperatures in the Sun's core. The easiest way to accomplish is the fusion on earth is reaction between two hydrogen isotopes: deuterium, which is extracted from water, and tritium, which is produced during the fusion reaction through contact with lithium. When deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse, they form a helium nucleus, a neutron, and release energy.

     Fusion scientists have developed methods that are able to heat plasma to temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius. There exists no material however that can contain plasma at such unimaginable temperatures. So, different plasma confinement methods are used by fusion scientists. One of them is the magnetic confinement wherein the hot plasma particles are contained in a magnetic “cage” made by strong magnetic fields which prevent the particles from escaping. For energy production this plasma has to be confined for a sufficiently long period for fusion to occur.

    To make fusion possible we need dutirium and tritium the isotopes of H to combine and to make helium and a hill of energy. But the abundance of this two are very limited in the earth. Among this tritium is most limited and a good news is also for you, that is you can substitute tritium with helium 3. It too limited on our pale blue dot but our moon have no magnetic field and hence Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor.

   I am concluding that presently nuclear fusion is impossible but we are sprinting more to the aim and in the near future we could hope that we made fusion possible and to became a type 1 universe civilization we have to use more energy and to find more energy sources let us dream all become fine one day

   May be in future we could mine helium 3 from moon and we could solve all energy crises of earth let us wait and see............

Composed by

Abhinav P Pradeep, wayanad, Kerala, India

Email:Abhinavppindia@gmail.com

Twitter: Abhinav P Pradeep

(@Abhinavppindia)