![]() High electricity requirement is a major problem. What are the hurdles in developing nuclear fusion? "It's clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change, and fusion offers so much potential." "These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all," Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UKAEA, told the Guardian. The results "are the clearest demonstration worldwide of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy," the UK Atomic Energy Authority said. It's the proof of that concept that they have achieved," the Guardian quoted Mark Wenman, a reader in nuclear materials at Imperial College London, as saying. "Five seconds doesn't sound like much, but if you can burn it for five seconds, presumably you could keep it stable and keep it burning for many minutes, hours, or days, which is what you are going to need for a proper fusion power plant. Why is the JET nuclear fusion experiment a major milestone? Pound for pound (gram for gram) it releases nearly four million times more energy than burning coal, oil or gas, and creates virtually no waste, an AFP report said. That's why it's seen as a significant milestone towards making fusion a viable and sustainable low-carbon energy source. That is more than doubled the previous record of 21.7 megajoules set in 1997 by JET. The fusion experiment at the Joint European Torus lab generated 59 megajoules of heat - equivalent to about 14kg of TNT - during a five-second burst of fusion. The atomic nuclei can fuse together to form new elements and release vast amounts of energy. Inside the doughnut-shaped JET, a tiny amount of fuel comprising deuterium and tritium was heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun, to create plasma (an ionised state of matter). How was the fusion experiment in Britain conducted? So there's never enough fuel to produce enormous power instantaneously. So fusion reactors are considered safe.įusion reactors cannot be used to make nuclear weapons since a limited amount of fuel is used at a time, and it's fed continuously. Since plasma has to be maintained at very high temperatures, the reactor stops as soon as plasma cools down. Nuclear fusion is safer than nuclear fission because energy production is not based on a chain reaction. So fusion plants will have to make tritium fuel by using high-energy neutrons, released during fusion, to split lithium into tritium and helium. Deuterium is available in seawater, but tritium is extremely rare and produced in nuclear reactors. The hydrogen atoms (isotopes) fused are deuterium and tritium. Since it's a cheap and clean energy source, experts believe fusion can help address climate change. During nuclear fusion, no radioactive waste is produced helium atoms are a by-product.Įnergy from nuclear fusion is an attractive prospect because it does not release greenhouse gases (1kg of fusion fuel contains about 10 million times as much energy as 1kg of coal, oil or gas). Moreover, these elements are very expensive. Uranium, plutonium, or thorium is used for fission, which results in high levels of radioactive waste. During fission, a single heavy atomic nucleus is split, while fusion requires combining two or more light atoms. What's the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion?įission and fusion release incredible amounts of energy, but in opposite ways. That has been a stumbling block in harnessing energy from nuclear fusion. All nuclear plants worldwide use nuclear fission, which releases heat (energy) that turns water into steam to run turbines and create electricity.įusion too releases energy, but scientists have not been able to generate power in a sustained manner. Nuclear power is the energy gained from fission (splitting atoms) or fusion (combining atoms). Here's an explainer on why the JET nuclear fusion record is a milestone. The Joint European Torus record gives hope that the day of nuclear fusion as a source of power is not far. When nuclear fusion becomes viable enough to provide sustained energy, it will eliminate nuclear waste. Present-day reactors employ nuclear fission to generate power, and at least 400 commercial reactors now provide electricity to more than 30 nations. ![]() That landmark event came amid the clamour for a new generation of nuclear reactors to reduce nuclear waste. Researchers in Britain enhanced the prospect of harnessing fusion energy after releasing a record amount of energy in an experiment in Oxfordshire, southeast England. And they have taken a step closer to making it a reality. ![]() It can provide abundant energy on Earth, which is why scientists have been working to tap it. Nuclear fusion powers the sun and the stars.
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