Though the power of the Sun is quite amazing, the Sun is simply a giant, burning ball of hydrogen. Due to the immense gravity of the Sun, hydrogen particles at the Sun’s core are under enough pressure that they collide with one another despite the force of the positive charges to repel one another. In this, hydrogen is converted to helium and energy is released, which powers the Sun.
Engineers are coming closer and closer to developing devices that can create sustained nuclear fusion reactions on Earth. The primary difficulty lies in making the hydrogen particles move fast enough in a confined enough space so that fusion can occur, since these conditions do not naturally exist anywhere on Earth. In the last month alone, we have taken huge strides toward making this a possibility. Scientists in China used their Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) to heat hydrogen plasma to nearly 50 million degrees celsius for 102 seconds.
The benefits of using nuclear fusion as an energy source are profound. Nuclear fusion would provide nearly unlimited energy since it is fueled by hydrogen. Since hydrogen can easily be extracted from sea water, the earth’s oceans would essentially become Earth’s energy source. Furthermore, using nuclear fusion as our energy source would be great for the environment. The only by-product of nuclear fusion (besides energy) is helium, which is not harmful to the atmosphere and mostly escapes into space. Lastly, nuclear fusion is relatively safe and is fairly easy to control. On the other hand nuclear reactors can be radioactive for thousands of years after they are turned off. Nuclear fusion truly has the potential to be the energy source of the future.
