Fusion in the News: Not on Your Bistro Plate, but on a Different Sort of Nuclear Cuisine

Fusion bistro restaurants involve combining two types of cuisines on one plate. Japanese Raman noodles topped with an Italian Bolognese sauce, or Mexican quesadillas filled with French duck á l’orange would come to mind as far as culinary fusion goes.

The type of fusion in recent news has been of a different sort of combination – that of two atoms into one. Nuclear fusion occurs when two lighter atoms of one element combine together to make one heavier atom. Hydrogen atoms have typically been used to fuse into Helium. On the Periodic Table of Elements from high school chemistry class, you may recall that hydrogen is the lightest element with one proton in its nucleus, while helium the next lightest at two protons. Hydrogen is also the most abundant element in the universe.

Stars like our sun, all use nuclear fusion to make heavier elements. The process of nuclear fusion on that massive scale produces an almost inexhaustible amount of heat and light while making heavier elements like gold, silver, copper and iron. 

The Big Nuclear Fusion Reactor in the Sky, the Sun (Image: Public Domain, Synthonic.net)

Unlike the dangerous radioactivity, volatility and toxic waste associated with nuclear fission, nuclear fusion produces lower levels of radioactivity than the earth emits on any given day. The hydrogen-plasma fusing process can only exist within a magnetic contained reactor, and stops abruptly upon hitting the side of the reactor. The meltdowns, toxic plumes, and area evacuations associated with post-nuclear fission disasters like Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, cannot happen under conditions of nuclear fusion.

So far, projects have only been able to sustain nuclear fusion for a matter of minutes at best. Despite billions of dollars spent in research and development, national and international efforts have not yet achieved a sustained reaction that would become a virtually inexhaustible source of clean electricity.

The video below explains the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

Fusion Energy Explained (Video: PhD Comics, YouTube)

Thank you for reading and happy viewing.