Check out this helpful table that lists the difference between fission and fusion, from Chemistry LibreTexts.An international experiment to test the feasibility of using sustained nuclear fusion to produce energy has built a magnet that's as tall as a four-story building and 280,000 times more powerful than Earth's magnetic field, as part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).īut ITER, a scientific partnership among 35 countries, has suffered numerous delays during its construction and isn't expected to generate more power than it consumes until at least the 2030s. Related: Nuclear fusion reactor could be here as soon as 2025īut creating and sustaining fusion is difficult. Fusion power would produce less nuclear waste than fission and uses relatively common light elements, such as hydrogen - rather than rarer uranium - as a fuel supply, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. But generating enough power to smash atoms together until they stick is not easy and generally requires the extreme environment of a star's belly to happen.Įngineers have long dreamed of making sustained fusion reactions here on Earth. The resulting entity is slightly less massive than the original two nuclei, and just like with fission, this missing mass is converted into energy. In nuclear fusion, two nuclei of a light element, such as hydrogen, must overcome their natural electromagnetic repulsion and merge into a single, heavier nucleus. (Image credit: ITER)įusion, by contrast, has yet to be fully developed as a human power source. This is the tokamak complex, which will house plasma that is 10 times hotter than the sun, once it is complete. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor's plasma core is halfway done. Related: 6 years after Fukushima: Has Japan lost faith in nuclear power? Why fusion doesn't produce energy, yet This releases a tremendous amount of power in a short span, generating the devastating blast of the bomb. Fission releases heat, which boils water and generates steam that spins a turbine.īut in an atomic bomb, the cascading chain reaction spirals out of control, with fission happening at an ever-increasing rate. In a nuclear power plant, this process is carefully controlled. In 1951, engineers built the first power plant harnessing the process of nuclear fission to produce energy, according to the U.S. If this neutron hits other nearby uranium atoms, they will also split, creating a cascading chain reaction. When a uranium atom naturally goes through fission, it releases a neutron that will careen around. A single instance of fission might release a relatively small amount of power, but many fission reactions happening at the same time had the potential to be quite destructive if used to develop something like an atomic bomb. All three scientists soon realized the terrible implications of their discovery, which was happening under the shadow of World War II.
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