• Question: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF NUCLER FUSION

    Asked by ewan to Paul on 23 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paul Stevenson

      Paul Stevenson answered on 23 Mar 2010:

      Hi Ewan,

      Nuclear fusion is the power source that the sun uses. It takes hydrogen as fuel, and turns the hydrogen into helium (you can turn one element into another if you work at the level of nuclear physics). This gives off a huge amount of energy because the resulting helium is lighter than the initial hydrogen and since E=mc^2 the mass (m) gets converted to energy (E) (c^2 is just a constant number).

      Now, if we could do the same thing on earth we could take hydrogen (e.g. from seawater) and turn it into helium, which is perfectly safe and has no global warming issues, and generate power essentially for free. It would completely revolutionise electricity generation and means we would not need to burn fossil fuels any more.

      It is a big challenge, but if or when it happens, the world will be a very different, and better, place.

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