With the current high price of oil and the ongoing effects of climate change being felt around the world, there is a need for alternative energy sources to meet the world’s energy supply. Nuclear fusion has long been seen as a possible solution to the energy crisis due to the fact that it has the potential to provide energy without greenhouse gases or large quantities of radioactive waste.

Fusion is the process in which two atomic nuclei are forced together into a single nucleus. The resulting nucleus has less mass than the two original nuclei, and the leftover mass is converted to energy. Fusion is taking place at the core of the sun where hydrogen nuclei are converted to helium nuclei. The immense gravity and pressure near the core of the sun at temperatures allow fusion to occur at temperatures of around 15.7 million degrees kelvin. On earth, plasma must be heated and forced together by electromagnets. The 100-million-degree temperatures that are needed to produce fusion on earth take a vast amount of energy to produce. All attempts at fusion reactions made by scientists so far have required more energy to produce, than they have created.

ITER is the latest megaproject attempting to demonstrate the viability of using fusion to create sustainable energy on earth. The facility in the south of France is an internationally run project attempting to use fusion to produce a net energy gain. The project aims to produce an energy gain ratio of 10 while maintaining a fusion pulse of up to 8 minutes. These goals are determined to demonstrate the viability of commercializing fusion reactors for the energy demands of the future. Unfortunately, even the most optimistic timelines do not expect commercial fusion reactors to be feasible before 2050. 

Speaker(s): Dr. Stephan Braun