Science in Seconds - Fusion

Science in Seconds Know Everything RAVES - Fusion Rheanna Sand: Imagine a pellet the size of a pinhead that carries the energy of a barrel of oil, but without the pesky carbon footprint. No, it's not meth. It's fusion. Fusion is a source of nuclear energy that comes from smashing atoms together to form bigger atoms. Hydrogen into helium. This is the energy that fuels the stars... and the DeLorean in Back to the Future two and three. While researchers at the Livermore Lab near San Francisco haven't had success with banana peels quite yet, they do expect to ignite a pellet made of heavy hydrogen sometime in the next year. This would be the world's first controlled fusion reaction. Uncontrolled fusion is what was used to incinerate Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. We know how to set fusion off and let it proceed at its natural explosive pace, but the real prize is the ability to control the amount of heat produced. The goal is to create steam-generated electricity, similar to what is done in nuclear power plants today, except that they harness the heat of fission as they break atoms apart. The Livermore team appears to have cleared many hurdles standing in the way of fusion. They've built the world's most powerful laser to force the hydrogen atoms together. They've constructed an elaborate mirrored set-up to ensure that the fuel is heated evenly, and have found ways to maintain a high level of smoothness in the pellet while it heats. So, this team might provide the world with the cleanest, most abundant energy source known to humankind. Let's just hope they aren't a bunch of dreamers spending billions of dollars and megajoules of laser energy burning the **** out of a tiny hydrogen pellet. Courtesy of Science in Seconds – All rights reserved Only for educational/non-profit purposes. (Translators are invited to put their name here)