by Nicole Alvarez, Staff Writer
Is it possible that technology will be able to artificially produce the same energy as the sun? Scientists around the world are researching new technologies to make just that possible. Just think of it, a time when cars and computers alike will be powered by the sun’s energy.
Scientists, research teams, and government projects are working to come up with new technology so one day we can live off of the sun’s energy, or nuclear fusion. The nuclear power plants in the U.S. alone produce 30% of the world’s nuclear generated electricity according to the World Nuclear Association. The 99 power plants in the U.S. produce electricity using nuclear fission, not nuclear fusion. As of right now, the practical use of nuclear fusion to produce electricity is decades away.
The International Energy Agency states that nuclear fission is the process of when the nucleus of an atom splits apart into two or more nuclei. The process of splitting releases a large amount of energy. That energy is captured and used to generate electricity. Nuclear fusion is the direct opposite of nuclear fission. Instead of an atom’s nucleus splitting apart, the nuclei of two atoms are fused together to become one new atom with one nuclei. This process also releases a large amount of energy. In fact, nuclear fusion generates more energy than nuclear fission does. Nuclear fusion, also, does not produce the nuclear waste that is another end product of nuclear fission.
There is now technology to study nuclear fusion and the feasibility of using it as an alternative source of energy. Project ITER is a global project researching nuclear fusion. ITER, Latin for “the way”, is funded by the European Union, China, India, South Korea, Russia, and the U.S. The project was started nearly thirty years ago when it was first proposed by General Secretary Garbachev of the former Soviet Union at the Geneva Superpower Summit in 1985. Construction of a nuclear fusion power plant for project ITER began back in 2010 and is expected to be completed in 2019. The nuclear fusion plant is being built in Cadarache, France.
For ITER to work, the new nuclear fusion power plant needs equipment and technology that nuclear fission power plants do not have. A tokamak is a piece of equipment that was designed and created solely for nuclear fusion. Tokamaks are were the nuclear fusion takes place. Fusion For Energy, a website created by the European Union as part of their contribution to ITER, says that the two atoms, usually deuterium and tritium, are heated to 150 million degrees Celsius. At the beginning of the process, the atoms are in a gaseous form. Once the temperature is raised, the two gases are turned into plasma, the fourth state of matter. It is during this time that the nuclei of the deuterium and tritium are fused together. The end product of this process is a helium atom, a neutron, and enormous amounts of energy.
Project ITER is focused mainly on studying the plasma produced during fusion and the technologies to be used in the coming power plant. The ITER team believes that should project ITER be successful, it will bring about the Age of Fusion.
