With all of the issues surrounding climate change and unsustainable energy over the past few decades, society is long overdue for another powerful source of energy. Scientists have been working on nuclear fusion for about as long as nuclear fission, which powers today’s nuclear power plants. However, because it’s much more complicated and powerful, it’s taking them longer to figure this one out.
Fortunately for us, they managed to create more energy than they put into a nuclear fusion reaction recently, which could signal a huge milestone in its development for commercial use. It’s still likely decades out, but things seem to be looking up for fusion reactions.
Fusion energy works by combining elements into heavier elements and runs stars like the Sun, which has an unfathomable amount of energy. Most nuclear fusion attempted on Earth uses hydrogen isotopes in the form of deuterium and tritium fusion. They merge together into a helium atom and one neutron, and we then harvest the energy released from the interaction.
As one could imagine, this is quite difficult and has led to many problems for the scientists involved. Even without any restrictions on budget and policy, nuclear fusion is incredibly hard to make work commercially. It simply isn’t working efficiently enough yet.
Even Newport can benefit from nuclear fusion by adding local jobs and cleaner, more reliable power. If a plant were built nearby, it would efficiently power an extremely large area.
Over time, though, nuclear fusion will be on its path to usability. Exciting developments like the move past the break-even point with energy are just the beginning for this new technology.
