Fusion Power — Coming Sooner Than We Think?

The power of the ‘future’ could soon be the power of ‘now’

Photo by Diz Play on Unsplash

With the world already feeling the effects of climate change, the race is on to find alternative sources of power — specifically, those that do not dump carbon into the atmosphere. The UK, for example, has pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions to net-zero by 2050.

There are a plethora of alternative energy resources, many of which do not produce carbon dioxide directly. One challenge of replacing fossil fuels has been reliability: the output of renewables can be variable, for example, on less windy days, or when the sun is not shining. Electrical energy can be difficult to store, so having an energy resource that is ‘always on’ is very advantageous, and is one of the main reasons fossil fuels have remained so popular.

Nuclear Fission

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Nuclear power, which is currently generated by fission reactions, is a reliable source of energy and does not produce carbon dioxide (at least directly).

In a nuclear fission reactor, big heavy atoms (often uranium) are bombarded with neutrons (a type of subatomic…