One of the topics that turns up in science programs from time to time is fusion power, and how this could be the energy source of the future.
But for those that follow science to some extent, it might appear that this has been touted as the future energy source for around 50 years with little seeming progress having been made.
So just what is fusion power and why is it so difficult to extract energy through this method?
Well, the fact is that fusion energy is what happens when two atomic nuclei are joined together - e.g. two hydrogen nuclei combining to form helium. When this happens there is a huge release of energy as there is some mass lost when the fusion occurs. This energy given out is much higher than that in a fission reaction which is what happens when an atom splits in nuclear reactions.
Therefore if we could harness fusion power, it would seem that our energy crisis would be over forever. However it is rather hard, because huge energy input is needed to get atoms close enough together that they fuse, and this requires conditions a little like those on the sun to be re-created and that is very hard to do.
It requires insane amounts of energy to get a plasma to that temperature, and finding materials that will withstand the heat and pressure and conditions is very hard indeed, then there is the problem of extracting the energy in a useful fashion and therefore creating a fusion facility that does actually get out more energy than is put in.
It seems likely that eventually we will get to the stage where enough research is done and fusion becomes viable as a way of getting energy, however it may be longer away than we think and require either a radical new design or understanding of how fusion works and could work. It may be that trying to recreate sun like conditions on earth is actually the wrong way to go about it and there is an easier way to go about it than the way nature has found of creating a giant ball of gas with huge gravity that leads to fusion starting: a star by any other name.
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