Can we make a Sun on the Earth?
The nuclear fusion reactions have taken a long time to prove their efficiency. According to the recent update, we can get a net gain energy from fusion reactions. This news was shared by The US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
What is nuclear fusion?
The concept that we know is sun generates energy from nuclear fusion reactions, the hydrogen atoms combine at a very high temperature and pressure to form helium atoms. Sun can do this easily because its high-density core allows it to create immense pressure, and under such conditions, atoms collide. On the earth, we create ionized gas or plasma for the atoms to combine easily. It’s not as easy as it seems, we do not use hydrogen particularly as the sun does, but the isotopes, deuterium and tritium because they combine easily facing less coulomb barrier because of fewer protons in them. This fusion releases a lot of energy as the mass of the combined helium is less than the mass of the two atoms. This means that mass is converted into energy. This same concept was explained by Einstein in his equation E = mc².
Deuterium + Tritium → Helium-4 + Helium-3 + Energy
There are many other ways to do nuclear fusion, but this is the most common that we follow today.
How can we create self-sustaining energy from nuclear fusion?
This is the biggest challenge we face in creating energy from nuclear fusion, we need to put more energy into heating the plasma than we get in return. If this problem can be solved then we can have a self-sustaining energy power plant. If we can achieve a high fusion gain, we will reach the point of ignition. Ignition is a point at which energy that is released by a fusion reaction is self-sustaining usually at very high temperatures, and no more energy needs to be put to continue the reaction. This of course is impossible nowadays.
Plasma that is heated up to such high temperatures needs to be controlled to sustain fusion reactions. We have different technologies for that like,
Magnetic Confinement: Here we use strong magnetic fields to control the plasma by shaping it through magnetic forces that act on the charged particles. Examples are tokamaks, stellarators, etc.
We also used developed feedback mechanisms and active plasma control systems to note the temperature, density, and stability of plasma.
Why are we not stepping into it?
The very good reason for this is that this technology is not commercially stable. While many other technologies such as photovoltaic cells, wind energy, etc. have proven themselves better and also profitable, we would rather invest in these energies than nuclear fusion which is not in a stage to go with.
Our dream of becoming energy-free, which means not putting much and getting more back is still far away. Yes, we can make a sun on our planet but it will take time.
