Mainstream fusion power schemes
fuse hydrogen isotopes called deuterium and tritium to make helium nuclei, releasing large amounts of energy in the process.
At the end of January, experiments will begin with hydrogen in an effort to show that
fusing hydrogen isotopes can be a viable source of clean and virtually limitless energy.
Not exact matches
In Helion's approach to fusion, lightweight
isotopes such as
hydrogen or helium can be
fused under intense heat and pressure.
A fusion power plant, on the other hand, will generate energy by
fusing atoms of deuterium and tritium, two
isotopes of
hydrogen — the lightest element.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a multinational collaboration that represents one of the world's largest attempts to
fuse deuterium and tritium, two heavy
isotopes of
hydrogen.
Under laboratory conditions it is the two
hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — that
fuse most readily when held as a plasma at temperatures of several hundred million degrees.
Fusion reactors heat and squeeze a plasma — an ionized gas — composed of the
hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, compressing the
isotopes until their nuclei overcome their mutual repulsion and
fuse together.
Most fusion research focuses on magnetic confinement, using powerful electromagnets to contain a thin plasma of
hydrogen isotopes and heat it until the nuclei
fuse.
The aim of ITER is to show that, in theory, nuclei of deuterium and tritium (
isotopes of
hydrogen) can be
fused in a searingly hot plasma at the heart of the reactor, thereby releasing large quantities of heat that could be used to generate power.
When completed in 2018, the reactor will
fuse together two heavy
isotopes of
hydrogen to release vast quantities of energy.
At that instant - theory says but experiments have yet to achieve - the
hydrogen isotope atoms inside the target would
fuse to become helium and release more energy in a trillionth of a second than it took to produce the blast in the first place.