A nuclear fusion reactor in China, dubbed the "artificial sun," has broken its own record to bring humanity one step closer to near-limitless clean energy.
A) solar energy isn’t clean, and it’s the exact opposite of environmentally friendly; it’s just that current power sources are so much worse it looks good by comparison.
B) fusion cannot ever be profitable. The fuel for it is the most common on the planet, if not the universe, requires no special refining, and can’t be made artificially scarce. A post fusion world is a post energy industry world. It’s the practical end of what currently owns the US and other countries.
This has drastically reduced funding for it and has blocked advancement for decades. This project among others in China have no profit motive, they are trying to accomplish a goal without caring how they can become rich off it. If fusion energy is possible, it’ll be done in China.
The fuel for it is the most common on the planet, if not the universe, requires no special refining
It is true that regular hydrogen (with 1 proton and no neutrons) fuses in the Sun, first to deuterium (2 protons combine into a nucleus that immediately decays a bunch of radiation and becomes a proton and neutron), then another hydrogen proton to create helium-3 (2 protons, 1 neutron), then two helium-3 nuclei fuse to create 2 hydrogen protons and a stable Helium-4 nucleus (2 protons, 2 neutrons).
But nobody on earth is trying to accomplish fusion through that difficult pathway. We don’t have the ability to create the pressures and heat to ignite that reaction.
The way all of these fusion projects are trying to achieve are deuterium (1 proton, 1 neutron) plus tritium (1 proton, 2 neutrons), to form Helium-4 (2 protons, 2 neutrons) plus a neutron and a bunch of energy. That is a reaction that human technology can ignite. So all the research goes into this particular reaction.
And for that, tritium is exceedingly rare. We can make it as a byproduct of fission reactors, from lithium.
As far as I know, the current plans for fusion require deuterium and tritium. Whole deuterium can be easily obtained from water, tritium is a bigger problem. Its replacement, helium-3, is also not really frequent on earth.
I feel like little fusion has kind of missed the boat. It’s been “just a few decades away” since I was in school, and that’s a good while ago now.
We can already get limitless clean energy from the real sun.
Here’s why it’s been so long:
We should do both
There is no two.
A) solar energy isn’t clean, and it’s the exact opposite of environmentally friendly; it’s just that current power sources are so much worse it looks good by comparison.
B) fusion cannot ever be profitable. The fuel for it is the most common on the planet, if not the universe, requires no special refining, and can’t be made artificially scarce. A post fusion world is a post energy industry world. It’s the practical end of what currently owns the US and other countries.
This has drastically reduced funding for it and has blocked advancement for decades. This project among others in China have no profit motive, they are trying to accomplish a goal without caring how they can become rich off it. If fusion energy is possible, it’ll be done in China.
It is true that regular hydrogen (with 1 proton and no neutrons) fuses in the Sun, first to deuterium (2 protons combine into a nucleus that immediately decays a bunch of radiation and becomes a proton and neutron), then another hydrogen proton to create helium-3 (2 protons, 1 neutron), then two helium-3 nuclei fuse to create 2 hydrogen protons and a stable Helium-4 nucleus (2 protons, 2 neutrons).
But nobody on earth is trying to accomplish fusion through that difficult pathway. We don’t have the ability to create the pressures and heat to ignite that reaction.
The way all of these fusion projects are trying to achieve are deuterium (1 proton, 1 neutron) plus tritium (1 proton, 2 neutrons), to form Helium-4 (2 protons, 2 neutrons) plus a neutron and a bunch of energy. That is a reaction that human technology can ignite. So all the research goes into this particular reaction.
And for that, tritium is exceedingly rare. We can make it as a byproduct of fission reactors, from lithium.
As far as I know, the current plans for fusion require deuterium and tritium. Whole deuterium can be easily obtained from water, tritium is a bigger problem. Its replacement, helium-3, is also not really frequent on earth.