Nuclear fusion can generate nearly 4 million times more energy than fossil fuel combustion and four times more per kilogram of fuel than an existing fission nuclear power plant, and has no carbon emissions nor major risk of nuclear waste or meltdown.
The quest to develop nuclear fusion—the process that energizes the sun and other stars—as an earth-based power source dates back more than a century when Albert Einstein and other scientists theorized how enormous amounts of energy could be produced when atoms fuse. That research was partly diverted for wartime weapons priorities but later targeted to develop fusion for commercial-scale energy—what sector proponents have called the “holy grail” for decades since.
Reprinted courtesy of Mary B. Powers, Engineering News-Record, Debra K. Rubin, Engineering News-Record, Peter Reina, Engineering News-Record and David Godkin, Engineering News-Record
Ms. Rubin may be contacted at rubind@enr.com
Mr. Reina may be contacted at reina@btinternet.com
