![]() ![]() The behaviour of plasma is now well-understood, and so the building of a power reactor is simply a matter of overcoming engineering hurdles – work is expected to commence on the DEMO fusion reactor in 2030. The temperature has been achieved (over 100 million degrees), however confining the hot fuel plasma using powerful magnetic fields has taken a while to perfect. Fusion vs fission: clean, green nuclear energy technologies explained ABC Science / By Stuart Gary Posted Sun at 5:52pm New developments in laser technology could see nuclear fusion as a viable power source within 15 years. ![]() There is no chain reaction involved – hence there can not be an explosion – the reaction is achieved simply by getting the fuel hot enough and containing it tightly enough for the components to collide and fuse. This chain reaction is the key to fission reactions, but it can lead to a runaway process, as in a nuclear bomb.įusion is a much harder reaction to achieve, however it yields more energy than fission. The result of the instability is the nucleus breaking up (in any one of many different ways), in the process producing more neutrons, which in turn hit more uranium atoms and make them unstable and so on. Fission Ask Question Asked 10 years, 1 month ago Modified 2 years, 11 months ago Viewed 1k times 4 I understand why fission generates large amounts of energy when the nucleus is split, but then why does fusion generate such large amounts of energy. The difference between them is in the process: One melds atoms with smaller nuclei together by fusing them while the other breaks them apart into fission products. Both reactions release energy which, in a power plant, would be used to boil water to drive a steam generator, thus producing electricity.įission is triggered by uranium absorbing a neutron, which renders the nucleus unstable. Fission and fusion are two ways to release energy from atomic nuclei via nuclear reaction. In fission, energy is gained by splitting apart heavy atoms (uranium) into smaller atoms (such as iodine, caesium, strontium, xenon and barium, to name just a few) whereas fusion is combining light atoms (in current experiments two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium), which form a heavier one (helium). ![]()
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