Fusion Energy Power Stations

Fusion energy seems to have fallen by the wayside of general knowledge amidst the furore about fossil fuels and the cost of implementing effective renewable energies. This energy source is a method of generating electricity using the same nuclear reactions that occur on the surface of the sun.

Nuclear Power has a bad name, and the recent disaster in the Fukushima nuclear power station has not helped this. However the dirty name Nuclear Power has is somewhat deserved; breaches in the power station containment walls can be catastrophic, the stations produce waste that will linger to tens of thousands of years and Uranium itself is a non-renewable resource that must eventually be exhausted.

Happily, the only feature Nuclear Fusion energy shares with the current nuclear power stations is the name. Fusion power does not use Uranium and does not produce toxic by-products. The way a fusion plant generates electricity ensures that explosions cannot occur. Also if there ever was a leak from a fusion power plant, there would be no environmental problems as neither the fuel itself nor the waste products are dangerous.

What Is Fusion Power?

Fusion is the process that whereby the sun gives out energy. When the core, or nucleus, of two Hydrogen atoms crash into each other at a high enough speed they fuse or join together to make a larger nucleus as well as giving off a spare neutron. The nucleus they form is that of a Helium atom. However, the weight of the final Helium nucleus and the free Neutron together is less than the original weight of the two Hydrogen atoms.

This extra bit of weight is lost by being converted into energy. The amount of energy released in this reaction is calculated using Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2. The energy or heat given off by the fusion reactions is used to turn water into steam, and the steam is used to power turbines to generate electricity in the same way as a regular coal fired or nuclear power station.

How Effective Is Fusion?

Apart from its cleanliness and complete lack of dependence on fossil fuels, fusion energy provides a great deal more energy per unit of fuel than any other method of power generation. Even though Fusion power is in its infancy at the moment, fuel costs are already less than 1% of the operating costs of the functioning Fusion projects.

As far as efficiency goes, Fusion reactions produce more than 10,000,000 times more power from a unit of fuel than does a chemical reaction such as that used to run a hybrid vehicle. Imagine that in the context of a motor vehicle: if we can get 10 miles to a gallon of fuel with the old combustion engine, a fusion version would give us 100,000,000 miles with the same amount of fuel. That's a little over the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Of course it's not practical to have a car powered by a fusion reactor...at least not yet.

When Will It Be Online?

There have been a couple of small scale fusion energy reactors that have been proven to be effective generators of electricity. However, in order to make large quantities of clean energy larger scale power plants need to be constructed. The physics involved in this is extremely complex but this is not the limiting factor. The main barrier to building a larger scale fusion power plant is money.

The most up to date project is the international ITER experimental reactor which is expected to cost $40 billion to construct. That's a lot of dollars, but when we consider that the US consumes in excess of 18 million barrels of oil a day. With the price per barrel hovering around the $100 mark, that's an energy cost of $1.8 billion EACH DAY. Since fusion has the potential to completely eliminate all our reliance on any external energy source, spending $40 billion on a fusion reactor looks like a pretty good deal.

We can only hope that common sense overcomes greed. But while there's still a dollar to be made from oil it is highly unlikely that fusion will be seriously considered.