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Sustainable Energy

Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: Cold Fusion

March 13, 2013 Peter Terezakis
You’ve heard of the Manhattan Project — the Allied research and development program that resulted in two nuclear bombs being dropped on Japan and the end of World War II — and now it’s time to learn about one of its successors, Project Matterhorn, a Cold War program to control and harness thermonuclear reactions to create fusion power.  Nuclear fusion occurs when two atoms fuse together (usually hydrogen) to form a heavier atom (helium), and releasing a vast amount of energy in the process. This process can only occur at incredibly high temperatures, such as the center of a star (such as our Sun). Every second, the Sun fuses 500 million tons of hydrogen into helium, releasing about 5 million tons of gamma rays that eventually heat and illuminate Earth. For a long time (Project Matterhorn started in 1951), nuclear fusion has been considered a very desirable power source because the fuel is virtually free, and the process releases vast amounts of energy and no pollutants.  There are two competing approaches for the artificial creation of nuclear fusion: Magnetic confinement, which uses massive magnetic force to contain the fusing plasma within a tokamak (doughnut) device, and inertial confinement, which uses lasers to create enough heat and pressure to trigger nuclear fusion. Magnetic confinement is usually considered a better prospect for the limitless production of clean energy — and indeed, magnetic confinement will be used by the 500-megawatt ITER fusion reactor in France — but a lot of work is still being done on inertial confinement by the likes of California’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), which uses 500 trillion watts of laser light to kick-start fusion reactions.
By Sebastian Anthony

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