Nuclear fusion is one of the few clean, cheap energy sources on our planet and is the energy source of the future. The fuel is plentiful, it is much more effective than any other energy source on the planet and we have all the equipment needed to do it. The only problem is learning how to conduct fusion in a controlled environment and to efficiently obtain energy from it. Nobody has built a commercial working reactor yet but those are not too far away. This is the energy source that would eliminate fossil fuels and significantly influence the environment positively. It is what our sun and billions of stars have been using to continue to shine for billions of years and that is where the idea of this came from. Nuclear fusion occurs when atomic nuclei join to form heavier nucleus. Extremely high temperatures around 200 million degrees are needed to increase the probability of fusion.

The research of nuclear fusion goes back to the 1920s when scientists started studying the atom and tried to figure out the source of the suns energy and eventually found out that the source is nuclear fusion. Slowly the idea came from the sun to the earth and scientists decided to try to experiment fusion on earth. At the end of the 60s, Russian scientists invented the Tokamak device. Nuclear fusion investigations progressed in the weapons research by the U.S. and Russia after World War 2. In the 1970s, nuclear fusion became huge and the cost of experimenting and the difficulty was so high that only international corporations could handle. In 1978 Princeton their own PLT Tokamak produced a plasma temperature over 60 million degrees and from the mid-80s experiments were performed in a TFTR and deuterium-tritium experiments began in 1993. Japan had also come out with its own JT-60 Tokamak, which has improved over the years into JT-60U. Today many scientists are working on this topic developing new ideas and new technology to truly harness the maximum power of nuclear fusion. France will have the privilege of hosting the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) worth about 10 billion Euro and most expensive joint project after the International Space Station.

Nuclear fusion is clean, safe and inexpensive and is very economical energy where both the fuel and the process are environmentally friendly. It is 1 million times more effective than nuclear power today and 1 trillion times more effective than fossil fuels. In 1 gram of fuel, there is combustion energy of 11 tonnes of coal and the fuel is virtually unlimited with great amounts of energy produced from small amounts of fuel. It is also impossible for a nuclear explosion because of the minute amounts of deuterium and tritium. Even if there were a breakdown, the plasma would hit its own containment walls and cool down. No chemical combustion products are used and therefore no air pollution can be produced. In addition, there is no disposal of by-products and not a high level of nuclear waste involved. We would save precious money on obtaining fossil fuels and operating expensive plants. This would spring up a completely new industry, which means new jobs to replace the lost ones.

All of these ideas sound excellent however; there are many drawbacks to this popular energy source. The initial machines used for fusion are expensive and it would be about 30 years before the next commercial nuclear fusion plant. Plasma used for fusion can only be maintained in certain conditions, which takes energy and expensive machinery to maintain. Several countries are giving up on nuclear fusion due to a lack of a breakthrough.

A common misconception between people is that nuclear fusion and fission are the same. Nuclear fission is the process of splitting the nucleus of a heavy atom usually uranium in order to attain energy. Nuclear fusion the opposite of fission, which combines two hydrogen nuclei into one helium nucleus under extreme amounts of heat and stress. Unlinke fusion, nuclear fission is expensive, dangerous and extremely radioactive. The fuel for fission requires an element such as uranium or plutonium, which has to go through a costly purification process before it can be used as fuel, and is not abundant. Fuel for fusion on the other hand uses isotopes of hydrogen atoms, particularly deuterium and tritium that can be extracted from regular water.

Overall, nuclear fusion sounds like the future of world that can cut down emissions and destroy fossil fuels. It has almost all the credentials of a perfect energy source once mastered. Out of all the new energy sources proposed to humanity in the last few decades perhaps this was the most quickly accepted and developed. However we still are not their yet but when we are this one energy source can change the world and produce a brand new way of life for us.