“It's not that it's engineered to be safe, it's just the physics of fusion. Even in the most remote possibility,” Taylor said. Another benefit to fusion is that a fusion reactor cannot have a runaway catastrophic nuclear event, like a meltdown. Although seawater has a small fraction of the element, fusion fuel fills our oceans, giving us a virtually limitless fuel supply. Scientists can produce tritium during the fusion reaction while in contact with lithium, and deuterium can be found in seawater. The supply of fusion fuel is virtually unlimited. Isotopes are variations of a chemical element with different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus. It’s what powers the sun.Ī fusion reactor uses hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, as fuel. Large-scale plants have high initial capital investment and its waste products require very long-term storage if recycling efforts are not used.įusion, a separate process, is a nuclear reaction where atomic nuclei of low mass fuse to form a heavier nucleus with an accompanying release of energy. It is well understood, and advanced fission reactor systems can further amplify its benefits in smaller packages with even stronger safety performance than current designs.įission reactor systems can be dangerous when poorly designed or managed, as events in Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown. It provides very reliable, low emission energy, is long-lasting, and has the lowest annual mortality rate of any energy resource. The energy produced by the reaction heats water, which produces steam to turn turbines and ultimately produce electricity.įission has many advantages. Nuclear fission releases heat energy by splitting atoms. The plants rely on either fossil fuels, nuclear fission or renewable sources like hydro to turn the turbines.įission powers today’s electricity-producing nuclear reactors. Power plants generate electricity by converting mechanical power, like the rotation of a turbine into electrical power.
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