Fusion: The Worldwide Race To Capture The Power Of The Sun

Researchers in multiple nations have created what is called a tokamak reactor, which uses enormously powerful magnetic fields to contain the fusion reaction for milliseconds of time. This shows the worldwide race to capture the power of the sun.

For decades it has been the modern version of turning lead into gold but its promise of clean inexhaustible energy is coming closer every year.

The atomic process that powers the sun has the means to alter how we harness energy to power our world, but conquering the physics of containing a fusion reaction has proven to be enormously difficult. Yet the nation that creates a genuine, sustained, fusion reaction will own the future.

Not to be confused with a fission hydrogen bomb (that splits the nuclei of atoms into smaller atoms), physicists explain that a controlled fusion reaction (that combines the nuclei of atoms) creates temperatures up to one hundred million degrees Celsius. It is difficult to conceive of mastering a reaction that is almost ten times the temperature at the Sun’s center. However, researchers in multiple nations have created what is called a tokamak reactor that uses enormously powerful magnetic fields to contain the reaction for milliseconds of time. Part of the challenge is how to use less energy to create that reaction than the energy required to sustain it.

The short, “non-physicist” explanation of this process is that it allows nuclear fusion to heat hydrogen at extraordinary temperatures that, in turn, create a superheated plasma gas. The energy and heat produced by this reaction can ultimately be used to generate steam that turns turbines of any size for any purpose. The amount of fusion fuel needed to produce enormous amounts of energy is a mere fraction of what fossil fuels would require and creates no pollution in the atmosphere or radioactive waste. Nor, to create fusion, would we have to depend on hostile nations to ensure supplies of that ever-abundant element, hydrogen.

Scientists from the University of Tokyo have created “Jizai Arms,” which resemble the real Doctor Octopus arms. This wearable backpack can power up to six detachable robot arms and moves with the user’s body.

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