Normally, fusion is not possible because the strongly repulsive electrostatic forces between the positively charged nuclei prevent them from getting close enough together to collide and for fusion to occur. The nuclei can then fuse, causing a release of energy.

Hydrogen fusion then expands into a shell around the old burnt-out core, and so much energy is produced that the star temporarily brightens and expands by many times over, the expansion cooling the surface, turning the star into a class M “red giant.” When the temperature hits around 100 million degrees Kelvin, the …

100 million degrees Celsius

Nuclear Fusion reactions power the Sun and other stars. In a fusion reaction, two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. The process releases energy because the total mass of the resulting single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei. The leftover mass becomes energy.

Because fusion requires such extreme conditions, “if something goes wrong, then it stops. No heat lingers after the fact.” With fission, uranium is split apart, so the atoms are radioactive and generate heat, even when the fission ends. Despite its many benefits, however, fusion power is an arduous source to achieve.

On Earth it is very difficult to start nuclear fusion reactions that release more energy than is needed to start the reaction. The reason is that fusion reactions only happen at high temperature and pressure, like in the Sun, because both nuclei have a positive charge, and positive repels positive.

One of the biggest reasons why we haven’t been able to harness power from fusion is that its energy requirements are unbelievably, terribly high. In order for fusion to occur, you need a temperature of at least 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. That’s slightly more than 6 times the temperature of the Sun’s core.

Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. Fusion processes require fuel and a confined environment with sufficient temperature, pressure, and confinement time to create a plasma in which fusion can occur.

A fusion reactor will not explode, it uses plasma to generate heat and so can’t explode. If a hole was cut in the reactor during an ongoing confinement, the plasma would quickly cool off. It would look a lot like an explosion. Most of it would be heat and radiation.

A viable nuclear fusion reactor — one that spits out more energy than it consumes — could be here as soon as 2025. That’s the takeaway of seven new studies, published Sept. 29 in the Journal of Plasma Physics. If a fusion reactor reaches that milestone, it could pave the way for massive generation of clean energy.

As explained earlier, the fusion process begins with two protons coming together and one up-quark turning into a down-quark to create a neutron. This is around 200 times hotter than the core of the Sun, so not hot enough for fusion!

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

South Korea’s ‘artificial sun’ has set a new world record by reaching a temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius for longer than ever before. KSTAR managed to heat plasma at the blistering temperature for 20 seconds, over twice as long as the eight-second achievement managed by the machine in 2018.

The Sun is a main-sequence star, and, as such, generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 620 million metric tons of hydrogen and makes 616 million metric tons of helium each second.

Chinese scientists are working on harvesting the energy of the Sun, but it’s not solar energy. The country has developed its very own “artificial sun,” a nuclear fusion research device that is supposed to pave the way for clean energy — similar to the real Sun.

China’s “artificial sun” set a new record after it ran at 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds, according to the state media. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device designed by China replicates the nuclear fusion process carried out by the sun.

China has successfully completed the first test of its nuclear fision reactor, known as “Artificial sun” because it mimics the energy-generation process of the Sun. Nuclear fision is a promising technology that can produce enormous amounts of clean energy with very few waste products.

Evgeny Vorozheykin

The night skies might soon have company: Chinese scientists are planning to launch an artificial moon into orbit by 2020 to illuminate city streets after dark. Scientists estimated that it could be eight times more luminous than the actual, original moon.

Fusion reactors, unlike fission reactors, produce no high activity/long life radioactive waste. The “burnt” fuel in a fusion reactor is helium, an inert gas. Activation produced in the material surfaces by the fast neutrons will produce waste that is classified as very low, low, or medium activity waste.

Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur.