Nuclear Fusion as a power Source
Nuclear
power has been proven to be a highly
efficient source of power in the modern world. It
currently provides 12.8% of
the world’s electricity. Other dominant power sources
are coal (40.4%), natural
gas (22.2%), hydro (16.3%) and oil (4.6%). Nuclear power
has distinct
advantages over these other forms of power production.
Aside
from hydro power, nuclear fusion is the most
environmentally sound source of energy from the list
above. Hydro power has the
disadvantage of being location dependent; a nuclear
reactor can be built independently
of a source of water. Another advantage that nuclear
fusion has is that its
fuel is extremely abundant. Nickel has a
relative abundance of 80 parts per million while iron is
41,000 parts per
million. Nickel and iron both yield high energy returns
when undergoing nuclear
fusion. However many of the lower order elements can be
used for nuclear fusion
if the correct methods are applied.
At the
moment nuclear fusion is not producing much
energy. Thermonuclear facilities are capable of breaking
even with their energy
spent. However the potential energy rewards are very
high in comparison with
other energy sources. The issues related to the
advancement of nuclear fusion
as a power source is now limited by the engineering.
Peter
Thirolf a physicist at the Luwdwig Maximillion
University of Munich Germany , working on nuclear fusion
tells his students, “When
I started as a student, people said, ‘We will get
the fusion reactor in 30 years.’ What I'm telling my
students now is, ‘We will
get the fusion reactor in 30 years.’”