The Tokamak

- Nuclear fusion reactions don't happen on Earth naturally, so they have to be manmade. The way they are made is in something called a Tokamak. This tokamak is like a donut shaped container. This is a Russion acronym and in English means "Toroidal Chamber with Magnetic Coils". The outer part of the Tokamak is protected because the magnetic coils, made of copper, produce a shield that can resist the high temperatures. This magnetic field is similar to the field on the outer rim of the Earth. The reaction cannot be sustained long enough because there is not enough fuel. A fusion reactor requires a high density of molecules, extremely high temperature plasma to energize matter and a long enough confinement time to sustain the reaction. The two molecules that are banged together are deuterium and tritium. These two molecules are two isotopes of hydrogen; they are heavier than regular hydrogen. When these two atoms collide and combine to make one, helium and a neutron are released.

- The reaction requires a ton of energy. The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has made a world record of 10.7 million watts of controlled fusion power. The fusion reaction also created temperatures exceeding 500 million degrees. Although it set new standards and enlightened a lot of physicists, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) never reached its goal to complete energy production. The physics of these reactions is more like particle physics. The Energy released by the atoms colliding can be calculated using the change in mass of Einstein’s equation E=ΔMC². Where C = speed of light constant.

- The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactors usually require more energy than they put out. This is because in order to create the plasma like molecules it requires an immense amount of electricity. In order to satisfy the thermonuclear fusion conditions, the temperature of the injected tritium and deuterium need to be heated up to extreme temperatures.

- The magnetic field created by the coils protects everything outside of it, but it does not prevent all the heat from escaping. The theory of creating energy with nuclear fusion would of course require a heat transfer from the inner part of the reactor to a heat exchanger and then to boil water. The water would then spin turbines creating energy like a coal power plant or a nuclear power plant.