What fuels humanity? Greed, avarice, knowledge, intelligence, the unknown. Actually, the world is fueled with coal, in broad terms, fossil fuels. 80% of the world relies on fossil fuels as a base for their energy. But according to MIT and General Fusions in 10 to 20 years things might change.

With the introduction of nuclear fusion, not to be confused with fission, we will theoretically have a machine capable of generating energy with more than 100% efficiency.

Fusion and Fission

Even though other South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile have started working with nuclear energy, Colombia is behind with no nuclear reactors nor plans to build any.

And frankly, the word ‘nuclear’ has a negative connotation be it to Chernobyl, Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Even though it carries a similar name nuclear fusion is safe.

Nuclear fission is defined as either a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay; these processes don’t create energy they leak it. Nuclear fusion is a completely different reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei come close to forming different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles. After the reaction has occurred the difference in mass of both particles transforms into an absurd amount of energy with Einstein’s famous E=mc^2.

Fission and Fusion Today:

“Nuclear fission leads to nuclear power specifically through the splitting of the nucleus by reduction of the neutron, splitting of uranium-235 by the absorption of the neutron producing nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion has not yet been proven to be a reliable source of energy but it’s the process where hydrogen fuses into helium, helium fuses into beryllium,  and so on. That’s how the sun provides its energy.” David Watson, AP Physics Teacher.

As implied by David Watson Nuclear fission creates nuclear energy, but nuclear fusion  can’t be used as a source of reliable energy as of right now.

Dangers of Fission

Nuclear fission is used in thirty-one countries worldwide, the most common form is in the American designed Heavy Water Reactor, which is not the safest, but is the cheapest. Even though nuclear energy is a reliable source, the radioactive waste generated by it is extremely dangerous. If radioactivity is contained there are no complications, but exposure to it can be fatal. That is why research for nuclear fusion is so popular, it is an energy source that is cleaner, less expensive and has a much greater energy output. Today, the leaders of nuclear fusion are General Fusions and MIT, who believe it’s the future of sustainable energy, and according to General Fusions, “One hundred percent clean, with the only byproducts being helium like for party balloons, and energy.”

How does Fusion Work?

Nuclear fusion is how the sun radiates heat. To obtain a fusion reaction, we first need to recreate the conditions at the center of the sun. We heat up particles to one hundred and fifty million degrees Celsius and compress them until forced to fuse. The main process proven to work are TOKAMAK, and deuterium ignition. For TOKAMAK, you make a plasma donut manipulated with helium cooled magnets and for the second, you take a pepper size piece of frozen deuterium and bombard it with lasers from all sides at exactly the same time.

What is General Fusion’s Approach

While both of these methods have worked, both used up more energy than was created, simply they weren’t efficient. General fusion describes their working model as somewhat of a futurist piston. First, they created a 5 million degree ball of plasma and inject it into the main chamber, then they rapidly compress it with steam-powered pistons while injecting minuscule amounts of deuterium. The pressure then heats the deuterium to 150 million degrees, at that point, the deuterium ignites releasing energy and helium.

Both the simulations and the model have been proved effective and with the creation of the largest plasma injector by General Fusion themselves, they claim to be capable of creating a nuclear demonstration plant in four to five years. An engineer at General Fusion explains the delay due to the complexity of the project as he comments, “Every aspect is complex, even the most basic things such as the determining the temperature of plasma is calculated by shining a laser through the plasma and measuring the light that is deflected by the plasma, and one of every quadrillion photons gets turned into a useful signal.”

The Future of Energy:

Today, Colombia is dominated by hydropower generators which make around sixty-five percent of the countries’ energy. It’s then followed by thermal generators sitting over thirty percent. Despite Colombia’s potential for new renewable energy technologies such as wind, solar and biomass we choose to build gigantic infrastructures that potentially cause damage to the environment near it. With the promise of a cleaner, cheaper energy, that literally forced the scientist to create a new term due to its efficiency, and it can be implemented into already existing hydropower and thermal plants, which only requires lithium and deuterium (a hydrogen ion) that can be distilled from seawater. The future of sustainable energy is nuclear fusion.