Nuclear Fusion - Bringing the Sun to Earth

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Engineering - Nuclear Engineering, Lancing College, language: English, abstract: The dream that a bathtub of water and 100 g lithium could supply a family for 50 years with electricity stimulated scientists since the 1940s all over the world to make every effort to construct a working fusion reactor that uses the most fundamental of all energy sources: the nuclear fusion that fuels sun.

In the late 1940¿s scientists began to investigate if it was possible to use the nuclear fusion, that had been discovered to be the sun¿s fuel, as an energy source on earth. The source of fusion energy is the binding energy of the atoms.

The details of the physics behind fusion as well as the challenges facing the engineers to build a working reactor are outlined here. Both feasible possibilities of confinement, the Tokamak and the Stellarator are explained and discussed.