Nuclear Fusion-A Colossal Energy Source

With the fast depletion of all other conventional forms of energy resources, it became very much essential to opt for alternative that will be abundant enough to last for quite an effective period of time. Lately, a lot of experimentation and projects are being undertaken to implement nuclear fusion to serve the above purpose. We are familiar with the term nuclear fission i.e. heavier elements breaking down into smaller particles releasing energy; whereas Nuclear Fusion is a phenomenon reverse of fission i.e. lighter elements unites to form heavier elements with release of energy of much greater magnitude compared to fission. In the process of fusion, the Coulomb’s Forces are much lesser compared to the binding energy of the resulting nuclei. The very first baby step towards research on fusion began in the year 1929. Building upon the nuclear transmutation experiments by Ernest Rutherford, carried out several years earlier, the laboratory fusion of hydrogen isotopes was first accomplished by Mark Oliphant in 1932. Later on, during Manhattan Project (1940), the concept of fusion was thought for the first time for military purpose, and many other followed after. Research for civil purpose began only in 1950s through thermonuclear fusion. Two projects, the National Ignition Facility and ITER were proposed for the purpose. Designs such as ICF & TOKAMAK are the mega sized reactors upon which world are looking forward to. Although a German company named Lockheed Martin has begun investigating a highly classified reactor of about 100MW (much smaller in size compared to TOKAMAK), its result are yet to be seen. What we need to make a summary about is how well this method (Nuclear fusion) can be used to explore the enormous amount of energy it can produce& what are the measures taken for this purpose.