Fusion Power and the JET

Scientists are all a-twitter at the Joint European Torus (JET), which is a plasma experiment in Oxfordshire, UK. A torus can be defined as a hollow donut, a disappointing snack prospect. Actually, this is an experiment to obtain energy through fusion.

Something kids learn in school is that the sun is powered through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. That is, those atoms smashing into each other and releasing energy. While there is quite a bit of energy in fission (splitting atoms), fusion does even more.

Joint European Torus, Flickr / Kevan (CC BY 2.0)

Scientists have been attempting to harness fusion power for a mighty long time, and the power output of this was...not that impressive. However, they have to start somewhere, and this is the best performance yet. Hope was renewed. In a not completely inaccurate remark, it was said that they created a miniature sun. In comparison to the simplest cell in biology, a sun is not very complex.

Interesting that these types believe in materialism. That means no Creator. So life, the universe, and evolutionists are all the products of time, chance random processes, mutations, lotsa luck — but no intelligence. Yet it's taken years of directed intelligence to get a hopeful start in making a "star." Makes perfect sense in their world.

It is not easy to get a nuclear fusion reaction to go, and even harder to sustain it for any length of time—and five seconds is a long period of time in this context! The long-term goal is to produce a lot of energy that is clean and abundantly available. In a common approach, the isotopes deuterium and tritium are needed. Approximately 1 in 5,000 hydrogen atoms in seawater is deuterium (containing a neutron in the nucleus), so no shortages there. Tritium (containing two neutrons in the nucleus) can be obtained via a process using Lithium, which may lead to a future argument among the experts about whether to use lithium to store energy in batteries, or use it to supply on-demand energy via the fusion process.

To read the entire article, see "Nuclear fusion: the future of energy?" This interesting video from 2020 should prove helpful. Hey, is that Billie Piper? Oh, my mistake.