Fusion Energy: Getting to Scale this Century

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This article was written by a human, no AI was utilized.

The Big Bang was the original fusion ‘reactor’

The original fusion power, you may not be aware, was during the first 20 minutes of the universe’s history. Cosmological nucleosynthesis converted 25% of the hydrogen nuclei (protons) by mass to helium nuclei in the cosmic fireball of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Before the first half hour had passed the universe had cooled too much to allow any additional fusion to take place.

Today, the baryonic matter in our universe is still 99% hydrogen and helium, with only 1% by mass found in all heavier elements combined.

Below are the Big Bang reactions, also the easier fusion reactions, requiring lower temperatures than would, say, fusing three heliums to carbon. A huge amount of radiation in the form of gamma rays was released in this overall set of reactions, and we now detect the remains of that radiation as the 2.73 K cosmic microwave background radiation.

Table 1. Big Bang nucleosynthesis reactions are listed; all of these occurred in the first 20 minutes of the universe’s history. Symbols: H hydrogen, D deuterium (heavy hydrogen), T tritium (heavier hydrogen), He helium, Be beryllium, Li lithium, p proton, n neutron, e electron, γ gamma ray, ν neutrino, and the +/- denote electrical charge. The Sun is powered by proton-proton fusion to D, then proton capture to He-3 then He-3 pair collisions to He-4 plus two free protons. Earthbound fusion experiments mostly use the one part of the reaction chain in the second column, third down, T plus D fuse to a He nucleus, emitting an energetic neutron. Source: Wikipedia article on Nucleosynthesis.

This is the same challenge that Earth-bound man-made fusion attempts face, that is, keeping the fusion reaction sustained not for minutes or an hour, but for days, weeks, and months. So far humanity has not been able to pass even the…