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Lead section addition: 4th paragraph in the lead section, after last sentence

Nuclear fusion power, on the other hand, is a developing energy source that has zero emissions and much fewer nuclear waste. It has the potential to sustain worlds energy need for a long time due to its low fuel consumption and high availability of fuels. However, it cannot be described as sustainable because one of the raw materials used for current fusion reactors, lithium, is not limitless.[1] Alternative possibilities such as deuterium-only fusion might satisfy the criterion of "virtually limitless".

Marine Energy

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This will go right below the current marine energy section (under renewable energy sources)

Marine energy is seawater-based energy that is based on wave energy, tidal energy, ocean currents, and energy from salinity and ocean thermal. Particularly, the movement of waves in the ocean produces a enormous amount of kinetic energy, and much of it is unharvested.[2] An estimated 2/1000th of the unharvested energy could match the current demand for power across the globe. It is a seasonable type of energy, making it less reliable than some other forms of energy, but it still remains more predictable than others such as sunlight.[3] Theoretical wave energy converter (WEC) devices would be placed a few miles offshore and use the resulting forces acting on the device to produce energy.[4] Currently, the largest funded research facility is the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC), and is currently the only wave and tidal research center.[5]

Fusion:

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A prospective energy source is nuclear fusion (as opposed to nuclear fission used today).

Deuterium-tritium fusion diagram

Fusion energy is a form of nuclear power generation in which two or more atomic nuclei merge to formulate one or more atomic nuclei and subatomic particles different from those in the initial reaction.[6] Fusion power plants extract heat produced by fusion reactions instead of fission reactions and convert the heat into electricity using steam turbines. The conditions for fusion reaction to occur, including temperature, pressure, and confinement time, are determined by the Lawson criterion.[7] It demonstrates that although the fusion of small atoms releases a massive amount of energy, starting the process needs a significant energy percentage and extreme conditions.[8][9] Depending on the fuel used, reaction temperature varies from tens to hundreds of millions of degrees.[10]

When light elements are fused, they release energy because of the interplay of two opposing forces, namely the strong nuclear force that holds neutrons and protons together, and the Coulomb force that let positively charged protons repel each other. The notable difference in mass between reactant and product implies significant energy release as heat. Fusion reactions of elements lighter than iron are exothermic, while for heavier elements, it takes energy to fuse.

Fusion Fuel

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The most common type of fuel in stars is hydrogen, but most practical fuels that can be used for fusion reactor are deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen.[11] These isotopes react more readily than hydrogen to enable them to attain the requirement for the Lawson criterion with minimal extreme conditions. The fusion reaction between hydrogen isotopes deuterium(D) and tritium(T) is the easiest fusion reaction:

2
1D
 + 3
1T
 → 4
2He
 (3.5 MeV) + 1
0n
(14.1 MeV)[12]

Deuterium is abundant in seawater, with concentration of 33mg per liter. Since fusion reaction requires much less fuel than fossil fuel power plants, deuterium in sea water can sustain our current energy need for billions of years, which is nearly inexhaustible.[13] Tritium, on the other hand, is rare in nature due to its short half life, about 12.3 years, and is commonly obtained by nuclear reactions of lithium and neutron. Known reserves of lithium can sustain supply of tritium for thousands of years, and much more lithium can be extracted from sea water.[13]

Because tritium is hard to produce and raises safety concerns due to its radioactivity, alternative reactions and reactor designs are proposed to reduce dependency on tritium. Many designs of fusion reactor have internal tritium breeder that uses neutrons released in the fusion reaction to convert lithium to tritium.[14] It is also possible to carry fusion with only deuterium, saving the effort to produce and handle tritium, but the temperature requirement is much higher.[10]

Safety and Environmental Impact

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Model of tokamak fusion reactor

Fusion is safer compared to nuclear fission power. Radioactive waste involved are transformation of the internal wall of the reactor into radioactive, and possible fuel leakage. Both inherently has much less risk than a fission nuclear reactor, and can be further reduced by using alternative building materials.[15] While nuclear fission power inevitably produces radioactive waste as the fuel decays, structural radioactive waste production in fusion can be greatly affected by the material chosen, with large room for improvements.[16] Structural radioactive waste produced has lower half life than waste in a fission reactor, and is decomposed quicker than uranium waste.

The deuterium and lithium used for fuel are not radioactive, while tritium is only produced in small quantities and is recycled in the reactor, reducing the effect of possible leakage. Tritium can still chronically leak into the coolant and then the environment, due to its permeability, and accidental leakage is also possible since some amount of tritium will be stored in inventory during operation.[17] Design and improvements on the confinement of tritium is still important to protect worker safety and reduce the effect on environments.

Reactor meltdown is not possible for fusion reactors, since the reaction chamber only carries small amount of fuel that sustains for seconds.[18] Fusion reaction ceases quickly when the temperature and confinement requirements are not met, and any problem with the reactor leads to instant termination of reaction instead of going rapidly. Compared to cooling and shutdown in nuclear fission reaction, confinement is the key of safety in fusion reactor.

Fusion power has very low environmental impact. Operation of fusion reactor has zero carbon dioxide emission. Furthermore, unlike many of the energy sources, fusion reactor does not rely on external environmental factors such as water sources and weather. In contrast, nuclear power plant usually requires sea water to cool down reactors. Estimation of environmental cost such as effect on ecosystem and climate shows that fusion has one of the least environmental impact among many energy sources.[19]

Current Development

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Fusion Energy Progress

Fusion energy research leads to two types of energy confinement: magnetic confinement and inertial confinement. The goal of magnetic confinement is to keep a constant flow of plasma, superheated matter, using magnetic fields so that the fusion reaction can occur.[20] While magnetic confinement aims to provide a stable environment for fusion to take place, inertial confinement operates on the opposite principal. Instead, inertial confinement aims to produce a fusion reaction using the interaction between many laser beams interacting with deuterium and hydrogen and eventually produce short, massive bursts of energy.[21] Between the two, the different types of magnetic confinement have generally been explored more, but inertial confinement was not proposed until 20 years later in 1961 when laser beams were invented.[22] Tokamak, torus-shaped fusion reactors, have been the most researched and funded type of magnetic confinement reactor. As of September 2018, at least 220 experiment tokamak facilities have been created, with an estimated 50 of them still operational today.[23]

ITER building construction in 2018

The biggest fusion project currently is the internal mega project ITER which is based in France. Many world powers such as the European Union, Russia, China, and the United States have all committed to shares of ITER's 20 billion dollars budget to complete a working fusion reactor. ITER's timeline expects the first plasma to be produced by 2025, with deuterium-tritium operations to commence in 2035.[24] While ITER is still an experimental attempt of fusion that produces no electricity, DEMO is a subsequent project that will be built upon ITER to explore commercialization possibilities. DEMO is still under conceptual development but is expected to be built by 2050 with an estimated power output of 500 to 1500 MW.[25] DEMO will be the first step to industrial-scale fusion reactor.

Economic impact

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The future electricity production cost of fusion energy is estimated to be comparable to current energy sources such as nuclear fission power and wind power. [19][26] Although fusion development requires a massive amount of investments over decades, its inherent low environmental cost, cheap fuel, and safety reduce the cost and make it a competitive energy source compared to other sustainable energies.[19] The environmental cost of fusion is 20 times smaller than that of coal.[27] Counting the possibility of failure, investment in fusion is still worthwhile, as the benefits can bring us to outweigh the cost.[26] However, the benefit will not be significant at the start of its commercialization. Fusion will slowly take over the energy market in the second half of the century and is estimated to capture 20% of the energy market by 2100.[27] It will have a higher cost than fossil fuel but the significantly lower environmental cost and more potentials, making it desirable to replace fossil fuel as a more sustainable energy source slowly.  Unlike many forms of energy that have inherent constrains on energy output and efficiency, fusion releases a remarkable amount of energy and has the potential to be exploited further with advances in science and technology. It can release four times more energy than fission and millions of times more than chemical energy.[28] Although the conversion of heat to electricity is still under the efficiency constraint of heat engines, fusion still has the potential to product much more energy in a steady and sustainable way.


It is the reaction that exists in stars, including the Sun. Fusion reactors currently in construction (ITER) are expected to be inherently safe due to lack of chain reaction and do not produce long-lived nuclear waste.[29] The fuel for nuclear fusion reactors are very widely available deuterium, lithium and tritium.[11]

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  5. ^ "EMEC: European Marine Energy Centre". Retrieved 2020-08-01.
  6. ^ Smith, Chris Llewellyn; Cowley, Steve (2010-03-13). "The path to fusion power†". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 368 (1914): 1091–1108. doi:10.1098/rsta.2009.0216. PMC 3263804. PMID 20123748.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  7. ^ Windsor, Colin (2019-03-25). "Can the development of fusion energy be accelerated? An introduction to the proceedings". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 377 (2141): 20170446. doi:10.1098/rsta.2017.0446. PMC 6365849. PMID 30967045.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  8. ^ Haider, Quamrul (2019-01-09). "Nuclear Fusion: Holy Grail of Energy". Nuclear Fusion - One Noble Goal and a Variety of Scientific and Technological Challenges. doi:10.5772/intechopen.82335.
  9. ^ Adelerhof, Jordan; Thoopal, Mani Bhushan; Lee, Daniel; Hardy, Cameron (2014). "Clean and Sustainable Fusion Energy for the Future". PAM Review. 1: 20–42. doi:10.5130/pamr.v1i0.1384. ISSN 2205-5231.
  10. ^ a b Lawson, J D (1957-01-01). "Some Criteria for a Power Producing Thermonuclear Reactor". Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section B. 70 (1): 6–10. doi:10.1088/0370-1301/70/1/303. ISSN 0370-1301.
  11. ^ a b "Ch 24 Page 172: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air | David MacKay". withouthotair.com. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  12. ^ Adelerhof, Jordan; Thoopal, Mani Bhushan; Lee, Daniel; Hardy, Cameron (2014). "Clean and Sustainable Fusion Energy for the Future". PAM Review. 1: 20–42. doi:10.5130/pamr.v1i0.1384. ISSN 2205-5231.
  13. ^ a b Ongena, J.; Van Oost, G. (2000-03). "Energy for Future Centuries: Will Fusion be an Inexhaustible, Safe and Clean Energy Source?". Fusion Technology. 37 (2T): 3–15. doi:10.13182/fst00-a11963194. ISSN 0748-1896. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ "Tritium Breeding". ITER. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  15. ^ McCracken, Garry; Stott, Peter (2005). Fusion:The Energy of the Universe. Academic Press. pp. 198–199. ISBN 978-0-12-384656-3.
  16. ^ Fetter, Steve; Cheng, E.T; Mann, F.M (1990-11). "Long-term radioactive waste from fusion reactors: Part II". Fusion Engineering and Design. 13 (2): 239–246. doi:10.1016/0920-3796(90)90104-e. ISSN 0920-3796. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Tanabe, Tetsuo (2016-12-06), "Behavior of Tritium Released to the Environment" (PDF), Tritium: Fuel of Fusion Reactors, Tokyo: Springer Japan, pp. 331–334, ISBN 978-4-431-56458-4, retrieved 2020-08-01
  18. ^ Angelo, Joseph A. (2004). Nuclear Technology. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 474. ISBN 978-1-57356-336-9.
  19. ^ a b c Entler, Slavomir; Horacek, Jan; Dlouhy, Tomas; Dostal, Vaclav (2018-06). "Approximation of the economy of fusion energy". Energy. 152: 489–497. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2018.03.130. ISSN 0360-5442. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ McCracken, Garry; Stott, Peter (2005-01-01), McCracken, Garry; Stott, Peter (eds.), "Chapter 5 - Magnetic Confinement", Fusion, Burlington: Academic Press, pp. 47–60, doi:10.1016/b978-012481851-4/50007-x, ISBN 978-0-12-481851-4, retrieved 2020-07-28
  21. ^ Breeze, Paul (2019-01-01), Breeze, Paul (ed.), "Chapter 17 - Nuclear Power", Power Generation Technologies (Third Edition), Newnes, pp. 399–429, doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-102631-1.00017-1, ISBN 978-0-08-102631-1, retrieved 2020-07-28
  22. ^ "Nuclear fusion - History of fusion energy research". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  23. ^ "All-the-Worlds-Tokamaks". www.tokamak.info. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  24. ^ "ITER - the way to new energy". ITER. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
  25. ^ "ITER ... and then what?". ITER. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  26. ^ a b Ward, D. J.; Cook, I.; Lechon, Y.; Saez, R. (2005-11-01). "The economic viability of fusion power". Fusion Engineering and Design. Proceedings of the 23rd Symposium of Fusion Technology. 75–79: 1221–1227. doi:10.1016/j.fusengdes.2005.06.160. ISSN 0920-3796.
  27. ^ a b Cook, I.; Miller, R. L.; Ward, D. J. (2002-12-01). "Prospects for economic fusion electricity". Fusion Engineering and Design. 63–64: 25–33. doi:10.1016/S0920-3796(02)00286-7. ISSN 0920-3796.
  28. ^ "Nuclear Fusion : WNA - World Nuclear Association". www.world-nuclear.org. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  29. ^ Fernandez, Elizabeth. "The US Comes One Step Closer To Producing Commercial Fusion Power". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
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