What is Fusion?
Fusion is the process that creates energy by combining atoms. It's the power source of stars, including our Sun - nature's own giant fusion reactor.
How does it work?
In the Sun's core, hydrogen atoms move at incredible speeds. When these fast-moving hydrogen atoms collide, they can combine
(or "fuse") to form helium, a heavier element.
This fusion happens with two conditions:
1. Extreme heat (15 million degrees Celsius in the Sun's core)
2. Immense pressure from the Sun's strong gravity
When atoms fuse, they release enormous amounts of energy through light and heat. This is why the Sun shines and keeps our planet warm.
That clean, abundant, and safe energy, the "holy grail" of clean energy, is what we want to create here on Earth.
Bringing Star Power to Earth
To create fusion on Earth, we use two special forms (isotopes) of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium. These are like hydrogen but with extra particles in their centers.
The challenges?
1. These atoms are both positively charged and so naturally repel each other like magnets.
2. On Earth, we don't have the immense gravitational pressure the Sun has.
To overcome these challenges, we need:
1. Extreme heat - at least 100 million degrees Celsius (hotter than the Sun!)
2. High pressure - to push the atoms close enough to fuse.
The pressure on Earth is not close to what's happening in the Sun's core, so we must compensate by heating it to more than 100 million degrees Celsius.
The Magnetic Confinement Path To Fusion
The Plasma Challenge
To reach the necessary conditions for fusion in a magnetic , we turn deuterium and tritium gases into plasma, an electrically charged state of matter (the fourth state of matter).
For successful fusion, this plasma must be:
Hot enough - to overcome the repulsive forces
Well-contained - so it doesn't touch anything and lose heat
Dense enough - so many atoms collide and fuse
The Heat!
Nothing can withstand 100 million degrees Celsius - any material would instantly melt.
The solution involves two key approaches:
Vacuum chambers - to prevent heat transfer.
Powerful magnets - to keep the plasma floating in the center (and compress them to increase the rate of fusion).
Once humans get the heat, the density, and the confinement time controlled, we will get fusion energy.
At nT-Tao, we're working on a compact fusion system. With the technology we are using, we expect to reach a higher temperature, higher density, and shorter confinement time to produce energy. That's our mission.