One of Einstein's great insights was to realize that matter and energy are really different forms of the

same thing.
Matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter.
For example, consider a simple hydrogen atom, basically composed of a single proton. This subatomic particle has
a mass of
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 672 kg
This is a tiny mass indeed. But in everyday quantities of matter there are a lot of atoms! For instance, in one
kilogram of pure water, the mass of hydrogen atoms amounts to just slightly more than 111 grams, or 0.111 kg.
Einstein's formula tells us the amount of energy this mass would be equivalent to, if it were all suddenly turned
into energy. It says that to find the energy, you multiply the mass by the square of the speed of light, this number
being 300,000,000 meters per second (a very large number):

= 0.111 x 300,000,000 x 300,000,000

= 10,000,000,000,000,000 Joules
This is an incredible amount of energy! A Joule is not a large unit of energy ... one Joule is about the energy released when you drop a
textbook to the floor. But the amount of energy in 30 grams of hydrogen atoms is equivalent to burning hundreds of thousands of
gallons of gasoline!

If you consider all the energy in the full kilogram of water, which also contains oxygen atoms, the total energy equivalent is close to
10 million gallons of gasoline!
Can all this energy really be released? Has it ever been?

The only way for ALL this energy to be released is for the kilogram of water to be totally annhilated. This process involves the
complete destruction of matter, and occurs only when that matter meets an equal amount of antimatter ... a substance composed of
mass with a negative charge. Antimatter does exist; it is observable as single subatomic particles in radioactive decay, and has been
created in the laboratory. But it is rather short-lived (!), since it annihilates itself and an equal quantity of ordinary matter as soon as it
encounters anything. For this reason, it has not yet been made in measurable quantities, so our kilogram of water can't be turned into
energy by mixing it with 'antiwater'. At least, not yet.

Another phenomenon peculiar to small elementary particles like protons is that they combine. A single proton forms the nucleus of a
hydrogen atom. Two protons are found in the nucleus of a helium atom. This is how the elements are formed ... all the way up to the
heaviest naturally occurring substance, uranium, which has 92 protons in its nucleus.
It is possible to make two free protons (Hydrogen nuclei) come together to make the beginnings of a helium nucleus. This requires
that the protons be hurled at each other at a very high speed. This process occurs in the sun, but can also be replicated on earth with
lasers, magnets, or in the center of an atomic bomb. The process is called nuclear fusion.
What makes it interesting is that when the two protons are forced to combine, they don't need as much of their energy (or mass). Two
protons stuck together have less mass than two single separate protons!
When the protons are forced together, this extra mass is released ... as energy! Typically this amounts to about 0.7% of the total mass,
converted to an amount of energy predictable using the formula .

Elements heavier than iron are unstable. Some of them are very unstable! This means that their nuclei, composed of many positively
charged protons, which want to repel from each other, are liable to fall apart at any moment! We call atoms like this radioactive.
Uranium, for example, is radioactive. Every second, many of the atoms in a chunk of uranium are falling apart. When this happens,
the pieces, which are now new elements (with fewer protons) are LESS massive in total than the original uranium atoms. The extra
mass disappears as energy ... again according to the formula ! This process is called nuclear fission.

Both these nuclear reactions release a small portion of the mass involved as energy. Large amounts of energy! You are probably more
familiar with their uses. Nuclear fusion is what powers a modern nuclear warhead. Nuclear fission (less powerful) is what happens
in an atomic bomb (like the ones used against Japan in WWII), or in a nuclear power plant.

Albert Einstein was able to see where an understanding of this formula would lead. Although peaceful by nature and politics, he
helped write a letter to the President of the United States, urging him to fund research into the development of an atomic bomb ...
before the Nazis or Japan developed their own first. The result was the Manhatten Project, which did in fact produce the first tangible
evidence of ... the atomic bomb!
 The Birth of Atoms
Your body contains trillions of atoms, of many different elements. There are atoms of hydrogen and oxygen,
carbon and nitrogen,...but your body also contains many atoms of calcium, nickel, potassium, iron...even gold!
In all, there are 92 different types of atoms, most of which can be found in the molecules that make up the tissues
of your body.
Since we know that when the universe formed, the only elements around were hydrogen and helium, where did all
these other types of atoms come from?
The answer is quite startling...all of the atoms in your body, other than helium and hydrogen, were manufactured
in the center of a supernova...a star that once existed, but destroyed itself in a gigantic explosion!

To understand how this is possible, we need to look at what atoms are. The simplest atom is hydrogen, which
contains a nucleus composed of one proton, circled by one moving electron. The next simplest atom, helium, has a
nucleus with 2 protons, and is circled by 2 electrons.
The biggest naturally occurring atom is uranium, with 92 protons, and 92 electrons.
(For simplicity, we will ignore the fact that these atoms also contain neutrons in their nuclei.)

It is possible for small atoms to combine to form bigger ones...but only

under intense heat and pressure...the millions of degrees found in the
center of a star. This process is called nuclear fusion.

Large stars will be so hot

in their interior that
hydrogen atoms are forced
together to form helium atoms,
helium atoms are forced together to form still larger
atoms,...and so on. Eventually, large stars will
contain in their interior, shells of many different heavier atoms, some as big as iron (57 protons).
If the star is large enough, when it runs out of fuel it will collapse in on itself. The relatively cooler outer layers hit
the incredibly hot interior, and a massive explosion occurs, called a supernova. Stars that do this don't live very
long...while a smaller star like our sun may burn for tens of billions of years, a massive star that is destined to
become a supernova may burn out and explode in a matter of a few million years...a ten-thousandth of the lifetime
of our sun.
During this explosion, temperatures rise once again; coupled with intense pressure, this is enough energy to force
larger atoms to combine, creating all of the heavier elements from iron to uranium!
This explosion is so large that it propels the contents of the star out into space...including all the heavy elements it
has made. Vast clouds of atoms of all types remain, where once there was a star.

We know that at the beginning of the universe, there was only hydrogen and helium. Massive stars formed from
these gases, burned out in a few million years, and spewed the heavy elements they created into space around
them.
This process has occurred over and over since the universe began some 17 billion years ago. We can observe it
still happening today, in our large telescopes.
When our star (the sun) and its family of planets formed from interstellar gases some 5 billion years ago, those
gases were already well seeded with heavy elements formed in supernovas that occurred in our interstellar
neighborhood in the previous 12 billion years. All of the heavier elements that went into forming the earth, the
ground, the biosphere,... everything... came from this interstellar gas cloud. And so did all the elements in your
body!

If you would like to learn more astronomy & astrophysics, visit 'We Are Not Alone'.

The Sun | Science Pages | Worsley School

Content & Design by Bill Willis 1997
Wunderland Website Design
 Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future. It is
what provides the sun and the stars with the energy to
shine continuously for billions of years.
Fusion has been used here on earth to produce nuclear
bombs, but has not yet been controlled so that we can
obtain useful energy.
We will try to show how fusion works, and describe
current efforts to tame this limitless energy source.

Fusion is what happens when two atomic nuclei are forced together by high pressure ... high enough to overcome the strong repulsive
forces of the respective protons in the nuclei. When the nuclei fuse, they form a new element, and release excess energy in the form of
a fast-moving neutron. The energy is 'extra' because the mass of the newly formed nucleus is less than the sum of the masses of the
original two nuclei; the extra mass is converted to energy according to Einstein's equation E=mc2 This energy can be used to do useful
work!

The nuclei used by the sun, and in experiments on earth, that undergo fusion, are two isotopes of hydrogen called deuterium and
tritium.

The simple hydrogen atom, which has one proton in its

nucleus, has two isotopes ... similar forms of hydrogen, but
with extra neutrons in their nuclei. One is called deuterium,
the other tritium. You can see the fusion process happening
with these two nuclei, in the diagram at the top of the page.

The first generation fusion reactors will use deuterium and

tritium for fuel because they will fuse at a lower temperature.
Deuterium can be easily extracted from seawater, where
1 in 6500 hydrogen atoms is deuterium. Tritium can be bred
from lithium, which is abundant in the earth's crust. In the fusion reaction a deuterium and tritium atom combine together, or fuse, to
form an atom of helium and an energetic neutron.
It only takes a small amount of these isotopes to produce a lot of energy! The deuterium-tritium fusion reaction results in an energy
gain of about 450:1!! No other energy source we can tap releases so much energy for the amount that is input.

In fact, both the extra neutron and the new helium nucleus
(called an alpha particle) carry off excess energy, which
can be used (to heat water, for example). Fusion is like
lighting a match to a bucket of gasoline. You need that
input energy (the match), but what you get as a result is far
more powerful. Fusion fuel is very energy dense. A
thimbleful of liquid heavy- hydrogen fuel could produce
as much energy as 20 tons of coal. Or, more realistically,
one pick-up truck full of deuterium would release the
energy equivalent of approximately 2 million tons of coal (21,000 rail car loads), or 1.3 million tons of oil (10 million barrels), or 30
tons of Uranium Oxide (1 rail car load). Clearly, with seawater as our energy source, our energy problems would be over forever!

But there's a catch! In the sun, the energy to force nuclei together comes from the sun's immense internal temperatures, approaching
40,000,000 or more degrees at the center! In order to cause nuclei to fuse here on earth (and release their stored energy), they must
either be heated to that temperature, or caused to move fast enough to simulate a correspondingly high temperature.

That has been done already, more than 50 years ago. The energy to set off the fusion reaction was supplied by an atomic bomb, and
the fusion reaction that resulted was called a 'hydrogen bomb'! But the energy release was all at once, and uncontrollable. While
scientists were easily able to control atomic explosions, to create reasonably safe nuclear energy in atomic power plants, no such
controlled reaction has yet been achieved for fusion.
The reason lies in where the energy comes from.
Nuclear fission of a plutonium nucleus already happens naturally ... we just help it along by allowing the reaction to proceed faster.
Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, requires that the fuel nuclei be moving very fast, or be heated to very high temperatures. Scientists
for the last 50 years have been trying to figure out how to do this, but so far the technology at our disposal is not equal to the task!

Here are two different ways that we might achieve 'controlled' fusion, which are currently being explored in laboratories around the
world.

In order for fusion reactions to occur, the particles must be hot enough (temperature), in sufficient number (density) and well
contained (confinement time). These simultaneous conditions are represented by a fourth state of matter known as plasma. In a
plasma, electrons are stripped from their nuclei. Plasma, therefore, consists of charged particles, ions and electrons. There are two
ways that are being explored for confining these hot plasmas - magnetic and inertial.

Magnetic Confinement
Efforts to control fusion first relied on the principle of magnetic confinement, in which a powerful magnetic field traps a hot
deuterium-tritium plasma long enough for fusion to begin.

In November 1997, researchers exploiting the magnetic confinement approach created a

fusion reaction that produced 65 percent as much energy as was fed into it to initiate the
reaction. This milestone was achieved in England at the Joint European Torus, a
tokamak facility--a doughnut-shaped vessel in which the plasma is magnetically
confined. A commercial fusion reactor would have to produce far more energy than
went into it to start or maintain the reaction.

A 'Tokamak' reactor. Powerful magnets keep the

charged nuclei moving in a circle, at high speeds.

'Tokamak' is a Russian acronym for 'toroidal magnetic chamber. Russian scientists first
developed this device. A tokamak is a toroidal plasma confinement device, resembling a
doughnut in shape. The plasma is confined not by the material walls but by magnetic fields. The
reason for using magnetic confinement is twofold. First, no known material can withstand
the hundred million degree temperatures required for fusion. Second, keeping the plasma
in a magnetic bottle insulates it well, making it easier to heat up.
(Such reactors are inherently safe. If the plasma escapes, it immediately cools down, and the
reaction stops!)
Escaping neutrons and energy would heat a body of water; a steam turbine and generator would produce electricity.

This magnetic confinement method for producing fusion is regarded by some scientists as the most promising one for future
commercial energy sites. This stems from the way Magnetic Confinement fusion works, which allows for a sustained reaction and thus
continuous energy production. Many 'tokamaks' are in operation currently, around the world, and more are planned for the future. But
so far, none have been able to sustain the reaction for more than a few seconds ... the plasma leaks out. Improved magnet design and
higher input power will perhaps allow these reactors in the future to maintain a fusion reaction indefinitely, producing copious
amounts of power ... from seawater!

Inertial Confinement
Inertial confinement makes use of intense laser or electron beams to implode a fuel pellet. The pellet of deuterium/tritium fuel - a
peppercorn-size fuel pellet - must be bombarded by two million joules, delivered in 4 nanoseconds. This is a power demand of 500
terawatts, and the equivalent of condensing up to ten hours' worth of electricity used by half a dozen homes into a fraction of a second!

Lasers can do this. After many years of research, scientists have plans to build a very powerful laser that will produce at least as much
energy from fusion as the laser delivers to the pellet, ... but that will still not come close to producing the several 100-fold greater
energy required to power the laser itself. That goal requires a fusion energy output much greater than the energy put into the laser.
Present laser technology is too expensive to go further, for now.
A laser bombardment device.

Here's how it's supposed to work. Many pulsed laser beams hit the fuel pellet
simultaneously, causing the surface of the pellet to become very hot plasma.
This plasma expands inward, compressing the remaining deuterium and tritium so much that
its temperature rises to the required 100,000,000 degrees. For about one tenth of a
billionth of a second, there are the same conditions inside the pellet as those inside a
star, ... and fusion takes place.

To generate 1000 MW of electricity using such a reactor would require micro explosions of about six pellets in one second. This takes
into consideration the inefficiency of the conversion from heat to electrical energy.
In order to achieve these micro explosions, a chamber created to carry away the heat generated by the fusion would be built. A pellet
would be shot into the center of the chamber and then the laser or particle accelerator would fire onto it, causing implosion and fusion.
This would need to be repeated about six times a second.

This method would probably work, but because it is not self-sustaining, (you have to keep feeding in the pellets), it is not very
efficient. Most researchers now believe that magnetic containment devices will be the first ones to actually sustain a fusion reaction.

Why Will Fusion Power Be Important?

By the middle of the next century, the world's population will double, and energy demand will triple. This will be due in large part to
the industrialization and economic growth of developing nations. Continued use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) will rapidly
deplete these limited and localized natural resources.

There is, perhaps, another 50-100 years supply of oil and natural gas, and enough coal for several hundred years. Burning these fossil
fuels threatens to irreparably harm our environment.
On the other hand, the deuterium in the earth's oceans is sufficient to fuel advanced fusion reactors for millions of years. The waste
product from a deuterium-tritium fusion reactor is ordinary harmless helium.

Solar and renewable energy technologies will play a role in our energy future. Although they are inherently safe and feature an
unlimited fuel supply, they are geographically limited, climate dependent and unable to meet the energy demands of a populous and
industrialized world.

Another option, nuclear fission, suffers from a negative public perception. High-level radioactive waste disposal, and the proliferation
threat of weapons-grade nuclear materials, is major concerns. The fuel supply in this case, uranium, is large, but ultimately limited to
several hundred years.

The prospect of successful nuclear fusion technology, on the other hand, promises virtually unlimited energy, with very little danger.
The radiation from a magnetic containment device is easily shielded, and (unlike uranium-fuelled fission power plants), if there is an
accident and the magnetic containment is breached, the reaction immediately stops!

Nuclear fusion indeed looks like it may be the power source of the future!