Big step in N-fusion

Press, 14 August 1978, Page 9

Big step in N-fusion

NZPA Princeton Princeton University scientists have reached a significant milestone toward controlling nuclear fusion that could be a breakthrough in providing cheap electrical power, according to a university spokesman.Scientists have been trying for decades to find a I way of controlling fusion, the type of reaction that provides the sun’s energy and is used to set off hydrogen bombs. They know, that fusion would provide vastly greater amounts of energy than the fission process used at present, which is the splitting of atoms. The problem with fusion has been that it is difficult to control. Antony de Meo, a spokesman for Princeton’s plasma physics laboratory, said that last week scientists had I managed to heat a form of; hydrogen to more than 26 i million degrees Celsius — al big step in developng a fu- j sion reaction. Two other factors in-1

voived in fusion that must be controlled are the density of the gas and the time that the reaction is sustained. Mr de Meo predicted that scientists would be able to control the reaction for a full second within four years using equipment now being built. He also speculated that . because of last week’s developments at Princeton, scientists would be able to control fusion in a little more than a decade — certainly by the turn of the century. In fusion, two simple atoms, such as hydrogen, arr passed close to one anothe: and the forces that hold th< individual atoms together are turned against each other, breaking up the atom? and releasing trpmendou; amounts of energy. Unti now, scientists have no been able to control thesi forces with any great ac I curacy. i Controlling nuclear fusiot i would be perhaps the great (est scientific achievement o (mankind, because it woul< provide an infinite energ; ■(source that would be vir

t tually inexhaustible, he said, y The fuel used in the t Princeton experiments is r deuterium, or heavy hydro- -- gen, which is cheap to 1- extract from sea water, Mr J de Meo said. s Generation of electricity g through fusion would resemble the existing fission t reactors. It would use the - ixtreme heat of a nuclear - reaction to create steam that - would drive turbines which e would in turn drive elecy rical generators. Fusion is considered to 1 tave three advantages over r fission. — t would create less radiot active waste, substan1 | tially reducing the probI lem of nuclear-waste s disposal; f t would produce no “fissile” by-products, such as plutonium, that < ( could be used to create : atomic weapons; and I t would use common : i atomic elements — deuj terium and tritium, two ( hydrogen isotopes commonly found in nature ( — instead of rare urai nium fuels.