Fusion could be the most consequential technology ever produced by humanity. There’s a profound, almost mystical, symbolism in our ability to confin

The Promise of Fusion

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2023-01-27 06:00:07

Fusion could be the most consequential technology ever produced by humanity. There’s a profound, almost mystical, symbolism in our ability to confine the power source of our solar system into a test tube. In some ways, achieving fusion will feel like a final triumph over nature. After millennia of staring up at the Sun and worshipping its role in giving energy to all life on Earth, we are now learning to mimic and reproduce this power for ourselves.

Our version of fusion, however, will arguably be even more efficient than the processes happening in the Sun, because it will need to happen faster, at higher temperatures and in a smaller area than that available to the Sun. In fact, fusion on Earth will need to happen at temperatures ten times higher than those in the very core of the Sun, a fact that seems like it should be impossible.

However that’s not the only thing that sounds impossible about fusion. Its promises of energy abundance, a near infinite fuel supply, the ability to fuse new elements and increase the power available to each person have the ability to completely reshape human life on Earth. As hard as it is to fathom that we are now capable of developing technologies that produce tiny stars, it’s even harder to imagine what this technology will allow us to achieve in the decades and centuries to come.

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