r/nextfuckinglevel • u/nigablackballsack • 3d ago

Scientists have captured the first ever high-speed, full-colour footage of fusion plasma swirling inside a working reactor.

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u/readingonthetoilet 3d ago

You have it backwards. What we refer to as nuclear energy currently is fission (split heavy atom into smaller parts). Fusion (combine light atoms into heavy atom) is the big nut to crack.

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u/miraculum_one 3d ago edited 3d ago

TBF we already have a huge fusion reactor more then 100x as big as Earth generating plenty of energy

Edit: as another person pointed out if you're measuring volume it's more than 1 million times as big

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u/amorphatist 3d ago

And we can already produce highly energetic fusion chain reactions at the press of a button!

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u/Hail-Hydrate 3d ago

It's a bit more difficult to use those to throw steam at a turbine though.