I heard recently a large hurdle to figuring out fusion energy was overcome and while there are still other challenges to face it’s possible that we could one day see fusion reactors.
How is energy released through both fusion and fission? Would it be theoretically possible to split heavier elements into lighter ones and then fuse them back into heavier ones to be split once more?
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So for fusion you have to use lighter elements; they’re easier to fuse so you get more bang for your buck. On the other hand for fission you have to use heavier elements. But when you fuse the lighter elements they don’t become the same heavy elements you would use for fission. To break that element back into the originals you’d have to put in at least the same amount of energy you got out.
So imagine a middle ground (which happens to be around Iron/Nickel) below which you get energy by fusion and above which you get energy by fission. The problem here is that neither of those actions result in an element that crosses that middle ground.
So say you fuse two hydrogens? You get helium + energy. Helium is still on the lighter side of iron so you can’t use that for fission without giving up energy. And the lighter the atom, the more energy you get, so continuing to fuse the output gives you diminishing returns until you get to the point where it would take energy to fuse to an atom above iron and worth using for fission.
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