In the Joint European Torus (JET), fusion plasma rushes around the reactor’s core at 150 million °C, hotter than the centre of the sun. Wouldn’t this heat the earth?

Question

In the Joint European Torus (JET), fusion plasma rushes around the reactor’s core at 150 million °C, hotter than the centre of the sun. Wouldn’t this heat the earth?

In: 2

Answer 1

What has more total heat, your oven at 180C or a tiny decorative light bulb at 2500C?

Temperature is a measure of the thermal energy per molecule, but it doesn’t tell you how many molecules there are or how much total energy is in the system.

Plasma in nuclear tests or scientific experiments can reach phenomenally high temperatures but the total volume of material is very small. The total thermal energy in the system is not significant on a large scale.