Why does nuclear fusion require so much heat and pressure to occur?
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In order to fuse hydrogen into helium, you need to overcome two atoms mutual repulsion of each other due to the electromagnetic force. To do that, you need energy, in the form of heat and pressure. The sun gets both for free as a side effect of its mass. Being so massive, it has a lot of gravity, which puts a lot of pressure on the core which generates a lot of heat. Stars are in a perpetual state of blowing itself apart, but it’s gravity keeps it together, and the two opposing forces reach a point of stasis.
On Earth, we don’t have the advantage of mass and gravity, so we have to apply much more heat and pressure on what is a plasma of hydrogen that isn’t very dense.
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