FUSION POWER 

Fusion means joining together.  Two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so, release energy.  Fusion is the process that powers the sun and stars.  Where atoms of hydrogen fuse together when they are heated to 100 million degrees and held together by gravity.  The sun pumps out 100 million times as much energy in a second as the entire population on Earth uses in a year!

Since the 1950's experiments on earth have tried to replicate the process used by the sun.  Where hydrogen is held together by a strong magnetic field and heated by an intense energy beam, such as a laser.  Working fusion reactors have cost between $2,000 (built by a teenager) and $13.3 billion.  Obtaining net energy in this manner has been illusive.  So far all of the hot fusion reactors have required more input energy than the energy produced by the fusion reaction.
 

POTENTIAL OF FUSION ENERGY

In 1954 Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, who was Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at the time, said: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy electrical energy in their homes too cheap to meter." Strauss was talking about nuclear fusion energy, not fission that is today's nuclear energy.  He was way ahead of his time!

The US DOE said, "Fusion energy is arguably one of the most important and rewarding research challenges of the 21st Century.  Fusion power produces no troublesome emissions, is safe, and has few, if any, proliferation concerns.  It creates no long-lived waste and runs on fuel readily available to all nations.