Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists. A fusion research device has been fired up that may lead to the creation of a limitless, clean source of energy, a 14-member team of engineers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, reported Wednesday. Plasmas are the building blocks for fusion energy.
Fusion is achieved by melding atomic nuclei of two elements under extremely high temperatures.
This releases energy without the negative drawbacks of energy created through the process of fission the splitting apart of atoms, such as in nuclear reactors. You don't have radioactive byproducts, you don't have weapons-grade material. HSX combines the best attributes of two existing plasma technologies known as tokamaks and stellarators. Tokamaks have achieved the best results to date, but require a strong current in the plasma itself. Stellarators do not require that current, but they do not produce the magnetic field that confines plasmas to reach the necessary high temperatures up to 10 million degrees.