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Fusion Energy

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Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation

Abstract

Nuclear Fusion is the power of the sun and all shining stars in the universe. Controlled nuclear fusion toward ultimate energy sources for human beings has been being developed intensively worldwide for this half a century. A fusion power plant is free from concern of exhaustion of fuels and production of CO2. Therefore it has very attractive potential to be eternal fundamental energy sources and will contribute to resolving problems of climate change. On the other hand, unresolved issues in physics and engineering still remain. It will take another several decades to realize a fusion power plant by integration of advanced science and engineering such as control of high-temperature plasma exceeding 100 million degrees in Celsius and breeding technology of tritium by generated neutrons. The research and development has just entered the phase of engineering demonstration to extract 500 MW of thermal energy from fusion reaction in the 2020s. The demonstration of electric power generation is targeted before 2040.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Helical Plasma Research, National Institute for Fusion Science, 322-6 Oroshi-cho, Toki, Gifu, 509-5292, Japan

    Prof. Hiroshi Yamada

Authors
  1. Prof. Hiroshi Yamada
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hiroshi Yamada .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Mississippi, Mississippi, USA

    Wei-Yin Chen

  2. National Center for Physical Acoustics, University of Mississippi, Mississippi, USA

    John Seiner

  3. National Institute of Advanced Industrial, Science and Technology (AIST), Nagoya, Japan

    Toshio Suzuki

  4. The Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), Wien, Austria

    Maximilian Lackner

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Yamada, H. (2012). Fusion Energy. In: Chen, WY., Seiner, J., Suzuki, T., Lackner, M. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7991-9_31

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