• Question: what is fusion energy?

    Asked by Eliza to Leah on 6 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Leah Morgan

      Leah Morgan answered on 6 Mar 2019:


      Fusion is what the sun uses to make energy!

      We heat hydrogen gas up to 10x hotter than the centre of the sun (150million degrees) to turn it into a plasma. In a plasma, all the electrons separate from the nuclei – if you’ve not studied these yet, it just means the atoms kind of fall apart 🙂 When the hydrogen nuclei are this hot, they can’t avoid each other any more and they crash together. When they crash, they stick together (fuse) and make helium and lots of energy.

      We’re trying to find the best way to make and collect this energy for clean energy power plants!

Comments