Physicists first suspected more than a century ago that the fusing of hydrogen into helium powers the sun. It took researchers many years to unravel the secrets by which lighter elements are smashed together into heavier ones inside stars, releasing energy in the process. And scientists and engineers have continued to study the sun’s fusion process in hopes of one day using nuclear fusion to generate heat or electricity. But the prospect of meeting our energy needs this way remains elusive.
The extraction of energy from nuclear fission, by contrast, happened relatively quickly. Fission in uranium was discovered in 1938, in Germany, and it was only four years until the first nuclear “pile” was constructed in Chicago, in 1942.
There are currently about
440 fission reactors…
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