Fission vs Fusion. What is the difference?

Fission vs Fusion. What is the difference?

Nuclear fission and fusion are two different types of extremely powerful ways to produce energy using atoms. They both use different ways to create this energy and are in fact are almost if not 100% different from each other. In this blog post, I will talk about the differences between these two energy producers.

Fusion

Fusions meaning is two things coming together and combining, this is exactly what nuclear fusion is, two Isotopes combining (an Isotope is an atom that has a normal amount of protons but a different amount of neutrons.) Generally, the Isotopes are small, imbalanced, at an unstable temperature and in an extreme condition/being pressured. Fun fact about nuclear fusion is that it powers our sun. Our sun requires energy and gases to stay alive and burning and this energy comes from nuclear fusion. Many of the explosions on the sun are from the nuclear fusion reaction.

In the sun atoms of Tritium and Deuterium (they are both isotopes of Hydrogens, Hydrogen 3 being Tritium and Deuterium being Hydrogen 2.) When these two Hydrogen Isotopes combine they form a Helium nucleus. This process creates an extreme amount of energy (the amount of energy produced depends on the isotopes used but generally fusion produces more energy than fission.) The two Isotopes will form a more stable element (in this case Helium.) However, the stable element will not be able to contain all of the energy from the previous two isotopes combined. Because of this quite a lot of the energy in the previous two isotopes will be left behind then that leftover energy will be used for civilization. While the sun uses almost only Hydrogen to create Helium these are not the only elements used in nuclear Fusion.

The problem with Fusion currently is that scientists haven't found a way to control the energy that has been let use from the reaction. Because of this, they are yet to create a fusion reactor that can reach the full potential of fusion energy. The benefits of Fusion reaction are quite great, it produces little radiation compared to fission and generally much more energy.

Fission

The word Fission means "a splitting or breaking up into parts". Like it sounds it is the exact opposite of fusion. Fusion is two isotopes combining whereas Fission is when a big atom breaks apart.  An atom about to do fission is also quite unstable with it having an unormal amount of neutrons and a normal amount of protons.

The Atom when under this extreme pressure and conditions will break apart after being hit by a stray neutron. This reaction generates the energy used in a fission reactor. However, this reaction causes other chain reactions by sending out a Neutron which then smashes into other atoms making this reaction happen once again. In a Fission reactor, they use special rods to separate all of the Atoms and stopping a massive amount of Atoms all doing a fission reaction at once. If this happened all the energy released as well as nuclear waste would explode causing the generator to have a meltdown. That is a basic overview of what causes a generator to explode.

As well as energy and a Neutron nuclear fission will release two wasteful nuclear atoms. These atoms are generally useless and just take up space and damage people due to radiation. However, sometimes the waste produced has a bit of use. For example, long-lasting nuclear atoms generally emit a lot less radiation, these types of nuclear atoms can be used in reinforcing bullets and armour. The reason why this is safe and possible is that nuclear atoms have a half-life. This means that by the time the atom reaches halfway into its life it will off lost 50% of its energy due to Atom decay. For example, carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730. The good thing about long halve lives is that the longer their half-life is the less radiation they give out every second making long-lasting atomic atoms safer to be around than small life ones. However, of course, an extended period of time around these will cause reactions.

Nuclear Power 

All of this ties into the average citizen through nuclear power. Nuclear power is made through the energy produced by these reactions in a generator (or nuclear atoms decaying). Once that process is done the nuclear power is then distributed to the everyday citizens to power stuff such as your lights, chargers, devices connected by a cable and many other different things. Currently, nuclear fission is the most used way to create nuclear energy due to the fact that nuclear fusion is yet to be perfected.

Conclusion

As you can see these two different methods of energy production are indeed very different. Fusion definitely seems like the preferred way to create energy (once we finally accomplish using it in a generator safely). The reason for that is that Fission generally creates less energy and more nuclear waste due to it splitting into two nuclear atoms with generally no use.