This article uses the Korean movie Pandora to warn of the dangers of nuclear power, explains the principles and benefits of nuclear fusion energy, and explores the potential for nuclear fusion to become a safe and sustainable energy source for the future.

Introduction

The South Korean movie Pandora follows the struggle to prevent a secondary explosion and leakage of radioactive waste due to poor construction at a nuclear power plant after the largest earthquake in history causes the plant to explode, releasing radioactivity into the air and harming many people. Pandora serves as a cautionary tale to educate and alert people to the dangers of nuclear accidents that they may not be aware of.
Nuclear power, commonly referred to as “nuclear power,” is the centerpiece of the film, a form of electricity generation that uses water vapor created from energy generated through a nuclear fission chain reaction to turn a turbine generator to produce electricity. The fission reaction that powers a nuclear power plant is a type of nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom, usually a large mass number such as uranium or plutonium, collides with a neutron or destabilizes itself and splits into smaller nuclei. As the nuclear mass decreases before and after fission, the reduced mass is converted into energy and released.
However, when fission occurs in a nuclear power plant, it produces large amounts of radioactive material and generates a lot of heat, which can lead to a major accident. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 contaminated much of Europe with radioactivity, and the March 2011 explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan spread radioactive material across Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. The meltdown caused the core to melt down, penetrating the steel pressure vessel and into the concrete containment vessel, and the massive amounts of water injected to cool the core flowed into the ocean, contaminating seafood in the area with radioactivity. Eight years later, many people are still suffering from the after-effects of radiation, and the contaminated environment has yet to be restored to its original state.
Recognizing the dangers of nuclear power, as well as the controversy over radioactive waste disposal, many countries are implementing policies to reduce nuclear power generation and developing new and renewable energy sources. One such source is nuclear fusion energy.

What is nuclear fusion?

Let’s take a look at the nuclear fusion process that produces nuclear fusion energy, a type of renewable energy. Nuclear fusion is when nuclei with light masses, such as hydrogen, combine to form heavier nuclei. The binding energy produced by a nucleon with a lighter mass than an iron atom is less the smaller the mass, so the heavier the nucleus, the more stable it can become. The difference in binding energy appears as a mass deficit, which generates enormous fusion energy. Nuclei that are heavier than iron nuclei can also undergo nuclear fusion when energy is provided from the outside, allowing the two nuclei to combine, and once fusion has occurred, the nucleus cannot easily split apart even if the energy is lowered. This process of nuclear fusion is the same as how the sun produces light and heat, so fusion devices are sometimes called “artificial suns.
Stars that generate their own energy and light, such as the Sun, utilize nuclear fusion reactions to reach extremely high temperatures of over 100 million degrees Celsius. In this state, atomic nuclei fuse together in a nuclear fusion reaction, creating energy. In the early 20th century, people didn’t know how the Sun could continue to generate vast amounts of solar energy. According to the law of conservation of energy, the amount of energy emitted from the sun’s surface should be equal to the amount of energy present inside the sun, which was impossible with the energy sources known at the time, such as wood and coal. When research later showed that the way the sun gets its energy is through nuclear fusion, many people began to wonder if they could actually harness it.
In addition to fusion power plants, one nuclear weapon that has been developed using this technology is the hydrogen bomb. Hydrogen bombs are relatively environmentally friendly, as they do not produce large amounts of radioactivity during the hydrogen fusion reaction. However, most of the explosive power of a hydrogen bomb is determined by the nuclear fusion that occurs during the nuclear explosion, and the reaction cannot occur without the release of large amounts of X-rays as an initial trigger. Furthermore, the efficiency of hydrogen bombs is currently equivalent to that of TNT of the same mass, and further development is needed.

Advantages of nuclear fusion

Why would people want to develop nuclear fusion technology and harness its energy through research? To answer this question, we must first talk about the advantages of nuclear fusion.
First, nuclear fusion uses materials that exist in nature as feedstock. This is something that most renewables have in common, but unlike fission, which uses uranium, which has limited reserves, fusion uses materials that are readily available in nature. Nuclear fusion uses deuterium (²H), which can be obtained from seawater, and tritium (³H), which is created from lithium, which can be easily extracted from soil. Hydrogen is currently readily available on Earth, and even more so in space, so we don’t have to worry about running out of it.
Next, nuclear fusion is economical because the fuel is very efficient. The energy generated during fusion power generation is about 638 GJ per gram of hydrogen, which means that fusion reactions generate seven times more energy than fission reactions when using the same mass of fuel. Furthermore, the energy generated by fusion using one gram of hydrogen is comparable to the energy produced by 21 tons of coal and about 60 drums of oil, making it incredibly energy efficient.
Nuclear fusion is also a very safe technology. Fission power generation relies on the presence of a critical mass to trigger a chain reaction, providing a steady stream of thermal power while controlling the reaction with neutron decelerators. Fusion power, on the other hand, relies on refueling the fusion reactor with hydrogen on an as-needed basis, so even if there is a problem controlling the nuclear reaction in the reactor, there is little chance of an explosion. The hydrogen, the fuel for fusion power, exists in the reactor as a plasma, and unlike solids, hydrogen plasma is very dense and can hold only a small amount of thermal energy per volume. If control fails and the plasma hits the reactor lining, it will dissipate and the nuclear reaction will stop.
Finally, nuclear fusion is environmentally friendly and produces very few harmful substances. The amount of radiation produced by fusion power generation using hydrogen from nature is actually higher than that of fission power generation. However, unlike fission power generation, which produces radioactive substances that are deadly to humans, and thermal power generation, which produces large amounts of sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and other harmful substances that are emitted into the atmosphere, the fusion process produces non-radioactive, environmentally harmless helium, which is harmless to humans and the environment.
In this way, nuclear fusion utilizes natural materials to generate energy and is highly efficient and economical. If we can utilize the way the sun and nature obtain energy, we will be able to enjoy many of the aforementioned benefits. Therefore, many countries are continuing to conduct research on nuclear fusion because they believe that there is no more efficient alternative to solve humanity’s energy problems than nuclear fusion energy at a time when resource depletion and environmental pollution are intensifying.

Practicalization of Nuclear Fusion

Numerous countries are working hard to realize the many benefits of nuclear fusion. Once the scientific demonstration of nuclear fusion became possible, the world’s nuclear fusion research shifted toward commercialization, aiming for engineering applications and commercial electricity production. In response, advanced nuclear fusion countries established an international collaborative research device to share research results and speed up commercialization.
This is ITER. ITER means “road” in Latin, and it embodies humanity’s hope for a “road to new energy”. The ITER project is the largest international collaborative research and development project to jointly build an international nuclear fusion test reactor to finally prove the commercial viability of nuclear fusion energy in the face of fossil fuel depletion and environmental concerns. The project was initially led by four countries – the United States, Russia, the European Union, and Japan – but has since been joined by South Korea, China, and India, bringing the total to seven countries.

The future of nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion is making steady progress. In order to make nuclear fusion practical, outstanding science and technology are required, and recently, the question has been raised: Can nuclear fusion be realized at room temperature?
There have been a number of people claiming that nuclear fusion can be realized at room temperature. In March 1989, Stanley Ponds and Martin Freischmann of the University of Utah in the United States announced that they had successfully conducted a room-temperature nuclear fusion experiment using palladium, which has the ability to absorb hydrogen, but the results of the fusion reaction were inconsistent and were not recognized by the scientific community. Since then, various claims have been made, including bubble fusion reactions, but it seems difficult to realize room-temperature nuclear fusion with current technology.
The future energy market will be dominated by new and renewable energy due to environmental concerns, and nuclear fusion energy will lead a change in the future energy supply system because it can supply all forms of energy. However, research on nuclear fusion energy is still in its early stages and is only just beginning. In the future, we will need to solve technical problems such as diagnosing the plasma, keeping it stable, and removing impurities. To do this, we need to take a long-term approach, and we need to have policies that guarantee talented people and long-term support.

Conclusion

Nuclear fusion has been featured frequently in recent movies. In the movie “Iron Man,” the main character, Tony Stark, uses a room-temperature nuclear fusion device to power his Iron Man suit. He uses this device to fight various villains and become a superhero. Also, in the movie “Spider-Man 2,” Dr. Octopus is a scientist who studies nuclear fusion using tritium (tritium tritium), hoping to gain unlimited power through nuclear fusion reactions. His fusion experiments fail repeatedly, but the fusion reactor itself becomes an entity with a desire to control humanity. In these movies, nuclear fusion is portrayed as a technology that can harness unlimited energy.
The problem with fusion power generation is neutron radiation. Neutron rays are streams of high-speed neutrons, and the high-speed neutrons radiate the reactor. Unlike fission power, which requires large amounts of reaction products to be isolated from the environment, fusion power produces much less environmentally harmful waste than fission power because it only needs to be treated when the reactor is decommissioned. It is important to recognize that radioactive waste is produced, albeit in smaller quantities than fission.
I am in favor of fusion power generation. However, it is important to keep in mind that nuclear fusion technology is still evolving, and while it is expected to provide many benefits, there may be downsides that have yet to be discovered. As the history of technological advancement has shown, unforeseen problems can arise and have many impacts. Therefore, it is up to humans to decide how to use and utilize nuclear fusion, which offers unlimited possibilities, and with that comes responsibility. Researchers who study and develop nuclear fusion, as well as those who will commercialize and use it in the future, must take responsibility to prevent its misuse. In addition, if we are able to harness unlimited energy from nuclear fusion, we will need to take measures to solve problems on a national level, such as war.