fusion energy

In 1980, in my book Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power published that year, I wrote: “What about fusion? This has been held out by the nuclear establishment as a somewhat cleaner form of nuclear power—as the hydrogen bomb, a fusion device, is somewhat cleaner in fall-out than an atomic bomb. Somewhat.” “Fusion is theoretically supposed to get its power from fusing nuclei together,” I continued. “This would be the opposite of fission, which blasts the nuclei apart. But to start the process, extremely high temperatures are required—100 million degrees Centigrade, more than six times the estimated temperature of the sun’s interior.” “Although Dwight Eisenhower, when he was President, suggested that the AEC keep the public ‘confused about fission and fusion,’ fusion is a dirty, radioactive process, too.