Energy: pellet-implosions for a nuclear fusion reactor

Abstract

During the last year, the total electrical energy generated in India was almost at the rate of 20 million kilowatts (1 kilowatt=10³ Joules/sec=10¹⁰ ergs/sec; 3.6x10⁶ Joules=1 kilowatt-hour=1 unit); the estimated world energy production being more than 200 times higher than that. With increasing populations and industrial developments throughout the world, global demands for energy are expected to rise so fast that meeting such requirements for the next hundreds of years is certainly going to be a challenging assignment for all of us. In many ways, the more important task of providing food for all will depend upon the solution o this auxiliary problem. In fact, it is often said that the search for energy and food is the key to man’s goal of creating a better world for himself. In based on this article, we will discuss one of the schemes based on the nuclear fusion process, which may eventually provide an answer to the energy problem on a long-term basis.