Part 2/9:
To better understand how fusion can be harnessed effectively on Earth, one must look to the Sun, our own star. The Sun manages to sustain a fusion reaction under immense gravitational pressure, achieving temperatures of about 15 million Kelvin. It fuses hydrogen nuclei (protons) into helium-4, releasing copious amounts of energy—about 20 million times greater than the total yield of the world’s nuclear arsenal every second.
Attempting to replicate these processes demands not just high temperatures but also extreme pressures. In practical terms for Earth-based reactors, methods like deuterium-tritium fusion are considered, which requires both higher temperatures—approximately 100 times that of the Sun's core—and efficient methods of confinement.