Mentor

Eric Held

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

5-1-2016

First Page

1

Last Page

15

Abstract

In the year 2013, the United States produced a total of around 4 billion kWh of electricity for its energy consumption needs [1]. Around 67% of this was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum). To produce energy of this scope requires vast amounts of fuel, at great expense (the EPA estimates that around $29 billion was spent on fossil fuel electric energy production during 2013) [1]. Fusion energy may provide a viable alternative energy source to fossil fuels. As a comparison, producing the US fossil fuel electric energy for 2013 solely from coal would require about 468 billion kg of coal, whereas to produce the same amount of energy with fusion would require only around 1.2 million kg of fuel (tritium bred from lithium, and deuterium) [2]. In addition, these fuel sources are highly abundant on Earth and the resultant fusion reaction produces minimal waste products [2].

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