Advantages of nuclear energy
The nuclear energy is considered as one of the most environmentally friendly resources: it does not generate polluting emissions such as sulphides, dust or greenhouse gases. Moreover its implementation allows a considerable reduction in the exploitation of the fossil fuel reserves.
The advantages of nuclear fusion
One of the advantages of fusion is that the functioning of the reactor excludes any loss of control since the quantity of fuel used for the reaction and present inside the reactor is reduced (only a few grams) and the combustion only lasts a few seconds. Any minimum disturbance inside the reactor makes the plasma cool down, with subsequent spontaneous interruption of the fusion reaction. Fission reactors, instead, contain a large quantity of nuclear fuel (uranium) and, should an accident occur, the chain reaction stops, the heat produced inside can melt the core of the reactor and free the radioactive products with serious consequences. For this reason today they are extremely safe, always protected by the most sophisticated security systems and by at least two water-tightness shells.
Another advantage of fusion is that it can be done almost anywhere; it does not depend on the availability of raw materials: its fuel, that is deuterium, is extracted from water. Moreover, the product of fusion is helium, i.e. that gas used to inflate balloons, and its waste looses its radioactivity in almost a hundred years (against the thousands of years needed for fission waste).
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