Fusion power is attracting private-sector interest

1920 Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist, gave a lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the internal structure of stars. In it, he hypothesised that what makes the sun shine—then a matter of much debate—was some sort of nuclear reaction. “This reservoir”, he said, “can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known, exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his service. The store is well nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped.”Eddington speculated that the energy in question was released by the nuclei of hydrogen atoms fusing to form the nuclei of helium atoms. He knew that a helium nucleus weighs slightly less than four hydrogen nuclei and he suspected that the difference, converted into energy according to the then-recently discovered formula, E=mc, would be enough to power the sun. He was right about this. He was also right about people’s dreams of exploiting it. They began looking shortly after Eddington’s speculations were confirmed, and they still dream of it today—for the fuel needed is abundant, and the process of generation carbon-free.