Word: thermonuclear
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...rays pass near the sun. It is during an eclipse that scientists can fully observe the sun's spectacular halo, or corona, believed to be caused by the outrushing of solar gases. Understanding the corona, in turn, may shed new light on the sun's thermonuclear reactions...
Most scientists believe that the long-range answer to man's energy needs may lie in thermonuclear fusion. The process that fires the sun and all the other stars, fusion releases enormous amounts of energy-but only small amounts of dangerous radioactivity -through the combination of light atoms of hydrogen to form heavier atoms of helium. The earth's seas contain an almost unlimited store of an isotope of hydrogen especially suitable as fusion fuel: deuterium, or heavy hydrogen...
...controlled fusion, as opposed to the uncontrolled variety in an H-bomb, is extremely difficult to achieve. Not only must the deuterium be confined in a dense plasma, but it also must be heated to temperatures of some hundred million degrees. Even if fusion research is vastly expanded, thermonuclear power will probably not be available as an energy source for decades to come...
...price will be high. The economy has been built in large part on cheap energy, and adjusting to an era of scarce and costly fuel will mean painfully wrenching changes. While Nixon tries to cut the budget, he may have to channel more federal money into research for harnessing thermonuclear fusion and building plants at mines that would produce gas by burning coal. Home builders will surely have to put more insulation into new houses and apartments, raising immediate costs to buyers and renters. Detroit may well have to design much smaller and lower-powered cars...
...theory" (from their initials) in 1957. At extremely low temperatures, they said, electrons are coupled with one another (in so-called Cooper pairs), cease their random collisions and flow unhindered. Superconductivity may lead to more efficient transmission of electrical power, better transportation systems, and even harnessing the energy of thermonuclear fusion...