AIKEN - It could be at least 35 years before the United States has a viable fusion reactor, and that's only if the technology can be perfected.
Chris Hamilton, a fusion project official for General Atomics in California, told area nuclear supporters Tuesday that Savannah River Site has a role in the future of the high-yield energy source because of the site's history of tritium handling.
The first fusion reactors are expected to require tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, and deuterium, another form of hydrogen.
SRS, an Energy Department reserve south of Aiken, has been handling the hydrogen that goes into nuclear weapons for decades.
"Tritium-handling is a big challenge," Mr. Hamilton told members of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness at its breakfast meeting. "It's the key that probably will bring fusion development to Savannah River."
He said SRS could be a suitable location for component testing for the reactors.
Fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars. The process combines atomic components rather than splitting them, as is the case in the fission-based nuclear reactors the world uses.
The payoff to harnessing fusion would be a much larger amount of energy produced than the matter that went into the reaction, but a more durable reactor has to be created to sustain the forces involved.
Furthermore, the reactor itself has to be able to sustain the reaction over long periods to justify the costs going into it. The U.S. program is estimated to cost $24 billion.
"The drawback is the power costs 10 to 15 times than that of any other power," Mr. Hamilton said.
WHAT IS IT?
Nuclear fusion is the combining of light elements into heavier ones. Nuclear fission is the splitting of a heavy element into smaller, lighter elements. Both processes release energy.
Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com.
