Quote Originally Posted by j883376 View Post
Fusion reactors are really the future. Nuclear fission is dangerous and harmful with all the radioactive waste. I'm not sure what the estimates are, but some time down the road, I'm sure fusion reactors will have developed well enough to be a viable power source.

If you have no idea what nuclear fusion is, it's what the sun does. Hydrogen plasma at millions of degrees forming into Helium.
Fusion power, at least in the forms being explored right now, actually would produce some nuclear waste; for instance, heavily irradiated reactor components. It's very hard to expose materials to intensive neutron flux without making those materials become radioactive themselves via a process known as neutron activation. Although it is true that this would produce less waste than fission plants even with reprocessing. I wouldn't describe fission as "dangerous and harmful", though. The volume of waste produced is comparatively tiny and can be stored away safely with comparative ease. If the right steps are taken, nuclear power isn't dangerous and harmful to anyone. And, again, the most radioactive types of "waste" can be reprocessed and reused instead of being allowed to go to waste. Anyhow, fusion power is at least several decades away, so fission is our best bet for a while.

For the record, the form of fusion that occurs in the sun (proton-proton fusion, i.e. hydrogen ions fusing into helium) is NOT the same form of fusion that is being explored in current fusion research. Current fusion research focuses on the deuterium-tritium reaction, and to a lesser degree, on reactions involving helium-3. Proton-proton fusion is so much more difficult than these forms of fusion that some scientists doubt we will EVER be able to master it. Even if we do, it won't be happening for a long time.