Can someone please ELI5 why nuclear fusion, if we were eventually able to harness it into mainstream energy, wouldn’t eventually lead to a separate kind of disaster in the form of a shortage of mass? My understanding is that the reason this works is based on E=MC^2 and so when you perform fusion you are losing mass and creating energy. In an isolated situation it’s negligible but if everyone is using fusion all the time then wouldn’t we just be eating up all the mass on our planet?
wobblywunk t1_j0xcn8k wrote
Reply to National Ignition Facility (NIF) announces net positive energy fusion experiment by Robo-Connery
Can someone please ELI5 why nuclear fusion, if we were eventually able to harness it into mainstream energy, wouldn’t eventually lead to a separate kind of disaster in the form of a shortage of mass? My understanding is that the reason this works is based on E=MC^2 and so when you perform fusion you are losing mass and creating energy. In an isolated situation it’s negligible but if everyone is using fusion all the time then wouldn’t we just be eating up all the mass on our planet?