Author: Matthew Hole, Professor, Mathematical Sciences Institute and School of Computing, Australian National University

Globally, nuclear power accounts for roughly 10% of electricity generation. In some countries, such as France, this figure is nearly 70%. Big tech companies such as Google are also turning to nuclear power to meet the huge power demands of their data centres. The source of all nuclear power is the binding energy of an atom. The energy stored in an atom can be released in two main ways: fission or fusion. Fission involves splitting big heavy atoms into smaller, lighter ones. Fusion involves combining little atoms together into bigger ones. Both processes release a lot of energy. For example,…