每日一翻：Bottling the Sun’s Power on Earth

The military, space and aviation experts at Lockheed Martin want you to know that they’re closing in on fusion. The firm’s secretive Skunk Works has announced that its compact fusion reactor is a mere 10 years away and would investors please send money.

洛克希德马丁公司的军事、航天和航空方面的专家想让你们知道他们的核聚变技术正在突飞猛进。公司的机密组织Skunk Works已经宣布，他们的紧凑型聚变反应堆仅仅再需要十年就可以完成，希望投资者们来投资。

The device would work… if it works…by fusing atoms of hydrogen together. This fusion produces a larger atom—helium—plus copious energy. As a bonus, fusion does not produce radioactive waste, unlike its poor cousin fission that’s in use in nuclear reactors around the world today.

如果设备开始运转，它的工作原理是将氢原子融合到一起。这个融合会生成一个大的原子——氦，同时产生巨大能量。聚变最大的优势是不会产生放射性废弃物，不像它的姐妹——核裂变，现在，核裂变已经被应用在全世界的核反应堆中。

The key to Lockheed’s device, they say, is superconductors. They’ll create magnetic fields strong enough to contain the superhot plasma created by fusion. When the atoms of heavy hydrogen fuse in that plasma, neutrons are released that then hit the reactor wall, heating it. That heat then boils water to make steam to spin a turbine.

马丁公司称，他们的设备的关键是超导体。超导体可以产生强大的磁场，这个磁场强大到可以约束聚变产生的超高温等离子体。当重氢原子在等离子体中融合的时候，会释放出中子，中子轰击反应堆墙体，并会加热墙体。这些热量使水沸腾产生蒸汽从而使蒸汽涡轮机旋转。

Or so the theory goes. Unfortunately, neutrons have a nasty habit of making materials brittle, among other challenges faced by Lockheed and everyone else chasing fusion.

理论上是这样的。不幸的是，在马丁公司和每一个研究聚变的公司都会面临的问题中，中子有个很不好的特点，它会使材料变脆。

Of course, the world already enjoys the benefits of one fusion reactor, which sits at a comfortable remove and can be easily harnessed with a working technology called photovoltaics. It’s called the Sun.

当然，全世界已经在利用聚变反应带来的好处，那就是基于易被拆除且易被使用的技术——光伏发电。它叫太阳。

—David Biello