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It's not "creating" energy, it's releasing energy.

The original atoms (exactly which atoms depends on the reactor, but let's assume it's deuterium and tritium) have a certain starting energy. When you fuse them together the resulting atom (helium-4, if you start with deuterium and tritium) moves it into a lower energy state.

Since the fused atom has lower energy than the input atoms, the fusion reaction releases the difference in energy, which you can then capture.



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