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Fusion vs Fission
B.PRESGROVE:
??? Thats all great about the experiments, but in the mean time we need power now. The only way to acheive the amount of power we need is nuclear and coal, the two sources that have been so faithful to us all these years. Maybe some day we will see a small sun burn the land scape of earth due to a fussion accident or experiment gone wrong, but lets stay in the here and now.
Content1:
Fusion can only happen in a controlled environment, not like Chernobyl where it got out of their control. It is not like fission where you have control rods that could blow off in an explosion.
In lab experiments you limit the fuel to burn so you will never get a "Sun" like in Spiderman II. The lasers acts as an ultimate piston and compress and heat the fuel to 100,000,000 degrees for 25 billioneths of a second, consuming all the fuel and ready for more. It is not the heat that is as important as the high energy neutrons that are released to cause fission in u238 in a readctor based on spent fuel.
Eventually maybe there will shrink the whole process, much like the laser in a CD was once huge not fits in your hand. Then it is a process of firing the lasers, burning the Dueterium/Tritium and then pausing to re-load and fire again to the level of energy that is intended to be produce, much like "Mr. Fusion" in "Back to the Future" series. The key is producing more energy then the lasers used to set off the burn, and capturing the energy from the burn. We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.
A safety feature is if you do not reload, the cycle stops right there. No chance of runaway. This is ony one of the many ideas coming from research. It is just so few have paid attention to it because when you think of fusion, you think of the Takomak that can't keep the magnetic field perfect.
We are doing shots every couple of days and even with a D-D reaction, they are getting out neutrons from the success fusion process. It is like air flight. All the scientists back in 1900 said motor powered flight was impossible because at higher air speeds the wing control become unstable. The Wright Brothers didn't care and came up with powered flight. One others saw it could be done. planes started flying everywhere.
One successful fusion is controlled and achieved, and research increases at an exponential rate, you will see them being built around the world.
thenuttyneutron:
--- Quote from: Content1 on Oct 01, 2009, 04:49 ---Fusion can only happen in a controlled environment, not like Chernobyl where it got out of their control. It is not like fission where you have control rods that could blow off in an explosion.
In lab experiments you limit the fuel to burn so you will never get a "Sun" like in Spiderman II. The lasers acts as an ultimate piston and compress and heat the fuel to 100,000,000 degrees for 25 billioneths of a second, consuming all the fuel and ready for more. It is not the heat that is as important as the high energy neutrons that are released to cause fission in u238 in a readctor based on spent fuel.
Eventually maybe there will shrink the whole process, much like the laser in a CD was once huge not fits in your hand. Then it is a process of firing the lasers, burning the Dueterium/Tritium and then pausing to re-load and fire again to the level of energy that is intended to be produce, much like "Mr. Fusion" in "Back to the Future" series. The key is producing more energy then the lasers used to set off the burn, and capturing the energy from the burn. We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.
A safety feature is if you do not reload, the cycle stops right there. No chance of runaway. This is ony one of the many ideas coming from research. It is just so few have paid attention to it because when you think of fusion, you think of the Takomak that can't keep the magnetic field perfect.
We are doing shots every couple of days and even with a D-D reaction, they are getting out neutrons from the success fusion process. It is like air flight. All the scientists back in 1900 said motor powered flight was impossible because at higher air speeds the wing control become unstable. The Wright Brothers didn't care and came up with powered flight. One others saw it could be done. planes started flying everywhere.
One successful fusion is controlled and achieved, and research increases at an exponential rate, you will see them being built around the world.
--- End quote ---
You are kidding right?
1. We can build reactors that burn U238 and many other spent fuel materials. Look up the IFR. Clinton killed it with only a few years to go before the project would have been ready for building.
2. Why do you think a commercial power reactor is capable of blowing up? It is physically impossible for this to occur. I could maybe understand your point if you talked about a rod ejection accident being a concern but even that is a not going to cause the reactor to blow up.
3. Fission works now. You need No energy input in fission to get energy out of it. The first reactors on the Earth were not even manmade.
The only fusion system that I would even throw money at now would be inertia-magnetic confinement fusion. This was developed by Dr. Bussard. It is a shame that he passed on before he could complete his work. You simply make a continuous fusion reaction in the center of a cube and then get electricity out of it by running the fused nuclei through a direct energy conversion device that is just an elaborate bundle of wires.
thenuttyneutron:
--- Quote from: Marssim on Oct 01, 2009, 09:09 ---Your enthusiasm is notable but your choice of analogies leaves something to be desired;
The first patent for a fusion reactor was granted in 1946, you say the best minds in the current research expect to be on-line in 20 to 50 years. That's ~85 to 115 years to go from the first reactor to something usable beyond a research platform.
The Wright Flyer was fabric, toothpicks, wheezing piston engines and wires. Powered flight broke the sound barrier in less than 44 years. Mach 3 was achieved by 60 years.
You need a better analogy, in terms of bang for the buck powered flight is light years ahead of fusion, and another 50 years on top of the current 63 is a long time to wait for a maybe. But, good luck with that just the same. ;)
--- End quote ---
I agree. Kid, a snake oil sales man came and gave you a good lecture.
Rennhack:
--- Quote from: Content1 on Oct 01, 2009, 04:49 ---We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.
--- End quote ---
They have been saying 20-50 years for 20-50 years now. I worked at PPPL in their Fusion Reactor department. about 10 years ago... and I was in a lecture there that they said that FUSION would be viable in ... you guessed it 20-50 years.
Tomorrow never comes.
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