physorg.com— Physicists working in the United States believe they have cracked an important problem facing man-made nuclear fusion, touted as the cheap, safe, clean and almost limitless energy source of the future.
May 21, 2006View in Crawl 4
I got a question. If the focus is to sustain reactions for minuets of a time, why not constant?The reaction is producing heat and light, but the heat is contained within a magnetic bubble so how do we get power from that?
That article was kind of light on detail, and I found it odd how it briefly explained the solution and then jumped to a description of what fusion is and how it's used by the sun. Oh well.
Agreed. However, using the current system half of the reaction products contain no charge. Hence aren't contained by magnetic fields. In fact it is this we rely upon to extract energy from the system.So aside from incredibly quick beta-decay reactions changing neutrons to protons, the vacuum vessel, under the current system, will always become radioactive, this will always have the same decay lifetimes. (Granted decay is a purely random process but the half lives remain pretty samey.) So any reactors based on the current system will have this same radioactive decay period.Also, you must be aware that ITER is a prototype of a working comercial fusion reactor. So within our lifetimes it is likely that a widespread comerical reactor will be based on this system.As soon as fusion is working, then hopefully we can use different fusion fuels to produce charged particle products.These 'fusion plants on the moon' you speak of... are you serious? Is he serious?You said that was stating the obvious. Please may I have whatever you cats at Princeton smoke. That's not optimistic, that's something way else.I am being optimistic whilst still being realistic. But hey, maybe you guys have some way of magically confining a 100 million degree neutral particle.For all our sakes, I hope we do achieve a free energy for all. I think Tesla did. I hope we unify physics and I hope we can all be friends. Ultimately we all have the same goals. Telling these people that as soon as fusion becomes available will make their electricity free is utterly false.
Sure I was serious about fusion plants on the moon. What bothers you about the idea?There are a number of factors that lean towards this as a likely result: 1, easy isolation from unskilled civilian population. 2, remote place where long-term, high-energy energy production will offer considerable benefit for the anticipated cost. 3, high likelihood of numerous relatively high energy clients from bases to low-gravity manufacturing to scientific outposts to electrically fueled launch systems and so forth. 4, relative safety as compared to a fission plant. 5, useful production of secondary products in what will very likely be an almost entirely industrial local community. 6, relative ease of returning lunar-manufactured products to earth if sufficient electrical energy can be had. 7, complete lack of reality-based environmental concerns for manufacturing, pollution, inhabitants, zoning, etc - as there is no environment to speak of. 8, Availability of certain useful industrial factors and products. Such as vacuum. :) And uranium, thorium, potassium, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, and aluminum.I'm not even from the same side of the country as Princeton, by the way."Also, you must be aware that ITER is a prototype of a working comercial fusion reactor."Well, yes, and so was the first integrated circuit a prototype of a working commercial IC. End results still didn't resemble the original much once incremental improvements were made on the initial ideas. If there is one thing we know for certain, it is that humans will try to improve on any idea almost indefinitely. It's what we do.
I don't get it. The article is titled "Scientists say they have cleared technical hurdle in fusion research"but all I see mentioned are all of the problems yet to be solved, in particular "...no one has achieved a self-sustaining fusion event for longer than about five seconds..."I wouldn't put it on the same par as the Cold-fusion debacle, but I'm not seeing quantum leaps in functional technology here either.I wish them the best, but I'm not trading in my portfolio for ITER stocks just yet.
koorbMay 21, 2006
I got a question. If the focus is to sustain reactions for minuets of a time, why not constant?The reaction is producing heat and light, but the heat is contained within a magnetic bubble so how do we get power from that?
kazemMay 22, 2006
That article was kind of light on detail, and I found it odd how it briefly explained the solution and then jumped to a description of what fusion is and how it's used by the sun. Oh well.
styryxMay 22, 2006
Agreed. However, using the current system half of the reaction products contain no charge. Hence aren't contained by magnetic fields. In fact it is this we rely upon to extract energy from the system.So aside from incredibly quick beta-decay reactions changing neutrons to protons, the vacuum vessel, under the current system, will always become radioactive, this will always have the same decay lifetimes. (Granted decay is a purely random process but the half lives remain pretty samey.) So any reactors based on the current system will have this same radioactive decay period.Also, you must be aware that ITER is a prototype of a working comercial fusion reactor. So within our lifetimes it is likely that a widespread comerical reactor will be based on this system.As soon as fusion is working, then hopefully we can use different fusion fuels to produce charged particle products.These 'fusion plants on the moon' you speak of... are you serious? Is he serious?You said that was stating the obvious. Please may I have whatever you cats at Princeton smoke. That's not optimistic, that's something way else.I am being optimistic whilst still being realistic. But hey, maybe you guys have some way of magically confining a 100 million degree neutral particle.For all our sakes, I hope we do achieve a free energy for all. I think Tesla did. I hope we unify physics and I hope we can all be friends. Ultimately we all have the same goals. Telling these people that as soon as fusion becomes available will make their electricity free is utterly false.
fyngyrzMay 22, 2006
Sure I was serious about fusion plants on the moon. What bothers you about the idea?There are a number of factors that lean towards this as a likely result: 1, easy isolation from unskilled civilian population. 2, remote place where long-term, high-energy energy production will offer considerable benefit for the anticipated cost. 3, high likelihood of numerous relatively high energy clients from bases to low-gravity manufacturing to scientific outposts to electrically fueled launch systems and so forth. 4, relative safety as compared to a fission plant. 5, useful production of secondary products in what will very likely be an almost entirely industrial local community. 6, relative ease of returning lunar-manufactured products to earth if sufficient electrical energy can be had. 7, complete lack of reality-based environmental concerns for manufacturing, pollution, inhabitants, zoning, etc - as there is no environment to speak of. 8, Availability of certain useful industrial factors and products. Such as vacuum. :) And uranium, thorium, potassium, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, and aluminum.I'm not even from the same side of the country as Princeton, by the way."Also, you must be aware that ITER is a prototype of a working comercial fusion reactor."Well, yes, and so was the first integrated circuit a prototype of a working commercial IC. End results still didn't resemble the original much once incremental improvements were made on the initial ideas. If there is one thing we know for certain, it is that humans will try to improve on any idea almost indefinitely. It's what we do.
enk1duMay 22, 2006
Yeah, fusion is the best option, but we don't need to build one. We've already got a very nice fusion reactor, its called the sun.
lnxaddctMay 22, 2006
heh thanks for the catch. I read that at least 3 times lol and it slipped by each time.
basselopeMay 24, 2006
I don't get it. The article is titled "Scientists say they have cleared technical hurdle in fusion research"but all I see mentioned are all of the problems yet to be solved, in particular "...no one has achieved a self-sustaining fusion event for longer than about five seconds..."I wouldn't put it on the same par as the Cold-fusion debacle, but I'm not seeing quantum leaps in functional technology here either.I wish them the best, but I'm not trading in my portfolio for ITER stocks just yet.