Helion Energy: To make fusion energy a reality?
Tollorin
Veteran
Joined: 14 Jun 2009
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,178
Location: Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
At least that's what they aim to do:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/next-generation/is-fusion-power-finally-for-real
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/next-generation/is-fusion-power-finally-for-real-2
Yes Ruveyn, I already know what you're thinking about fusion...
_________________
Down with speculators!! !
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/next-generation/is-fusion-power-finally-for-real
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/next-generation/is-fusion-power-finally-for-real-2
Yes Ruveyn, I already know what you're thinking about fusion...
We know fusion is possible. It is proven at every sunrise and on every hot day.
So far no manmade device has exhibit fusion that produces enough energy to sustain itself. All the fusion experiments have done so far is to produce a fusion event in which the energy output is far smaller than the energy input required to produce the event.
I will be convinced that practical nuclear fusion is here when electricity from a fusion generator keeps a light bulb lit for a minute. At that point it is just a matter of improving the technology.
ruveyn
In 1985 at Utah University, Martin Fleischmann and his colleague Stan Pons actually achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature.
Please google "scientist-who-claimed-cold-fusioninajar" for a brief exact account.
Other scientist as well as Fleischmann and Pons tried unsuccessfully to replicate the experiment, and their reputations suffered dramatically.
It has been revealed since that their experiment was an authentic success.
At the time of the room temperature meltdown in their lab at Utah Uni, there was an unrelated experiment in an adjacent room that put out a magnetic field.
It is the conjunction of Fleischmann and Pons's exact experimental set up, together with overlapping magnetic field that day which caused - and will always cause room temperature nuclear fusion. A potentially inexhaustible source of clean cheap energy.
There is a Nobel prize in it for the next person to correctly replicate this experiment.
Creating fusion is easy enough, as demonstrated by fusion (not fission) weaponry. The trick is containing that amazing force and energy into something we can manage... perhaps fusion one molecule at a time? Fire two particles of infinitesimally tiny size at each other to create fusion without the chain reaction of obtaining more fuel from the similar original elements right beside it...?
It is nuclei that fuse and it requires a tremendous amount of energy to get the nuclear close enough together (that is because the protons in the nuclei repel each other) When the nuclei are close enough together the strong force can smash to two lighter nuclei into one heavier nucleus. This requires very high temperatures (of the order of 100,000,000 kelvin) which means very high energies.
In fact controlled fusion has occurred. Unfortunately much more energy is required to produce the fusion than the energy output by the fusion so there is no practical energy gain from the reaction.
The sun can manage this reaction because of the huge mass of hydrogen being crunched together by gravitation. On earth we have to use electromagnetic forces to produce the "crunch"
Fusion of hydrogen and helium has been attempted for over 50 years but no practical power output has yet been produced.
I am very pessimistic about whether controlled hydrogen fusion is a practical possibility.
We would be better off using the energy of the one fusion reaction we know works for sure, and that is sunlight.
ruveyn
I'm with you 100% on that one! It's long been a daydream of mine to see solar energy generation research progress to the point where you don't need fancy panels made from toxic elements (like current ones) but work on the same principle as plant photosynthesis and is as easy to apply to any surface like a paint - and it provides all the energy one could need.
Technology improves when you throw scientists at it... I imagine Big Oil, maybe even Atomic Energy folks, are behind the squelching.
Horse poop. The Ponds Fleischman nonsense was thoroughly debunked. People who built the apparatus -exactly- as Pons and Fleischman described it did not get a fusion reaction at all. In order to have fusion one must bring nucleii so close together that the strong force crunches the two nuclei in to one large nucleus with a mass deficiency that is converted into energy. In addition neutrons go flying out from such a reaction carrying large amounts of kinetic energy. The evidence for the strong and weak nuclear forces are overwhelming and vast.
ruveyn
Horse poop!! ! The Ponds Fleischman nonsense was thoroughly debunked. People who built the apparatus -exactly- as Pons and Fleischman described it did not get a fusion reaction at all. In order to have fusion one must bring nucleii so close together that the strong force crunches the two nuclei in to one large nucleus with a mass deficiency that is converted into energy. In addition neutrons go flying out from such a reaction carrying large amounts of kinetic energy. The evidence for the strong and weak nuclear forces are overwhelming and vast.
ruveyn
Their experimental setup worked. But it worked by fluke. It requires a magnetic field.
Horse poop!! ! The Ponds Fleischman nonsense was thoroughly debunked. People who built the apparatus -exactly- as Pons and Fleischman described it did not get a fusion reaction at all. In order to have fusion one must bring nucleii so close together that the strong force crunches the two nuclei in to one large nucleus with a mass deficiency that is converted into energy. In addition neutrons go flying out from such a reaction carrying large amounts of kinetic energy. The evidence for the strong and weak nuclear forces are overwhelming and vast.
ruveyn
Their experimental setup worked. But it worked by fluke. It requires a magnetic field.
Pons and Fleischman never developed a magnetic field of the type found in Tokomags. Several thousand Tesla are required to hold a very hot plasma.
P and F were either incredibly incompetent or were scam artist. The entire method they used was debunked by people trying to reproduce their results. At this juncture there is no such thing as "room temperature' fusion. In fact no man made controlled fusion reaction has produced as much power output as was required to get it going.
So far controlled fusion is a rather expensive bust.
ruveyn
Pons and Fleischman never developed a magnetic field of the type found in Tokomags. Several thousand Tesla are required to hold a very hot plasma.
P and F were either incredibly incompetent or were scam artist. The entire method they used was debunked by people trying to reproduce their results. At this juncture there is no such thing as "room temperature' fusion. In fact no man made controlled fusion reaction has produced as much power output as was required to get it going.
So far controlled fusion is a rather expensive bust.
ruveyn
There was a meltdown in their lab on one day in 1985. This was not faked.
But when it could not be reproduced, nobody could offer any other explanation.
The reason their experiment could not be reproduced was because nobody knew what kick-started that fusion reaction in the first place.
The magnetic field in this case was produced by an unrelated experiment in an adjacent room. It was never part of their experimental set up.
It is not productive to talk in didactic absolute terms regarding the Teslas required for a hot plasma or the limitations encountered when overcoming the strong and weak forces of atomic nucleii for the purposes of inducing a fusion reaction when our picture of physics is unapolagetically incomplete and there will always be discoveries that fly in the face of accepted but limited wisdom.
I reiterate, the Pons and Fleischman fusion event was not faked, it simply could not be reproduced because nobody knew about that magnetic field put out by the unrelated experiment in the adjacent room.
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