3 replies to this topic

[A941]

What do you think, when will we be able to generate power the same way the sun does?
Will a fusion-reactor solve all our Energy-Problems of the future?

[eternaltraveler]

Fission reactors would solve humanity's present energy issues just fine.

The problem with fusion is that we can't just replicate the sun. The average hydrogen atom in the sun takes billions of years to fuse. We need to do much better than the sun. We'll get it eventually, in the meantime we have all this easier to access fusion energy laying around in the form of heavy atoms.

[ChromodynamicGirl]

There are more problems with fusion than the length of time hydrogen takes to fuse. For one, we have absolutely no idea how to make a sustainable reaction with a huge gravity well to keep everything together, and a massive amount of fuel on top of that. Fusion simply is not good for chain reactions like fission is. There are further problems, in that so much money is being wasted on fusion reactor attempts and no one actually knows how fusion works.

Quantum Chromodynamics does a fairly good job of describing quarks and gluons and the strong force which in residual form holds nucleons together but it does not model how nucleons are put together into any particular element's nucleus. We don't have a good theory for the nucleus itself, particularly the binding energies of the nucleus and why there are rises and drops in the binding energy curve as protons and neutrons are added to a nucleus. We know some of the factors, but we have no real theory as to why these are important

Billions are being spent on reactor prototypes like ITER but we still don't know very much about the nucleus itself and why it fuses! If we understood the mechanisms of the nucleus better we might find some way to finesse fusion by increasing the cross section for particular reactions.

One particular problem in theoretical nuclear physics is that you have to go into highly complex numerics just to get any answer at all, not even good answers, just any answers. There are immense amounts of work to do (both in derivation/computer implementation and actual numeric computations) before you can actually investigate/test any kind of physical insight. That's just the nature of highly-correlated fermionic many-body physics. Unfortunatelly, the required algebraic/numeric tools often do not exist, or not to the desired degree, and therefore theorists tend to search for other topics where experimentally verifiable answers can be obtained in a less laborious way.

I fully support the elimination of current laws and regulations regarding nuclear power, such as the idiotic outlawry of fuel rod reprocessing put into place by the Carter administration. Nuclear fission is the cheapest, safest, cleanest, most efficient, most sustainable form of energy presently known to mankind. And here we are wasting time and money on subsidized BS like wind farms and solar panels (solar panels actually put out a lot of CO2, not that the majority of 'green' religionists will ever actually investigate the science to find that out).

Edited by ChromodynamicGirl, 12 October 2010 - 04:53 AM.

[kurt9]

The contenders are 1) EMC2 polywell, 2) Tri-Alpha (CB/FRC), 3) General Fusion (steampunk fusion), and Focus Fusion (Dense Plasma Focus).