All right: What is fusion power?

[Edcrab]

I've heard so many conflicting explanations that I barely have any clue. (I was about to ressurect an old thread, then realised that as I want to keep my spine intact and that this is more for information than discussion I'd better leave well enough alone.)

Nuclear fission is what we refer to simply as "Nuclear power", splitting atoms.

Therefore, I'd presume that fusion is what the name implies- the fusing together of atoms to create titanic amounts of energy.

Yet I've read that fusion is blasting fuel pellets with a laser, or breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen (and something to do with helium as a byproduct). I've also repeatedly read about attempts to contain plasma in the magnetic "doughnuts" that researchers have made; presumably to gain heat energy from the reacting of the forth stage of matter (?). And don't get me started on the Sun-in-a-bucket that Spiderman 2 exposed me to :x

The opposite process made more sense to me; that water is produced as a side effect of combining hydrogen, the universe's most common element, with oxygen.

Now, are there varities of fusion, or is there still debate over what the scientific community considers to be fusion? Every time I search I just make more of my braincells pop

 

[Maxi]

Fusion is when you make the atom implode, if im correct... but to make this happend, it will heat up immensely, that's what the doughnuts are for, they try to contain the heat(plasma) with the help of magnets. The doughnuts themselfs are made of a titanium alloy iirc. Researchers have been able to make a fusion reaction, but only for a very short time before they had to shut down the reaction.

One of the major benefits of fusion is that you can use hydrogen for example, which is the most readily available substance in the universe, and it produces nothing radioactive or any pollutive gases.

 

[clarky003]

fusion, simply put, is the process that allows stars to burn.

Atom's are put under so much pressure in the star, they combine and neutralise themselves giving off large amounts of energy in the form of heat and light.

what there doing is trying to recreate those star condition's, Im not sure weither there are different types of fusion, just different way's of testing for the reaction.

 

[Neutrino]

Fusion Power:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

Nuclear Fusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion

Maxikana, it is not atoms "imploding", it is just two atomic nuclei that fuse together to form a larger nucleus. This is usually done with hyrdrogen atoms.

 

[The Mullinator]

I've heard so many conflicting explanations that I barely have any clue. (I was about to ressurect an old thread, then realised that as I want to keep my spine intact and that this is more for information than discussion I'd better leave well enough alone.)

Nuclear fission is what we refer to simply as "Nuclear power", splitting atoms.

Therefore, I'd presume that fusion is what the name implies- the fusing together of atoms to create titanic amounts of energy.

Yet I've read that fusion is blasting fuel pellets with a laser, or breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen (and something to do with helium as a byproduct). I've also repeatedly read about attempts to contain plasma in the magnetic "doughnuts" that researchers have made; presumably to gain heat energy from the reacting of the forth stage of matter (?). And don't get me started on the Sun-in-a-bucket that Spiderman 2 exposed me to :x

The opposite process made more sense to me; that water is produced as a side effect of combining hydrogen, the universe's most common element, with oxygen.

Now, are there varities of fusion, or is there still debate over what the scientific community considers to be fusion? Every time I search I just make more of my braincells pop

Fusion: A nuclear process whereby several small nuclei are combined to make a larger one whose mass is slightly smaller than the sum of the small ones. The difference in mass is converted to energy by Einstein's famous equivalence E=mc2. This is the source of the Sun's energy and, ultimately, of (almost) all energy on Earth.

The debate isn't on what fusion is but how to do it properly and how to contain it. Right now we still can't really contain it properly and use it for anything but nuclear bombs. There is some evidence of something called "table-top fusion" but it is usually considered "junk" science:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994741

It doesn't really explain technically what happens in "table-top fusion" but its at least a little bit of an explanation.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Fusion is a rather odd drink which makes you drunk from the feet up. Its a mixture of chilli vodka,f-

Oh, not that fusion :O

In some ways, you could say its the opposite to nuclear fision(What we currently use) which is the breaking apart of atoms

 

[psyno]

As has been stated, it refers to the fusing of atomic nuclei.
Breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen (usually done by electrolysis) is a chemical change, and has nothing to do with nuclear fusion.
Helium is indeed a product of the fusion of two hydrogen nuclei, however, fusion doesn't necessarily involve these elements.

Fusion power harnesses the energy released in the reaction (some mass is loss and converted to energy). How this energy is handled... well, no one has really built a fusion reactor yet. One obvious use would be to heat steam to drive a turbine and generate electrical power, etc...

 

[Matthias]

The primary efforts toward containment have been to use magnetic fields. Fusion happens at such high temperatures that if any of the plasma (superheated hydrogen) touched the sides of the container it would cool down and no longer be hot enough to fuse. Particles in the plasma are charged (hydrogen consists of a positive proton and a negative electron, when heated to a plasma the electon is released, thus the plasma becomes positively charged). Charged particles interact with magnetic fields so the hope is to contain them magnetically so that they can never touch the sides and cool down. The reaction is trarted by heating hydrogen with a laser. This magnetic container is usually within the titanuim torus (or donut, if you prefer) that you refered to in the first post. If the plasma can be contained, the heat it generates will sustain the reaction (until all the hydrogen is spent).

Hydrogen is fused into helium, if you can produce even higher temperatures it's possible to fuse helium into carbon and so on getting heavier and hevier elements. Current scientific theory states that every element other than hydrogen was created by fusion and spread out over the universe when stars become supernovae and explode .

 

[Sprafa]

This is it - http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf66.htm

 

[Jackal hit]

Fusion: A nuclear process whereby several small nuclei are combined to make a larger one whose mass is slightly smaller than the sum of the small ones. The difference in mass is converted to energy by Einstein's famous equivalence E=mc2.

not exactly, E=MC^2 is incomplete, you need a couple more terms, and a gamma factor. and no i don't wanna get out my text book and look it up

 

[JimmehH]

http://www.iter.org/
Promises to be the first fusion reactor to produce more energy than it requires to run. Eventually.

 

[Edcrab]

Aha; that makes things a lot clearer. Thanks guys!

*bows to overall scientific knowledge of the community*

I failed physics for a reason

So, ultimately, fusion is a recognised scientific possibility but the actual likelihood of harnessing fusion power (any time soon at least) is at a minimum due to the limitations of our technology.

You're never to old to learn!

Halflife2.net; educating idiots with a success rate of 90%. The rest of the time, they brutally murder them and use their corpse as fertiliser.

 

[Alsi]

So, ultimately, fusion is a recognised scientific possibility but the actual likelihood of harnessing fusion power (any time soon at least) is at a minimum due to the limitations of our technology.

Most scientists say: "In 20 Years it's done", for 40 years now I guess

 

[The Mullinator]

not exactly, E=MC^2 is incomplete, you need a couple more terms, and a gamma factor. and no i don't wanna get out my text book and look it up

I copied and pasted from a google search so meh. :frog:

 

[Matthias]

Fusion Power should be operational by the time fossil fuels run out (50-100 years depending on who you ask).

We hope...

 

[Sprafa]

The Fusion power we are trying to have today would exterminate us in a century.

Basic fusion technology

With current technology, the reaction most readily feasible is between the nuclei of the two heavy forms (isotopes) of hydrogen - deuterium (D) and tritium (T). Each D-T fusion event releases 17.6 MeV (2.8 x 10-12 joule, compared with 200 MeV for a U-235 fission). Deuterium occurs naturally in sea water (30 grams per cubic metre), which makes it very abundant relative to other energy resources. Tritium does not occur naturally and is radioactive, with a half-life of around 12 years. It can be made in a conventional nuclear reactor, or in the present context, bred in a fusion system from lithium. Lithium is found in large quantities (30 parts per million) in the Earth's crust and in weaker concentrations in the sea. While the D-T reaction is the main focus of attention, long term hopes are for a D-D reaction, but this requires much higher temperatures.