Fusion Energy

[i_love_burritos]

Wasn't this in Spiderman 2 ?

[Pirate_Felix]

No. This wont happen, it will take like 30-40 years before we can succesfully make hydrogen fusion profitable.

[Saru Inc]

Wasn't this in Spiderman 2 ?

 

 

Beatcha to it ;)

 

And as I think Lent already said, aren't we already doing a form of fusion?

[Markup]

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

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

 

Pretty much explains the current problems

[Pirate_Felix]

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

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

 

Pretty much explains the current problems

What this guy says

Fusion exists, it just isnt profitable yet.

[indy500fan]

I dislike when stories like these get topics made about them, generally you get a few fear mongering people along with many who are willing to listen to non-sense (see the LHC topic) and that just annoys me. SCIENTISTS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU OR I. They know what is safe or not, and in this case creating mini-suns is just as safe as creating mini black holes with the LHC. While these have amazing attributes for their size, they are so small that they are nothing to worry about at all.

 

Also everyone should know about fusion reactors and that they don't get invented until 2050. (SimCity 2000)

[tortilliachp]

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

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

 

Pretty much explains the current problems

 

 

whew, after that first page, I was getting scared noone knew anything about the topic, but just decided to post anyway.

 

A thrid major problem is the infrastructure required to perform empirical tests. Basically, the reactions that take place are too complex to be modelled by common physics, even emperically it can be hard to judge what you are obvserving because of extreme temperatures, and neccessary self-containment of the fuel in a fusion reactor. Basically, it's all guessing to a certain extent, then testing it out, rinsing and repeating untill you get better.

 

That costst a lot of money, with very small economic gains (other than tiny steps in the right direction), thus financiation of fusion research is a very very big problem. The theories seem sound (if the Standard Model exchange particles are reliable), but even that cannot be judged (lengths of 10^-31 meters is kinda hard to obvserve, not to speak of interactions and charge).

 

Therefore, even if seemingly valid, well margined models of improving a fusion reactor appear, which happens regularly, state financiation is a must, and the economic situation, politically, in terms of ageing populations and so on make this really hard to justify.

[Maze]

So a tiny sun? Won't that completely melt earth? :ohnoes:

Tiny sun? That so reminds me of Spider-Man 2.

[anonymous1234]

So a tiny sun? Won't that completely melt earth? :ohnoes:

Tiny sun? That so reminds me of Spider-Man 2.

If I had a nickel...

[SeanyTheSailor]

I dislike when stories like these get topics made about them, generally you get a few fear mongering people along with many who are willing to listen to non-sense (see the LHC topic) and that just annoys me. SCIENTISTS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU OR I. They know what is safe or not, and in this case creating mini-suns is just as safe as creating mini black holes with the LHC. While these have amazing attributes for their size, they are so small that they are nothing to worry about at all.

 

Also everyone should know about fusion reactors and that they don't get invented until 2050. (SimCity 2000)

You should never completely trust scientists. Look through history, they believed cutting you made you better, something heavier than air couldn't possibly fly, the sun orbited the earth. We assume all too quickly that we are different.

[indy500fan]

So a tiny sun? Won't that completely melt earth? :ohnoes:

Tiny sun? That so reminds me of Spider-Man 2.

 

The tiny sun that is around a foot across in SM2 is millions of times bigger than what is happening with this nuclear fusion.

[Giordano]

Look! Somebody threw a rock...it's like a mini asteroid...crashing on earth! 2012!

[fastortoise]

I dislike when stories like these get topics made about them, generally you get a few fear mongering people along with many who are willing to listen to non-sense (see the LHC topic) and that just annoys me. SCIENTISTS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU OR I. They know what is safe or not, and in this case creating mini-suns is just as safe as creating mini black holes with the LHC. While these have amazing attributes for their size, they are so small that they are nothing to worry about at all.

 

Also everyone should know about fusion reactors and that they don't get invented until 2050. (SimCity 2000)

You should never completely trust scientists. Look through history, they believed cutting you made you better, something heavier than air couldn't possibly fly, the sun orbited the earth. We assume all too quickly that we are different.

What? Cutting yourself does make you better... you just have to believe.

[assassin_696]

Fusion is the holy grail of energy, I think a lot more energy should be invested in it.

[Asmodeous4]

A tiny sun? *facedesk* Oh dear, that's dumbing it down A LOT! And not even dumbing it down particularly accurately... But I think fusion is worth investing in, we just need to be able to make it profitable and to be able to control it safely. It seems to me to be a brilliant solution, the Holy Grail you might say, of energy.