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Fusion - an old method made new again

Former Member

We are constantly being bombarded with the facts that the Earth is warming and that energy resources are running out. These threats to the human population have helped to lead to the development of nuclear energy.

Fission as it stands is a fantastic method of meeting these issues but produces a lot of radioactive waste, can be unsafe and requires non-renewable fuels. Because of this many groups are trying to develop a new form of energy generation know as fusion, the very process that powers our sun. Although similar in name, fusion is very different from nuclear fission which is currently used in nuclear power stations today.

Most people agree that fusion is a significantly better energy source, it’s fuel is ~1/6000 of all water on the planet (over 400 trillion tons!). It’s energy production produces little radioactive waste and unlike fission, fusion plants cannot spiral out of control, pulling the plug instantly stops the reactions.

There are many different methods. Tokomaks such as JET and ITER which use magnetic fields and all manner of plasma control methods to stabilize a plasma in a torus with a magnetic field. These work well, and ITER is predicted to be the first device to achieve breakeven fusion on an industrial scale. However it has yet to be prooven economical. Other methods involve using large arrays of lasers to condense small pellets of fuel, or passing massive currents through arrays of wire to create an implosion.

One, almsot forgotten method is known as a Fansworth Fusor. This uses electric fields shaped in certain ways to guide a plasma and compress it. Whilst able to produce fusion, they are a long way off producing break-even, whereby more energy can be extracted than is required to run it. Due to their simplicity they have seen a resurgence from hobyists in recent years. Most of these are based off the same tried and tested spherical electrode design. However, a few teams are experimenting with more complex designs.

Our team has been running simulations of a new design which promise to be hundreds of time more efficient. We're currently looking for backers to help us build an improved reactor to fully test these designs. Please check out our web to find out more about the science and how to support our research.

http://cpicf.webs.com

  • in reply to DAB

    You are correct. The products of fusion between two hydrogen nuclii is not helium. Instead the sun undergoes several stages in its fusion reaction to achieve helium and heavier elements. However, most fusion reactors on Earh (ourselves included) use isotopes of hydrogen, namely Deturium and Tritium, which are slightly heavier and easier to fuse. It is also the only the nuclii which are of interest so most fusion reactors ionise the gas (removing the electrons) to create a plasma.

     

    It is not necessary to use a gravitational field at all though! Basically the two nuclii are positively charged so will repel one another till they get close enough that a new force, the strong force, takes over and they will fuse. Any force which is capable of compressing the nuclii close enough is sufficient, however very difficult to achieve. ITER uses magnetic fields, the sun uses gravity, the National Ignition Laboritory of America uses lasers! Our method uses electrostatic fields to shape the plasma into colliding at very high energies. This should prove much more effective that current fansworth fusors that draw ions into the centre to compress them with strong electric fields.

  • I think we had a post on this method a year or so ago.

    As I recall, they were beginning to scale up the process to conduct a break even test.

     

    I think the reasons for the failure for the Fusion experiements has been a misunderstanding about what occurs during fusion in the Sun.

     

    There is a common belief that the Sun fuses Hydrogen into Helium.  While the sun does produce Hydrogen and Helium, the actual fusion process only works on the nuclei.  The formation of Hydrogen and Helium atoms occurs as the resulting nuclei progress from the fusion zone towards the outer edge of the sun.

     

    Trying to cause a plasma fusion requires a significant gravitational force in addition to the magnetic forces.

    So unless you can duplicate the conditions existing inside the fusion zone of the star, you will not be able to sustain fusion at the Atomic level.

     

    Just a thought,

    DAB