- Nearly all the electrical energy on Earth originates from the Sun. Wind, Oil, Gas, Hydro all get their energy coming from the bath of radiation we get from our nearest star. Because of the Conservation of Energy, all energy is conserved. We always have the same amount it is simply being converted from one form of energy to another.
- Attachments - Laser Fusion at Lawrence Livermore Labs
- So, why not solve our society’s energy problems by going directly to the source and creating our energy the same way the Sun does? How does the Sun get its energy? From Nuclear Fusion. Simply combining lighter elements into heavier elements. In the Sun’s case combining 2 Hydrogen atom nuclei into one Helium atom nuclei. To state this even simpler, the Sun combines two single protons into one nucleus with two protons.
- When fusion of two protons comes together to form Helium the combination is not quite as heavy, massive, as the individual protons that come from the Hydrogen nucleus. Remember, protons have a positive charge and like-charges repel each other. The Strong Nuclear Force is needed to hold two protons together in the nucleus. When this nuclear reaction occurs a small amount of mass left over is converted directly to energy. The energy is in the form of Gamma Ray radiation, according to E = mc^2.
- This Gamma Ray radiation occurs at the center of the Sun at a temperature of 28,000,000 F. Gamma Ray photons are high energy photons that have to bounce their way through layers of the Sun’s gas until finally reaching the surface at 10,000 degrees F. On average, it takes a single photon over 1 million years to make this journey to the surface.
- To solve all our energy problems why can’t we duplicate this fusion process here on Earth? The process is simple, it is just not easy. Science can do it, but, it takes more energy to create and contain the 28,000,000 degree temperatures than we can retrieve from the nuclear fusion reaction it produces.
- Science has been trying to economically produce energy using nuclear fusion for decades. Up until now the process to create fusion consumes more energy than the fusion produces. We have yet to reach a breakeven point, and, to be economical the process needs to be 20 to 30 times more efficient than just a breakeven.
- To get nuclear fusion working for us many nations are spending research dollars building fusion reactors. The U.S. is spending $210 billion per year generating electric power. Some of that needs to go to research in building fusion reactors:
- France is spending $20 billion in their fusion experiment that is scheduled to be completed by 2018.
- Livermore, California is spending $3.5 billion to begin a fusion experiment by 2012. (See Review # 1070 for details ).
- Kirtland Air Force Base, part of Los Alamos National Labs, is investing $4 million dollars to create a breakeven fusion reactor. The Shiva Star facility at Kirtland does not have much money but it thinks it has a better idea. All three facilities are trying different approaches to producing nuclear fusion.
- Overcoming the electromagnetic force with enough temperature and pressure forcing the nuclei to merge, or fuse, which creates a heavier element releasing nuclear energy requires immense gravity. The Sun merges hundreds of millions of tons of Hydrogen into Helium every second at its core. And, it has been doing this for some 5 billion years. Every star in the night sky is doing the same thing in various degrees. Bigger stars have more gravity and fuse heavier elements. All star-energy comes from gravity compressing and heating lighter elements into heavier elements.
- For nuclear fusion reactors on the planet the primary fuel used is Deuterium, which is a heavy isotope of Hydrogen, one proton and one neutron in the nucleus. Deuterium is abundant in seawater and easily available. Unlike fission reactors the dangerous radiation of the process’ by-products decays rapidly, within decades. Fission by-products carrying dangerous radiation can remain for centuries.
- Fusion is definitely the way to go for producing energy. So, why is it so hard? Well, to start with it has to be hot, 27,000,000 degrees F, minimum. And, it also has to be under high pressure. The center of the Sun is 200,000,000,000 atmospheres pressure. The melted plasma of ionized hydrogen, a soup of protons and free electrons, is so hot it would vaporize any material that we used to contain it. It takes tremendous force to overcome the electromagnetic force that is repelling 2 simple protons from fusing together.
- We can not duplicate the mass and gravity of the Sun. What we really need is fusion in a beer can. They are trying to do that at Kirtland AFB using a technique called magnetized target fusion. The target is a 30 by 10 centimeter aluminum cylinder with 1 millimeter thick walls ( a beer can ). A strong magnetic field is created to control the hot plasma of ionized Deuterium gas inside the can. The target-can is hit with 12 million amperes of electric current that will crush the can in 24 microseconds. The Deuterium nuclei fuse releasing nuclear energy that produce heat, to produce steam, to turn turbines and produce electricity.
- The experimental machine to produce this enormous shot of electric current was originally designed as a weapon to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles by firing a burst of high energy plasma at the missile. It never succeeded as a weapon but it did destroy many experiments. It produces 5,000,000 joules of energy. In this last decade they decided to alter the design to produce controlled fusion that would generate electricity instead of shoot down missiles. Current experiments are to get the machine to produce a fusion reaction that has a breakeven in “energy produced” versus “energy consumed“. It has not happened yet.
- To become economically viable as an electric power plant in a community a fusion reactor must produce 30 times more energy out than what it consumes.
- The experiment in France uses a machine that constructs its magnetic structure in the shape of a doughnut. It is called a “ Tokomak” and it is designed to produce 500,000,000 watts output with 50,000,000 watts input. This is a 10 times efficiency over breakeven.
- Tokomak creates a doughnut shaped magnetic field that confines the ionized plasma into the center of the ring. The heating is omic heating, no different than the filament in an incandescent light bulb. The maximum temperature obtained to date is 20 to 30 million degrees.
- Lawrence Livermore Lab has a machine using 192 lasers focused on a capsule of Deuterium and Tritium. The lasers focus 500,000,000,000 watts on a pellet the size of an aspirin. (See Review # 1170 “Laser Ignition Fusion” for a detailed discussion of this process.)
- The history of fusion started with the atomic bomb which eventually developed into the Hydrogen bomb in 1952.
------------ In 1958 the reactor in Los Alamos first bottled Hydrogen Plasma in a magnetic field.
------------ In 1968 a Soviet Tokomak produced a plasma raised to 1,000,000 degrees temperature.
----------- In 1989 there were false claims within the science community that they had created cold fusion.
---------- In 1997 the Tokomak in France generated 16 megawatts out with 24 megawatts input.
----------- In 2002 there were false claims in the science community about bubble fusion being created using sound waves.
----------- In 2009 Lawrence Livermore Labs first fusion ignition is scheduled to occur in 2012. (See Review #1070 for details.) The facility is called NIF, the National Ignition Facility, and it has achieved temperatures up to 10,600,000 F. Still not hot enough for fusion of the target Deuterium and Tritium into Helium. The temperature is measured by measuring the X-rays emitted by the exploding gold capsule that contains the target.
--------- In 2011 the Energy Matter Conversion Corporation in Canada , EMC2, uses a proton-boron fuel which requires a higher temperature than Deuterium but converts directly to electricity without using boiling water to drive a generator. It uses a electrostatic field to contain the positively charged ions. Its electromagnetic coils are arranged in a polyhedron of tubes. The configuration traps electrons in the middle. Ions are introduced to accelerate in a confined space until they create fusion power.
- The polyhedron is essentially a large vacuum tube with spherical grids . The ions accelerate into the grid. Often the ions pass through the grid without a collision with other ions. Occasionally they collide. Hopefully fusion occurs.
--------- In 2011 NIF has come up with another idea using their lasers. They will use a hybrid fusion-fission process. Lasers create fusion at the center of the reactor chamber. Neutrons emitted penetrate a blanket of Uranium that lines the chamber walls. Energy from the fission reactions in the Uranium multiple the chambers power by a factor of 4.
- This process has the advantages of being able to use depleted uranium, or the spent fuel from the nuclear fission reactors now being used. Today’s fission reactors require Plutonium or Enriched Uranium which is used in nuclear weapons and dangerously radioactive. These fission reactors consume only a few percent of the fissionable atoms in the Enriched Uranium. The hybrid fusion-fission reactor consumes 90% of the fissionable fuel. Less fuel is needed and less spent fuel is left behind.
--------- In 2011 many technical problems remain to actually have a fusion electrical power plant in operation. We are still projecting a breakeven fusion reaction will happen soon. It will solve the World’s energy problems. When? God only knows.
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(1) General Fusion in British Columbia is using a liquid metal lining with Tritium to create a fusion reaction. They are projecting a breakeven in 2013.
(2) Review # 1249 - “How does fusion work in the stars?”
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