BH is warming to the idea of frankfurts at tea time.
Silly old Munkee is suffering from fusion of the mind. He has not got the remotest clue about the topic. he just wants to make a noise to try to get noticed as he is usually ignored as a waste of space.
But leaving the naysayers in the dust and back to the TOPIC.Nuclear Fusion Power(Updated July 2019)
https://s4.thingpic.com/images/Mi/PXbpiRM7qBfS28R8Tjyvuno7.pngFusion power offers the prospect of an almost inexhaustible source of energy for future generations, but it also presents so far insurmountable engineering challenges.The fundamental challenge is to achieve a rate of heat emitted by a fusion plasma that exceeds the rate of energy injected into the plasma.
The main hope is centred on tokamak reactors and stellarators which confine a deuterium-tritium plasma magnetically.
Today, many countries take part in fusion research to some extent, led by the European Union, the USA, Russia and Japan, with vigorous programs also underway in China, Brazil, Canada, and Korea.
Initially, fusion research in the USA and USSR was linked to atomic weapons development, and it remained classified until the 1958 Atoms for Peace conference in Geneva.
Following a breakthrough at the Soviet tokamak, fusion research became 'big science' in the 1970s. But the cost and complexity of the devices involved increased to the point where international co-operation was the only way forward.
Fusion powers the Sun and stars as hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium, and matter is converted into energy.
Hydrogen, heated to very high temperatures changes from a gas to a plasma in which the negatively-charged electrons are separated from the positively-charged atomic nuclei (ions).
Normally, fusion is not possible because the strongly repulsive electrostatic forces between the positively charged nuclei prevent them from getting close enough together to collide and for fusion to occur.
However, if the conditions are such that the nuclei can overcome the electrostatic forces to the extent that they can come within a very close range of each other, then the attractive nuclear force (which binds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei) between the nuclei will outweigh the repulsive (electrostatic) force, allowing the nuclei to fuse together.
Such conditions can occur when the temperature increases, causing the ions to move faster and eventually reach speeds high enough to bring the ions close enough together. The nuclei can then fuse, causing a release of energy.
Fusion technology In the Sun, massive gravitational forces create the right conditions for fusion, but on Earth they are much harder to achieve.
Fusion fuel – different isotopes of hydrogen – must be heated to extreme temperatures of the order of 50 million degrees Celsius, and must be kept stable under intense pressure, hence dense enough and confined for long enough to allow the nuclei to fuse.
The aim of the controlled fusion research program is to achieve 'ignition', which occurs when enough fusion reactions take place for the process to become self-sustaining, with fresh fuel then being added to continue it. Once ignition is achieved, there is net energy yield – about four times as much as with nuclear fission.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the amount of power produced increases with the square of the pressure, so doubling the pressure leads to a fourfold increase in energy production.
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 and 3-4 MeV for D-D fusion).a On a mass basis, the D-T fusion reaction releases over four times as much energy as uranium fission.
Deuterium occurs naturally in seawater (30 grams per cubic metre), which makes it very abundant relative to other energy resources.
Tritium occurs naturally only in trace quantities (produced by cosmic rays) and is radioactive, with a half-life of around 12 years.
Usable quantities can be made in a conventional nuclear reactor, or in the present context, bred in a fusion system from lithium.b Lithium is found in large quantities (30 parts per million) in the Earth's crust and in weaker concentrations in the sea.
In a fusion reactor, the concept is that neutrons generated from the D-T fusion reaction will be absorbed in a blanket containing lithium which surrounds the core.
The lithium is then transformed into tritium (which is used to fuel the reactor) and helium. The blanket must be thick enough (about 1 metre) to slow down the high-energy (14 MeV) neutrons.
Read the full story herehttps://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/... Wow thanks for posting that I hadn't read about fusion since the last time I read about it in my physics textbook.