Nuclear fusion energy source

Compare nuclear fission and nuclear fusion as sources of energy. Name the fuels, benefits, problems, and current status. 

The basic problems are in finding a cheap source of hydrogen and an effective means of storing it. One possibility is to use hydrogen made by the electrolysis of seawater. This possibility requires an abundant energy source, however—perhaps nuclear fusion energy if it can be developed. Another alternative is the thermal decomposition of water. The problem here is that even at 2000 °C, water is only about 1% decomposed. What is needed is a thermochemical cycle, a series of reactions that have as their overall reaction ... 

Helium, plentiful in the cosmos, is a product of the nuclear fusion reactions that are the prime source of stellar energy. The other members of the hehum-group gases are thought to have been created like other heavier elements by further nuclear condensation reactions occurring at the extreme temperatures and densities found deep within stars and in supernovas. 

Resource pessimists counter that this process cannot proceed forever because the eternal persistence of demand for any given commodity that is destroyed by use must inevitably lead to its depletion. I lowever, the eternal persistence assumption is not necessarily correct. The life of a solar system apparently is long but finite. Energy sources such as nuclear fusion and solar energy in time could replace more limited resources such as oil and natural gas. Already, oil, gas, nuclear power, and coal from better sources have displaced traditional sources of coal in, for example, Britain, Germany, Japan, and France. 

The fear of accidents like Chernobyl, and the high cost of nuclear waste disposal, halted nuclear power plant construction in the United States m the 1980s, and in most ol the rest ol the world by the 1990s. Because nuclear fusion does not present the waste disposal problem of fission reactors, there is hope that fusion will be the primary energy source late in the twenty-first centuiy as the supplies of natural gas and petroleum dwindle. 

As an energy source, nuclear fusion possesses several additional advantages over nuclear fission. In particular, light isotopes suitable for fusion are far more abundant than the heavy isotopes required for fission. You can calculate, for example (Problem 73), that the fusion of only 2 X 10-9 % of the deuterium ( H) in seawater would meet the total annual energy requirements of the world. 

Plasma can be generated in many ways viz, by detonation (see Detonation Plasma in Vol 4, D258-L to D264-L, D348 D471-R to D474-R) by controlled nuclear fusion, the abundant energy source of the future (Refs 3,... 

In March 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported their discovery of cold nuclear fusion. They announced that during electrolysis of a solution of hthium hydroxide in heavy water (DjO) with a cathode made of massive palladium, nuclear transformations of deuterium at room temperature can be recorded. This announcement, which promised humankind a new and readily available energy source, was seized upon immediately by the mass media in many countries. Over the following years, research was undertaken worldwide on an unprecedented scale in an effort to verify this finding. 

High-temperature nuclear-fusion reactors may some day be practical as renewable sources of energy for hydrogen production, but they are most likely many years away. Typically, over 100 million degrees F temperatures are required for nuclear fusion to occur and this technology, while under development, is not expected to be commercially viable in the near future. 

Fusion power offers the prospect of an almost inexhaustible source of energy for future generations, but so far it has also presented insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges. Nuclear fusion is unlikely to play any role before 2050. 

The production of 10 TW of nuclear power with the available nuclear fission technology will require the construction of a new 1 GWe nuclear fission plant every day for the next 50 years. If this level of deployment would be reached, the known terrestrial uranium resources will be depleted in 10 years [3], Breeder reactor technology should be developed and used. Fusion nuclear power could give an inexhaustible energy source, but currently no exploitable fusion technology is available and the related technological issues are extremely hard to solve. 

Two smaller nuclei can fuse to form a larger nucleus, in what is called a nuclear fusion reaction. You and all other life on Earth would not exist without nuclear fusion reactions. These reactions are the source of the energy produced in the Sun. 

There is hope that nuclear fusion may one day prove to be a practical energy source. The US. government has spent billions of dollars on fusion energy research, and several prototype reactors have been built. Researchers attempting to produce... 

Nuclear weapons which usually use nuclear fusion, have far greater yields than weapons, which use only fission, as fusion releases more energy per kilogram and can also be used as a source of fast neutrons to cause fission in depleted uranium. 

Small-scale, tabletop nuclear fusion devices, known as compact accelerator neutron generators, are routinely used as a source of neutron radiation. By design, however, these devices consume more energy than they release. The beam of neutrons generated by these devices can be used to identify the elemental composition of amaterial.The coal industry uses such beams to measure the sulfur content of coal in real time as the coal moves over conveyor belts. The cement industry similarly uses these beams to judge the quality of cement mixes. These fusiongenerated neutrons are also used to identify the elemental composition of nuclear wastes and for the detection and identification of explosives. 

NUCLEAR FUSION IS A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF CLEAN ENERGY... 

A potential major source of energy for the mid- to late-21st century is nuclear fusion. In todays experimental fusion reactors, deuterium and tritium atoms (both isotopes of hydrogen) fuse to create helium and fast-flying neutrons. The neutrons escape from the reaction chamber, carrying with them vast amounts of kinetic energy. 

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