Nuclear fusion promise

Since the earliest days of the atomic age, physicists and engineers have predicted the coming of practicable nuclear fusion within ten years or a generation. Histoi y therefore offers many reasons to be skeptical about the promise of nuclear energy. At the same time, this unparalleled form of energy is not going to return to the Pandora s box pried open by the Manhattan Project more than a half century ago. 

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. 

Hydrogen has widespread use in ammonia synthesis and welding, as rocket fuel, reducing agent (e.g. for fats, desulfurization of oil products, etc.). H2 is the promising fuel of the future hydrogen engines, fuel cells, and maybe even nuclear fusion. 

Fusion promises to provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of hydrogen fuel as well as less radioactive waste, but temperatures of fusion reactions are too high for present materials, and the huge amounts of energy needed to start fusion reactions would explode or melt any known construction materials. The fires of nuclear fusion in our Sun provided energy for early humans long before they discovered the art of combustion, see also Chemical Reactions Chemistry and Energy Explosions Fossil Fuels. 

The most promising nuclear reaction for producing power by nuclear fusion is ... 

There are several approaches to the problem of nuclear fusion. The most promising is definitely magnetic confinement fusion. In the course of the last 50 years research on magnetically confined plasmas has brought magnetic confinement fusion to the threshold of net power production and has revealed much of the physics underlying the complex behaviour of hot plasmas immersed in a magnetic field. 

A major concern in choosing the proper nuclear fusion process for energy production is the temperature necessary to carry out the process. Some promising reactions are... 

In contrast to the fission process, nuclear fusion looks like a very promising energy source, at least on paper. Although thermal pollution would be a problem, fusion has the following advantages (1) The fuels are cheap and almost inexhaustible and (2) the process produces little radioactive waste. If a fusion machine were turned off, it would shut down completely and instantly, without any danger of a meltdown. 

In nuclear fission, neutron bombardment causes a nucleus to split, releasing neutrons that split other nuclei to produce a chain reaction. A nuclear power plant controls the rate of the chain reaction to produce heat that creates steam, which is used to generate eiectricity. Potential hazards, such as radiation leaks, thermal pollution, and disposal of nuclear waste, remain current concerns. Nuclear fusion holds great promise as a source of clean abundant energy, but it requires extremely high temperatures and is not yet practical. 

Among the various possible nuclear fusion processes, the most promising one for energy production is that between the hydrogen isotopes of deuterium (D) and tritium (1). 

Nuclear fusion holds great promise as a source of clean, abundant energy, but it requires extremely high temperatures and is not yet practical. 

The Process of Nuclear Fission 786 The Promise of Nuclear Fusion 789 CHAPTER REVIEW GUIDE 790 PROBLEMS 792... 

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