Building a Star on Earth - France gets nuclear fusion plant

[Alex]

...And no, they haven't got past the stage where these fusion reactors can produce more nergy than it uses to sustain them, which is why they still reckon we wont have a commerical fusion station till 50 odd years time

[Moby-Dick]

Think of it this way - you've got a kilo of TNT, with a fuse, and a match. You only need the small amount of energy in the match to release the far far larger energy in the TNT.

thats called the activation energy - think of it as a small hill at the top of a ski jump you've got to push the ball over before it rolls down.

[Twigman]

Loving the fact that everyone is arguing the same point at each other because they like physics or whatever...lol

[Moby-Dick]

Loving the fact that everyone is arguing the same point at each other because they like physics or whatever...lol

and ?

its a technical forum

if this where forums.changing-rooms.co.uk , no doubt we'd be discussing the colour of the carpets in the administration offices and do they think the fuschia is too much of a pun for a suitable colour ?

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Loving the fact that everyone is arguing the same point at each other because they like physics or whatever...lol

Gotta be the first time there's an arguement over something thats agreed.

[MAS]

And what will they use it for?

Producing cheese.

Boo hiss.

[silent ben]

Whatever happened to cold fusion, didnt some guy reckon he could make energy by directing soundwaves at a bubble in liquid, when the bubble contracted it created energy, probably the same amount of energy as the battery power needed in his ipod to create the soundwaves

sonisolarluminescence, try saying that quickly Its a very interesting effect whereby a bubble is held in place in the water by the sound, then begins to expand, explode, release some photons and form again 000's of times a second.

The theory was, that when the bubble collapsed, it did so at such a fast rate, that the heat and pressure formed would create a short lived fusion reaction. The scientist was later discredited because his experiment to prove fusion was going on used a particle creator which was creating the same particles as he was detecting to prove it was happening.

The longest a fusion reactor has ever been able to sustain an output for is 3 seconds, during which it just about produced more energy than was put in to get it started.

[glenthemole]

sonisolarluminescence, try saying that quickly Its a very interesting effect whereby a bubble is held in place in the water by the sound, then begins to expand, explode, release some photons and form again 000's of times a second.

The theory was, that when the bubble collapsed, it did so at such a fast rate, that the heat and pressure formed would create a short lived fusion reaction. The scientist was later discredited because his experiment to prove fusion was going on used a particle creator which was creating the same particles as he was detecting to prove it was happening.

The longest a fusion reactor has ever been able to sustain an output for is 3 seconds, during which it just about produced more energy than was put in to get it started.

Cold fusion is a pretty controversial subject. In 1989 it was claimed that cold fusion was achieved with a very simple electrolysis experiement, made front page news etc, the scentists were celebrities until they realised it didn't actually work.

Again, in 2002 it was claimed cold fusion had been achieved, this time with Sonoluminescence, but again, noone could replicate the results.

Whether cold fusion can ever be acieved I don't know. Its going to need something really ingenious for it to work.

[Steve]

I have a cold fusion reactor in my garage. Keep it hush though.

[neonplanet40]

I think the bit that everyone is leaving out is pretty much that if one of these plants were to become the target of terrorists youc an say goodbye earth.... we are taking serious energy here! Think of what a nuclear plant can do... now multiply the explosion of that a hell of a lot of times and you have the worlds last and most powerful bomb. Just not to keen having it built on earth......

Neo

[MAS]

Well, tbh, if it all goes wrong and blows up....it couldn't happen to a nicer country

'Claude, look, zere will be thousands of new jobs created at the power plant!'

'But Pierre, I enjoy refusing to move with ze times and would rather continue farming food that no one needs while ze other countries of Europe subsidise my pointless endeavours. Progress is a waste of turnip-farming time'

[jimborae]

Is nobody even the slightest bit concerned that it is the French who are building this nuclear disaster waiting to happen.

Can anybody show me anything French made that is even remotely reliable.

[Stewart]

I have a cold fusion reactor in my garage. Keep it hush though.

And it uses a Q-Tec PSU. Keep it very hush.

[oralpain]

Compairing a TNT bomb to any nuclear reaction is misleading.

Chemical reactions cannot create or destroy energy, they can only absorb or reasleas it by forming or breaking down the bonds between molecules. There is no net gain or loss of mass.

In a nuclear reactions mass is actually lost or gained. Matter and energy are interchangeable. A fision or fusion reaction converts some (more for fusion than fission) of the mass put into it to energy. A matter/antimater reaction can convert all the mass involved into energy. A small ammount of mass is equivalent to an enourmos amount of energy, wich is why neclear reactions produce so much power.

I think the bit that everyone is leaving out is pretty much that if one of these plants were to become the target of terrorists youc an say goodbye earth.... we are taking serious energy here! Think of what a nuclear plant can do... now multiply the explosion of that a hell of a lot of times and you have the worlds last and most powerful bomb. Just not to keen having it built on earth......

If a fusion reactor was attackedand destroyed during peak use, the explosion would not be all that large and the damage it would do would almsot certainly be less than a melt down or significant leak from a more conventional fission plant.

A fusion weapon (hydrogen bomb) realses all the enery it's going to release in a very short period of time. There is no way to contain or harness that level of power over that short a time in a fusion reactor. There is no way or reason to have such an active reaction in fusion powerplant. Any energy created beyond what was necissary to sustain the reaction plus what they could harness to run whatever turbines and generators needed to make electicity would be waste and would not be created intentionally. Even if it was created accidentaly, there is no way they would be (or beable to) putting enough power into the magnetic containment to contain the force of a reaction large enough to casue a significant explosion.

Bottom line there is not enough fule in the reactor at any given time to make a sizeable explosion and any attempt to put enough fuel into the reactor and fuse it rapidly would cause the failure of the reactor before the energy for a significant explosion could be released. Fallout is less of a risk than at a modern fission reactor as well. The ammount of fuel that could be released is extremely small, the vast majority of it is not radio active, and the small amount that would be (possibly tritium and a few isotopes of helium) is low level with a short half-life. There would be some fallout from components of the reactor itself that had become radioactive, but it would still be a rather small amount.

Worst case scenario (unless someone purpose built a reactor to be a bomb from the beginning, wich would be a fantastic waste of time as building a real hydrogen bomb would be, faster, cheaper and easier) would be the reactor is intentionally overloaded and explodes killing whoever is very close to it.

Fear of an explosion and the effects thereof at any fusion reactor are highly exaggerated.

[neonplanet40]

How do you know that the french wouldnt use it as a cover to making a weapon? And if they are making significant amounts then it will be more than france feeling the impact.

Neo

[headbrace]

Dear god, what? The french would go through the pretence of all this merely to make a not very good weapon which would kill french people? I mean, what? The mind boggles. For a start, the others on the comittee thingmy that decided where it was going to be would ave to be in cahoots to make sure it went to France. And they would then have to speak to the designers to change it so that it was no longer a powerstaiton but instead a weapon. Of which t wouldn't be a very good one anyway, as its still at the experimental stage, and would have to be very secure with shielding and so forth.

Now assuming that they had thought of all this, and bought off everyone involved to allow them to do it, if they were to set it off, it would explode or what have you in the middle of France. Killing french people, the majority of whom would have been involved in the project. Which would be pointless. Expecially considering they could just go get a few of their own, cheap, nukes, and launch those. At people who aren't french.

On a more relevant note, all this fusion malarky is certainly very interesting. It may well turn out to be much better if it all works thant current Nuclear power plants, but whther it will ever gain public acceptance is another matter.