Building a Star on Earth - France gets nuclear fusion plant

[Steve]

France will get to host the project to build a 10bn-euro ($12bn) nuclear fusion reactor, in the face of strong competition from Japan.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) will be the most expensive joint scientific project after the International Space Station.

The Iter programme was held up for over 18 months as parties tried to broker a deal between the two rivals.

Nuclear fusion taps energy from reactions like those that heat the Sun.

Nuclear fusion is seen as a cleaner approach to power production than nuclear fission and fossil fuels.

[Full story - BBC News]

Later in the article it says "In terms of the physics and huge amounts of energy involved, the Iter project would be akin to building a star on Earth."

That's Zombie dogs and nuclear fusion, all in one day!

[Nick]

Maybe they need all that power to get the zombie dogs going again...

[Nick F]

I remember this being on the News a good few years ago when they were planing it, I just hope it won't be a massive waste of money.

[mike_w]

I never knew they had reached the stage where they got more energy out than they put in. Still, it's definately good news - the sooner we stop destroying our planet, the better!

[scotty6435]

I remember watching the first live plasma reaction on tomorrow's world a few years back. It was a tiny, incredibly quick flash of blue and purple but it kicked ass

[ajbrun]

I never knew they had reached the stage where they got more energy out than they put in. Still, it's definately good news - the sooner we stop destroying our planet, the better!

I don't think it's possible to get more energy out than you put in because energy cannot be destroyed or created.

[Nemeliza]

Why so close, cant they do it somewhere a bit further away.....like on the moon.

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Correct it is impossible to create energy, you can only convert it from other forms.

What might really fry your brain is that mass can be converted to energy which is how these reactions work, Ensteisn theorey and all that.

[ajbrun]

Indeed. It's easy to create *heavier atoms using fission (a nuclear power plant), but fusion requires a massive amount of heat and pressure.

* I THINK that's correct.

[Moby-Dick]

E really does equall Mc squared ( where E= Energy , M= Mass and c = the speed of light ) this implies you only need to convert a small mass into energy to release a lot of energy

[iMc]

This is good news, at least it will be if it works.

Wonder how long it will take to build...

[Stoo]

I don't think it's possible to get more energy out than you put in because energy cannot be destroyed or created.

That's because you're not thinking large enough, the amount of potential energy in a fusion reaction is *huge* , but to release that energy it might not take anywhere near as much..

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.

The way you were thinking would require a kilo of TNT to release the energy in the er, kilo of TNT..

At the moment the efficiency of the fusion reaction isn't all that great (low energy yield etc), which would be like you had to go through 10 boxes of matches to get the fuse to light, only to find out that your fuse was a bit crap in scenario above..

[mike_w]

I don't think it's possible to get more energy out than you put in because energy cannot be destroyed or created.

When I say put in, I mean just the energy you use up to start the reaction, not the materials. If you couldn't get more energy out than you put in, it might be a bit difficult for power stations to work!

[ajbrun]

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.

I think we've got our wires crossed.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed no matter how big the scale is. It can only be converted.

The energy stored inside the TNT (carbon or whatever) is the same as the energy released at the end.

heat + potential energy of TNT = Noise (bang) + Heat

[ajbrun]

When I say put in, I mean just the energy you use up to start the reaction, not the materials. If you couldn't get more energy out than you put in, it might be a bit difficult for power stations to work!

Nevermind - you just made it sound like they were creating energy saying more energy out than in. In power stations, they convert the energy stored in the coal into heat to drive the turbines.

[Stoo]

I think we've got our wires crossed.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed no matter how big the scale is. It can only be converted.

The energy stored inside the TNT (carbon or whatever) is the same as the energy released at the end.

heat + potential energy of TNT = Noise (bang) + Heat

Which is exactly what I just posted..

You were assuming that the energy input into the process exceeded the potential energy stored in the atoms.