News Homemade Fusion Reactor

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/03...usion_reactor/

[David_Fitzy]

That is cool

could be a interesting PC mod too, anyone want to front mount a star in a jar?

[Mother-Goose]

That is one seriously clever guy. Kudos!

[dullonien]

Hmm, not entirely sure I believe that this is a fully working nuclear fusion chamber. It's hard to believe that a 17 year old managed to suspend a taurus of plasma at 200 million degrees with electro magnets, using materials off ebay and get it stable. If it's true, get him working on a fully blown one asap.

The day nuclear fusion comes a reality on power plant scale is the day our entire energy needs are solved. No more need to create electricity through coal, gas, oil, nuclear fission, wind, water, solar etc. All the benefits of fission (with loads more energy produced) using deuterium and tritium (renewable forms of hydrogen found in the ocean) and creating helium and a spare neucleus, with none of the side effects (radiatioactive waste etc.)

Here's hoping that it's getting close to becoming a reality.

N.B. It's been a few years since my Physics A-Level, so some details in my post may be incorect.

[fini]

AFAIK getting it stable etc isn't the problem - it's getting it stable whilst not costing you energy that's the problem. His probably works just fine, but eats its way through a lot of energy to do so in the process - thus negating any use as a generator.

fini

[dullonien]

Cheers for clearing that up fini.

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

I seem to remember reading this story a few months ago in the forum. Why has it taken so long to reach the front page?

[Zut]

I've seen this done before, and I've seen comments from people (on various different blogs and forums) who have also tried it themselves. AFAIK it is technically fusion, but it uses more energy that is generates and is nothing like the high temperature torus-style reactors like START and ITER.

[Veles]

Yeah stable nuclear fusion isn't anything new, been done for a while, but it uses up more energy than it can produce (would hate to see this guys leccy bill 8/). The holy grail of fusion is so called cold fusion, i.e. getting fusion to occur at lower temperatures so energy can actually be produced, once/if that happens, will hopefully be the start of very cheap energy.

EDIT: Seems someone might be getting close: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020309/fob1.asp

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Da_Rude_Baboon

I seem to remember reading this story a few months ago in the forum. Why has it taken so long to reach the front page?

If it was, we're sorry... but we can't keep an eye on every single thread in every forum and maintain the front page - there just isn't the time in the day. There is a handy thread at the top of this forum where you can suggest news though.

Or, of course, you can email or PM any of us if you think you have something newsworthy and we'll be more than happy to publish it if it's a worthwhile piece of news.

[ChromeX]

Originally Posted by Veles

The holy grail of fusion is so called cold fusion, i.e. getting fusion to occur at lower temperatures so energy can actually be produced, once/if that happens, will hopefully be the start of very cheap energy.

EDIT: Seems someone might be getting close: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020309/fob1.asp

The holy grail of fusion power is the ability to produce power from a fusion reaction that doesnt take as much energy to setup full stop, be that cold fusion or thermonuclear. But we are getting there, the JET prgramme attained a Q factor or 0.7 which means 70% of the energy put into the system came out as usable energy and that was in 1997. With the ITER programme they'll probably hit a higher target, will they breakeven? Who knows.

[Delphium]

makes my home made CO2 cutting laser look like a lego toy.

KUDOS!!!

[Nikumba]

Is this different to cold fusion ?? As i though fusion was easy to do, but cold fusion was the problematic one?

Kimbie

[Lord_A]

Respect

[r4tch3t]

Many people can do that, I would say its not sustained, nor has it got a Q factor above 1 (If even above 0.1)
IIRC they have produced a fusion reaction with a Q factor greater than 1, but they couldn't sustain it.
This is the kind of thing I want to do for a job. Work for ITER or JET or CERN.

Awesome work though, I wonder how much it cost him to build.

[David_Fitzy]

Originally Posted by dullonien

The day nuclear fusion comes a reality on power plant scale is the day our entire energy needs are solved. No more need to create electricity through coal, gas, oil, nuclear fission, wind, water, solar etc. All the benefits of fission (with loads more energy produced) using deuterium and tritium (renewable forms of hydrogen found in the ocean) and creating helium and a spare neucleus, with none of the side effects (radiatioactive waste etc.)

It still has that word that tree-huggers hate, NUCLEAR! and that's going to be possibly a bigger hurdle than the science. Try telling a born-again anti-nuclear that nuclear fusion is the best way to power the planet, they hear the word nuclear think chernobl and say "not on my planet"

[dullonien]

Theoretically alot more energy should be produced than put in. And since the reaction can sustain itself once it get's going (kinda like in spiderman 2 lol), there's only a need to input energy to start the chain of reaction off. This is where stablility comes in, you don't want it to run away and explode/implode (can'r remember which would happen), but you don't want to have to keep putting energy in.

I could have talked about this in more depth a few yrs ago, including the equations and typical energy values the theory behind fusion intail. But I have forgotten almost all of what I learn't at the time.

I do remember my Physics teacher saying at the time, that if he had enough money he would invest it in nuclear fusion. He was convinced that it's only a matter of time (less than 20yrs in his view) untill they cracked it. Can't wait.

Edit.

David_Fitzy

Nah I don't see any problem there. Governments wouldn't let people get in the way over something as stupid as 'It's called nuclear'. It's the opposite of fission and creates no harmfull bi-product. It is the 'perfect' energy source. It's what the entire universe already uses! All energy is derived from nuclear fusion.

Please tell me if anything I have said is incorrect. Wish I could remember what I learn't.

[r4tch3t]

Originally Posted by dullonien

Theoretically a lot more energy should be produced than put in. And since the reaction can sustain itself once it gets going (kinda like in spiderman 2 lol), there's only a need to input energy to start the chain of reaction off. This is where stability comes in, you don't want it to run away and explode/implode (can't remember which would happen), but you don't want to have to keep putting energy in.

The reaction would fizzle out. It wouldn't explode or implode, just fizzle out. If the containment fields suddenly disappeared it would rapidly expand and melt the reactor (and possibly cause small explosions due to other materials getting hot. But nothing huge. You have to keep putting energy in, in the form of magnetic confinement. I need to do more research as my knowledge is fading and getting outdated.
Unless they come up with a complete redesign of fusion reactors (I.E not toroidal or improve toroidal massively) they will still have to put large amounts of energy in, its just the stability part, if they can keep the reaction going they should be fine. But the Helium gets in the way, sapping up the energy, they have to remove it somehow.

Oh and by the way Spiderman 2 is completely infeasible, nothing could withstand those temperatures, and as for doing that reaction in open air, good luck, too much contamination. If it was going to work, it would just be burning the tritium into Helium, then you would need to add more.

Current designs fuse Deuterium and tritium. The deuterium comes from heavy water AKA sea water. The tritium comes from lithium split when Neutron byproducts hit the lithium causing it to split into Helium and tritium. The tritium is then redirected back into the reaction to further fuel it and create more neutrons for more tritium.

Anyways, if you really wanted to know how Fusion reactors work, I'm sure you could find more coherent sources like Wikipedia rather than my ramblings.

[Veles]

Originally Posted by David_Fitzy

It still has that word that tree-huggers hate, NUCLEAR! and that's going to be possibly a bigger hurdle than the science. Try telling a born-again anti-nuclear that nuclear fusion is the best way to power the planet, they hear the word nuclear think chernobl and say "not on my planet"

lol very true, people are really scared of the word nuclear for some reason, probably got it in their heads that anything thats got nuclear in the name would explode like a nuclear bomb.

They even had to rename NMR to MRI because people would go in them

lol at ignorant public

[Crazyglue]

2 years of planing and design? WTF, that means he started when he was like... 15 or so... they should just give him a degree in anything, no need to go to college.