Nuclear Fusion

kilkun Says:

May 4, 2012 - fission, not fusion.

programaster Says:

May 5, 2012 - He said fission. In response to a guy talking about fission.

OfficeThug Says:

May 5, 2012 - Fission waste isn't even that bad. 95% of spent fuel is uranium-238, which is basically depleted uranium and is classified as very low-level waste itself. It can also be used in breeder reactors as fuel.3% of waste is actual fission products, with 15% of that being radioiodine (300 years for 10 half lives). The rest stabilizes within 10 years and is safe to handle separately thereafter.The problem is the 1% that remains. Those are transuranics from uranium-238 transmutations due to neutrons.

OfficeThug Says:

May 5, 2012 - If you can separate that 1%, along with the radioiodine, you reduce your waste mass and volume by roughly 98%. It becomes a basketball, for a year of 1 GWe of energy. That's minuscule and should be far easier to manage than, say, waste and emissions from a coal plant.You can also continue to breed transuranics until they hit an isotope that can be fissioned. Once that happens, the next neutron fissions it and turns that waste into short-lived fission products. Bam, no more long-lived waste.

OfficeThug Says:

May 5, 2012 - Forgot to say, another 1% is un-fissioned uranium-235, the fuel isotope used in current pressurized water reactors. That stuff will be part of the uranium-238 if you separate all the uranium out, and should be good for enrichment and re-use in another PWR, or just used as is in a breeder.

OfficeThug Says:

May 5, 2012 - The amount of hydrogen fusion uses is tiny. A golfball of compact hydrogen would power all your energy needs for 600 years if used as fuel in a fusion reactor.That's one thing people have a hard time grasping, that nuclear is so incredibly energy dense and energy specific you need far less stuff and produce far less waste to produce as much energy as any other method of production.

programaster Says:

May 5, 2012 - One thing that I'm particularly interested in is the byproduct of Helium. The main reason airships aren't popular now is because of the rarity and therefore high cost of helium. Now if the very way we're producing our world supply of energy is providing decent amounts of helium, I can't see a reason why they wouldn't siphon is off and sell it as an environmentally-friendly and more importantly safe lifting gas.

CommanderMethos Says:

May 7, 2012 - they could making a killing in selling to the childrens partys industry

programaster Says:

May 7, 2012 - Well there's that. And cost-effective airships.

thebaskill Says:

May 7, 2012 - Why not try using a fission reactor to kick start and help sustain a fusion reactor. The waste from the fission reactor could be dumped in the plasma of the fusion reactor where it would be vaporized.

Neoli2300 Says:

May 10, 2012 - yes, but fission still is. Which is what he said.

Neoli2300 Says:

May 10, 2012 - why?

TheNakedQuack Says:

May 10, 2012 - 'fission produces lots of radioactive waste'Yeah he said fission, not fusion...

CommanderMethos Says:

May 11, 2012 - and then it would destabalise the fusion reaction. we can get the reacotr working we just cant get it self sustaining

8baanknexer Says:

May 14, 2012 - He said fission, not fusion

sebastian272007 Says:

May 18, 2012 - when I see how science can help us so much in the near future I'm excited ... but then I think of the country I'm in US, which I love, but to many greedy politicians and lobbyists run it. to them if it doesn't help them make mass amount of money and is as guaranteed as fossil fuels, they'll wait... their excuse, change will kill the economy. no it wont it will make the fossil fuels last longer and add an abundant of clean energy. ..then 1 of these greedy guys will sell clean energy to me.

ScottishDrunkenHobo2 Says:

May 20, 2012 - It makes you wonder why there is such a reluctance to move to such reactors, and why "environmentalists" such as Greenpeace are so vehemently against nuclear power.Could it be because a wide-scale switch from fossil fuels to nuclear power would all but eliminate any threat from climate change? How could governments justify extortionate fuel taxes in the name of environmentalism? How could Al Gore continue to profit from scare mongering?Nuclear is the answer, and that is its downfall.

vash1053 Says:

May 20, 2012 - The documentary notes that fusion of deuterium and tritium produces the largest amount of energy compared to all other conceivable reactions between light atomic nuclei. I don't think this is accurate.. A matter/antimater annihilation of even the lightest atoms produces more energy than fusion. The question is, of course, is it possible to get a net gain of energy after the production of antimatter is factored into the equation... The answer is "not yet". If only we could harvest antimatter

AnubisEye009 Says:

May 21, 2012 - ლ(ಠ益ಠლ atom, Y U NO FUSE!!!

OfficeThug Says:

May 21, 2012 - I don't think it has much to do with environmentalists being insidious as it does with fossil fuel interests and current nuclear fuel industry interests standing to lose an enormous amount of profit if cheap, plentiful energy of any form were to flourish. For instance, the reason why Nixon killed off the molten salt reactor project was partly due to its inability to produce good weapons material and mostly because the uranium-235 enrichment companies wanted complete technological lock-in.

OfficeThug Says:

May 21, 2012 - I will confer that a lot of environmentalists are idiotic. I say this as an environmentalist myself. I embrace nuclear because it has the best cost-effective potential and best rapid-deployment potential out of everything else right now. Imagine factory-assembled 200 MW reactor units to be deployed anywhere that's needed, costing a fraction of what fossil fuels offer per power.I also see nuclear as our best chance at reversing climate change, pollution, and food and water shortages, forever.

ScottishDrunkenHobo2 Says:

May 22, 2012 - Don't get me wrong; fossil fuel companies also try to beat down nuclear, of course they do. Nuclear is the competition and they act in their own self-interest, which is a perfectly rational thing to do in a free market.I do object to environmentalist groups coming out with the same bunk however, as they are supposed to be on our side. Although it's fairly evident that's no longer true of many of them; they seem more concerned with tabloid sensationalism and self-promotion than helping humanity.

cartelreaction Says:

May 23, 2012 - even if this works using water as fuel will be a problem as the need for it goes up. for earth to have sustainable energy without damaging the environment, we will need to perfect wind solar and fusion energy. we will need a way to make water if water becomes the new oil.

OfficeThug Says:

May 23, 2012 - The amount of hydrogen required to power a household for a hundred years through fusion nuclear is less than a pound. Nuclear isn't like conventional chemical sources of energy: it's some 6-7 million times denser in energy, so you need 6-7 million times less of it to produce the same amount of energy as you do, say, coal.

JoaoBarbosa1996 Says:

May 29, 2012 - He said fission, not fussion