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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: deep_eyes on April 08, 2003, 10:01:46 am
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New Fusion Method Offers Hope of New Energy Source
By KENNETH CHANG
Reported from: NY TIMES - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/science/physical/08FUSI.html?ex=1051070400&en=541077c2087536ad&ei=5004&partner=UNTD
PHILADELPHIA, April 7 — With a blast of X-rays compressing a capsule of hydrogen to conditions approaching those at the center of the Sun, scientists from Sandia National Laboratories reported today that they had achieved thermonuclear fusion, in essence detonating a tiny hydrogen bomb.
Such controlled explosions would not be large enough to be dangerous and might offer an alternative way of generating electricity by harnessing fusion, the process that powers the Sun. Fusion combines hydrogen atoms into helium, producing bountiful energy as a byproduct.
"It's the first observation of fusion for a pulsed power source," said Dr. Ramon J. Leeper, manager of the target physics department at Sandia, in Albuquerque, who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Physical Society here.
Fusion power would be safer than fission, the current method used in nuclear power plants, because fusion does not produce long-lived radioactive waste.
Most fusion efforts have tried to use magnetic fields to compress hydrogen to temperatures hot enough for fusion to occur continuously, as it does in the Sun. But sustaining a dense hot cloud of hydrogen gas has proved trickier than scientists thought when they started fusion experiments 50 years ago. Even proponents say decades of research and expensive reactors are needed before a commercial power plant is possible. Dr. Jeff Quintenz, director of the Pulsed Power Sciences Center at Sandia, likened the approach to burning coal in a furnace.
The Sandia experiments, by comparison, could lead to something more like an internal combustion engine, in which power is generated through a series of explosions. "Squirt in a little bit of fuel, explode it," Dr. Quintenz said. "Squirt in a little bit of fuel, explode it."
That approach is potentially simpler, eliminating the need to confine hot hydrogen gas. But designing a machine that could detonate controlled thermonuclear explosions in quick succession — and survive them — is an engineering challenge that scientists have only begun to think about.
Earlier, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California set off fusion explosions by shining intense lasers on hydrogen capsules. Livermore plans to further that research in a new National Ignition Facility. Other scientists are looking to implode hydrogen with beams of heavy elements like xenon or cesium.
The Sandia apparatus, the Z accelerator, was originally built to study nuclear weapons explosions without actual nuclear tests. In the mid-90's, the Z accelerator put out an impressive 20 trillion watts of X-rays. But that was far short of what is needed to induce fusion, and Sandia officials considered turning it off.
Improvements have raised the peak X-ray power by a factor of 10, to more than 200 trillion watts. It has been considered a dark-horse candidate for practical fusion. "We are solidly in the fusion regime," Dr. Quintenz said. "We're in the game."
For a few billionths of a second, the power of the X-rays crashing into the hydrogen capsule far exceeds the output of all the world's power plants.
Most of the 104-foot-wide machine, which resembles a large wagon wheel, stores a large amount of electrical energy, enough to power 100 houses for two minutes, and unleashing it quickly, which sets off a Rube Goldberg chain of events that leads to fusion. At the center of the machine are 360 vertical tungsten wires that form a cylindrical cage one and a half inches across. Inside the cage is a plastic foam cylinder. Encased in the foam is a BB-size plastic capsule that holds deuterium, a heavy form of hydrogen.
The burst of 20 million amperes of current vaporizes the tungsten wires and generates a magnetic field that accelerates the tungsten vapor toward the center of the cylinder. The vapor slams into the plastic foam, creating a supersonic shock wave. The shock wave generates X-rays that heat the deuterium to more than 20 million degrees Fahrenheit and squeeze it tightly.
In experiments last year, the Sandia researchers first detected telltale neutrons produced by the fusion reactions. They confirmed their findings last month. At present, the thermonuclear explosions are minuscule pops, enough to power a 40-watt light bulb for a mere one ten-thousandth of a second. "This is a first step on a long road," Dr. Leeper said.
A $60 million upgrade to the Z accelerator planned for 2005 will increase the maximum current by a third. Sandia scientists hope for a larger, more powerful machine later. "The physics looks encouraging," said Dr. Dale M. Meade of the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Eventually, to generate electricity, the Sandia scientists envision surrounding the fusion chamber with a liquid that heats up by absorbing the neutrons generated by the fusion reaction. The hot liquid would boil water to turn a turbine.
The Z machine can fire one shot a day. A power plant using the technology would have to include a robotic system that could replace the burned-out tungsten wires, foam and hydrogen capsule every few seconds. Dr. Quintenz said the future plant might be able to produce pulses of energy one trillion times as large as that coming from the Z machine.
Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. Lasers, which can be precisely focused, win the most attention. The $4 billion National Ignition Facility will fire 192 lasers at one target. Lasers, however, are relatively inefficient. Scientists looking to use heavy elements hope to take advantage of existing technology from particle physics accelerators, using magnets to guide charged particles. The Z machine is relatively energy-efficient and straightforward. "It's a simple technology, really, and it's robust," Dr. Leeper said.
Traditional magnetic-confinement fusion is also moving forward. An international group may build a $5 billion experimental reactor.
"It's premature to judge which is the winner," said Dr. Stewart C. Prager, a fusion scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "We definitely need more physics."
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can we make a bomb out of it?
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Mmm... fusion... *drools*
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Bad deepeyes! You can't post this story without a picture of the Z-Machine itself. :D
(http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2003/images/jpg/zmachine.jpg)
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Now that's impressive
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the hell?...:wtf:
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that's big
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Originally posted by Bobboau
can we make a bomb out of it?
Good idea. We will test in an urban setting in US. ;7
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that looks somehow like a nuclear powerplant pool. But what are all those veinlike things? It might be explained in the text above, but I failed to read it all...
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now who planted a spycam into my bathroom?
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sick gortef
they must be tungston wire or their pieces of gortefs a*# hair. sorry in advance.
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Originally posted by venom2506
that looks somehow like a nuclear powerplant pool. But what are all those veinlike things? It might be explained in the text above, but I failed to read it all...
That's the Z-Machine, Venom. The "veinlike things" are a burst of 20 million amperes of electrical discharge. The discharge vaporizes some metal, sets up a shockwave system that releases X-rays and causes fusion to take place.
Of course, it might just be a Knossos. :D
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Originally posted by Razor
Good idea. We will test in an urban setting in US. ;7
This is why people don't like you.
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Woo and yay! Fusion power!
Originally posted by Bobboau
can we make a bomb out of it?
You fool! Hydrogen bombs have been in existence since the 50s. It's trying to CONTAIN that energy for peaceful purposes that's the difficult part.
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Originally posted by mikhael
Bad deepeyes! You can't post this story without a picture of the Z-Machine itself. :D
(http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2003/images/jpg/zmachine.jpg)
I do not know what it is or what it does (I didn't read the thingy at the top) but I want it. Hmmmmmm purrrrrrrrdy
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Originally posted by mikhael
That's the Z-Machine, Venom. The "veinlike things" are a burst of 20 million amperes of electrical discharge. The discharge vaporizes some metal, sets up a shockwave system that releases X-rays and causes fusion to take place.
cool!
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
This is why people don't like you.
They didn't even like me before. The first day I came at VBB and HLP people looked at me with :wtf:
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Originally posted by mikhael
Bad deepeyes! You can't post this story without a picture of the Z-Machine itself. :D
i thought it was another HP advertisement... didnt realize this was it ....
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Originally posted by Razor
They didn't even like me before. The first day I came at VBB and HLP people looked at me with :wtf:
That's because you kept telling people they "didn't know who they were messing with"
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
That's because you kept telling people they "didn't know who they were messing with"
Well actually, you all started to flame me back then. I had to fight back. Did you expect me to sit there and just stand for that. No dude! I strike back. It's a simple principle of revenge.
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Originally posted by Razor
Well actually, you all started to flame me back then. I had to fight back.
Me? Oh, you mean people in general. IIRC, I personally didn't start to flame you until you proved what a little tit you are with that "you don't know who you're messing with" stuff.
Way to fight back, though :yes:
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Originally posted by neo_hermes
they must be tungston wire or their pieces of gortefs a*# hair. sorry in advance.
or just hair... ok gonna stop now...
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Me? Oh, you mean people in general. IIRC, I personally didn't start to flame you until you proved what a little tit you are with that "you don't know who you're messing with" stuff.
Way to fight back, though :yes:
You actually anxiously waited all the time for the new person to come over at VBB and flame him for no reason (since you didn't have anything else smart to do). Since the whole board was deteriorating and there was noone to moderate it. I wasn't there all the time. I didn't know the "rules" I just came, asked a few questions, got flamed and...well the rest you know. And I suppose you (all) thought I would get along with that. No sir, I would not. And since I have noticed that I am really below 0 when it comes to popularity, I suppose you would all feel better if I would leave no?
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Originally posted by Razor
You actually anxiously waited all the time for the new person to come over at VBB and flame him for no reason
Oh hell no - I chose to flame you based purely on your own merits. Feel proud :)
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Oh hell no - I chose to flame you based purely on your own merits.
Oh thanks for pointing that out for me. You really enjoy flaming people for no reason eh? Without them provoking you in any way.
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No no no, pay more attention - I started flaming you once you'd proved what a little tit you where. You've yet to prove to me that you've changed your tit-like ways :nod:
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
No no no, pay more attention - I started flaming you once you'd proved what a little tit you where. You've yet to prove to me that you've changed your tit-like ways :nod:
Prove it to ya? yeah like how? :wtf:
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Well... stop acting like a tit, for starters.
Hokay... how about that russian thread? Petrarch got scared by the binary, and you said "haha, I've scared people with my knowledge of Russian. Run away, little mortals, run!". This wouldn't be bother me or be flame-worthy if you didn't do stuff like this ALL THE TIME.
The west-bashing you seem to enjoy so much. I mean, you were telling us that our governments teach us to hate Serbs. I can't help but think that you're the one being taught to hate the west, the ammount of bull**** rhetoric you come out with. I know you're a teenager and you're supposed to sulk, but for God's sake drop the 'opressed masses' attitude, please. It imresses no one, and just makes you sound like a whining kid.
Now, you need to understand I'm telling you these things for your own good. Here's hoping you manage to turn yourself around :)
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"Run away little mortals, run!"?
Hmm... I smell a catchphrase.
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well... stop acting like a tit, for starters.
The west-bashing you seem to enjoy so much. I mean, you were telling us that our governments teach us to hate Serbs. I can't help but think that you're the one being taught to hate the west, the ammount of bull**** rhetoric you come out with. I know you're a teenager and you're supposed to sulk, but for God's sake drop the 'opressed masses' attitude, please. It imresses no one, and just makes you sound like a whining kid.
yes... it'd be quite hard to teach us to hate serbs when we don't even have enough funding to have geography classes to teach us where serbia is..
I never knew 3rd world countries taught their people to be this ignorant and arrogant.
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Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well... stop acting like a tit, for starters.
The west-bashing you seem to enjoy so much. I mean, you were telling us that our governments teach us to hate Serbs. I can't help but think that you're the one being taught to hate the west, the ammount of bull**** rhetoric you come out with. I know you're a teenager and you're supposed to sulk, but for God's sake drop the 'opressed masses' attitude, please. It imresses no one, and just makes you sound like a whining kid.
yes... it'd be quite hard to teach us to hate serbs when we don't even have enough funding to have geography classes to teach us where serbia is..
I never knew 2nd/3rd world countries taught their people to be this ignorant and arrogant.
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Originally posted by Razor
Prove it to ya? yeah like how? :wtf:
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well... stop acting like a tit, for starters.
ROTFLMAO. Goes into the all time file for answers you should have seen coming :D
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Anyway. Fusion. So ****ing what. The day I get the fusion ring in my garage to work, then I'll be impressed.
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i like purple