[pyro-manic]

Originally posted by Ashrak
oh and BTW research into cold fusion is going to take place on a neutral site in france if i remembre correctly

Fusion, but not cold fusion. Cold fusion is regarded as pretty much impossible nowadays. There are a number of sites around the world where a majjor fusion research project is due to start in the next couple of years, with France being one of the main contenders to site the reactor...

[Ashrak]

would anyone mind explaining the difference between fusion and fission ... i know fusion is the joining of hydrogen atoms to make new atoms and therefore releasing insane ammounts of energy


how bout fission?

[StratComm]

Fission is splitting atoms of a heavy (and unstable) element into two lighter elements.  Uranium and plutonium are most commonly used as fission fuels because their half-lives are long enough to actually use them before they decay.

[pyro-manic]

Fission also results in lots of nasty radioactive leftovers, whereas fusion has very little resultant waste.

[StratComm]

That's only partly true; fission is "dirty" because the elements that it reacts, both the fissionable material and the resultant isotopes, are highly atomicly unstable and so emit lots of nasty alpha and beta radiation for a long time after reaction.  Fusion generates a massive Gamma-ray burst along with the other light levels that come out, but gamma rays are very short-lived and so don't pollute an area over a long time.  Fission produces less gamma radiation than fusion, IIRC.

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by Ashrak
oh and BTW research into cold fusion is going to take place on a neutral site in france if i remembre correctly

It's either France or Japan, but the four major countries (Russia, China, US, and someone else) can't agree on which one.