Nuclear Fusion
State of the Art
Why Nuclear Fusion?
Clean Energy
Virtually Unlimited fuel
(Heavy Hydrogen)
24% of the elemental mass of our galaxy
(Radioactive Hydrogen)
May help in manned Space Explorations
Medical Analysis
Landmine and suitcase bomb detection
Fusion Reactors are enormous and hugely expensive
But highly photogenic...
Inside the Reactor...
Atomic Energy
Three Methods to overcome Coulomb's barrier
a) High temperatures and pressures
b) High velocities
c) Small separations between the nuclei (Cold Fusion)
Cold Fusion
Hottest scientific controversy of the recent decades.
Fusion that can take place at room temperature
Controllable Nuclear Fusion that almost works
Low scientific consensus caused from the difficult feats to overcome to make it work.
Fleishmann and Pons (1989)
Department of Energy (2004) “While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review.”
Alternatives:
High Velocity
•
Laser Ignition (Inertial Confinement Fusion) National Ignition Facility
•
Bubble Fusion (Sonofusion)
inspired from Somoluminescence:
•
Emission of short burst of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid exited by sound waves
TFTR (USA)
JET (UK)
International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (Cadarache, Southern France)
World Research institutes for Nuclear Fusion
Thank you....