Nuclear Fusion a reality

[rov1200]

http://news.bbc.co.uk.../sci/tech/8485669.stm

With the rapid progress in this field could we expect Nuclear Fusion to be reality within 20 years?

How would this affect the oil industry?

How would it affect global warming if this removes most of the carbon based industries?

Would our power bills be reduced substantially?

Is any oil producing country likely to put a spanner in the works?

[Rev Sermon]

1) Almost certainly eventually but probably longer than they predict.
2) Very little - you can't put a nuclear reactor in your car
3) I suspect all the oil etc. will still be burn't
4) Don't be silly?
5) No America would bomb them.

[dr b]

I'm holding out for one of these:

http://www.coolest-ga...-garbage-into-energy/

[regulo]

Back in the 50's, when nuclear fission was first coming on line, we were told electricity would be so cheap it wouldn't be worth the trouble of billing people for it! Oh, what naive fools we were, we actually believed it.

[jake-the-peg]

As it happens 20 years ago I was a junior scientist working on Fusion.

Fusion has already happened JET in Oxfordshire achieved it years ago but was never designed to break even - ITER being built now in France will and is an experiment to solve the engineering problems. DEMO will be built in about 30 years or so and will be the first demonstration reactor.

This is a different technology and is some way behind but is still worth doing as it may have other stuff to offer.

Fusion is big technology though - it's never going to run your car, it'll also not be that cheap to build and decomission so those early 50's guys who promised "electricity too cheap to meter" were a bit overly enthusiastic.

The Oil companies don't give a damn whether they sell you petrol, biodiesel, hydrogen or electricity to put in your car.

It's probably goint to play a part in reduicing carbon emissions but as I say you can't put one in your car. The economics of Hydrogen look a bit dodgy right now so it will probably be restricted to electricity supply.

Electricity will still cost us all money - I don't think any oil producing country would or could do much or even would want to.

Even if we had free electricity we'd need to keep producing oil for chemicals and plastics etc. and as it gets harder to find and more expensive the price will go up

[rov1200]

As it crosses the point of unity surely its a method of achieving perpetual motion in future?

[Old_Geezer]

You may not get a fusion car, but you may get an electric one, and generate your electricity using fusion. Who knows ?

[jake-the-peg]

Yes OG that's possible

No Rov it's not perpetual motion because you're using hydrogen as a fuel.

What happens is that the energy tied up in a nucleus of Helium is less than the energy tied up in the two duterium nuceii - So when you "bang the rocks together" you get left over energy.


Mind you what a lot of people don't realise is that fusion is still an intensely radioactive process and reactors will have to be decomissioned carefully - but because you don't have any nasty fuel rods left over, no plutonium produced and you can pick your materials carefully you can have most of the waste with a half life of 100 years rather than 100,000 years.

So it's not cheap and easy but unlike wind and wave and solar you can turn it on when you need it.

All part of a mixed energy strategy

[chakka35]

Just worth mentioning that no flora or fauna would exist on this planet without nuclear fusion.

[chakka35]

Come to think of it, neither would anything exist in the universe at all except hydrogen.