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Has This Startup Cracked the Secret to Fusion Energy?
The ongoing joke in the world of physics is that commercially viable fusion energy has been just on the horizon — 30 years away at most — for the past eight decades. Now, a new Washington-based startup, Agni Energy Inc., has a plan for a fusion reactor the company said could be closer than "just on the horizon."
Existing nuclear reactors use a process called fission, which releases energy by breaking atoms apart. But fission creates radioactive byproducts that must be collected and stored. Fusion, the opposite of fission, means joining things together — in this case, atoms
Fusion reactors slam atoms together and thereby release energy. But scientists haven't yet been able to create a useful fusion reactor — one that creates more energy than is put in. If scientists ever reach "the horizon" of fusion energy, these reactors would create a whole lot more energy than fission, without the harmful byproducts. After all, this process is what powers the sun.
Most fusion reactors use one of two methods: They either heat plasma (gas that contains ions) to extreme temperatures using laser or ion beams, or they squeeze the plasma with magnets to very high densities. [6 Cool Underground Science Labs]
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But both methods are riddled with problems. Beams require feeding a whole lot of energy into the system, said Demitri Hopkins, chief scientific officer of Agni Energy Inc. With magnets, if you energize plasma, you may not keep the atoms stable enough to contain all the energy.
Forgotten idea
The new approach would use both electrical and magnetic fields to create a hybrid fusion device. This so-called "beam-target fusion" doesn't try to fuse the atoms from one source; rather, it hits a beam of atoms against a solid target — and the atoms from the beam fuse with the atoms from the target. The ion beam in this approach consists of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen ions with one neutron, and the target consists of tritium ions, a heavy hydrogen with two neutrons. The approach uses hydrogen, which is the lightest element, because in fusion, the lightest elements produce the most energy, according to Hopkins.
https://www.livescience.com/62907-beam-target-fusion-reactor.html
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I don't care if it is a long shot right now. We should dump a trillion dollars into fusion, and try and get the rest of the world to throw in another 2 trillion for a world wide joint scientific venture.
If we can make fusion work, nothing will ever be the same. Colonizing the solar system becomes viable. No more water scarcity, no more energy scarcity. There is a thread on sand running out right now, with unlimited energy that isn't a problem. You could build verticle cities, growing food in hydrogrows within the verticle city itself. Unlimited energy means you don't need the sun to grow food. You can put a hydro grow in a cave.
For all the fucking up of the planet we have done, and those before us, if we can make fusion work, it erases it all.
Discuss.....
The ongoing joke in the world of physics is that commercially viable fusion energy has been just on the horizon — 30 years away at most — for the past eight decades. Now, a new Washington-based startup, Agni Energy Inc., has a plan for a fusion reactor the company said could be closer than "just on the horizon."
Existing nuclear reactors use a process called fission, which releases energy by breaking atoms apart. But fission creates radioactive byproducts that must be collected and stored. Fusion, the opposite of fission, means joining things together — in this case, atoms
Fusion reactors slam atoms together and thereby release energy. But scientists haven't yet been able to create a useful fusion reactor — one that creates more energy than is put in. If scientists ever reach "the horizon" of fusion energy, these reactors would create a whole lot more energy than fission, without the harmful byproducts. After all, this process is what powers the sun.
Most fusion reactors use one of two methods: They either heat plasma (gas that contains ions) to extreme temperatures using laser or ion beams, or they squeeze the plasma with magnets to very high densities. [6 Cool Underground Science Labs]
Advertisement
But both methods are riddled with problems. Beams require feeding a whole lot of energy into the system, said Demitri Hopkins, chief scientific officer of Agni Energy Inc. With magnets, if you energize plasma, you may not keep the atoms stable enough to contain all the energy.
Forgotten idea
The new approach would use both electrical and magnetic fields to create a hybrid fusion device. This so-called "beam-target fusion" doesn't try to fuse the atoms from one source; rather, it hits a beam of atoms against a solid target — and the atoms from the beam fuse with the atoms from the target. The ion beam in this approach consists of deuterium, or heavy hydrogen ions with one neutron, and the target consists of tritium ions, a heavy hydrogen with two neutrons. The approach uses hydrogen, which is the lightest element, because in fusion, the lightest elements produce the most energy, according to Hopkins.
https://www.livescience.com/62907-beam-target-fusion-reactor.html
___________________________________________
I don't care if it is a long shot right now. We should dump a trillion dollars into fusion, and try and get the rest of the world to throw in another 2 trillion for a world wide joint scientific venture.
If we can make fusion work, nothing will ever be the same. Colonizing the solar system becomes viable. No more water scarcity, no more energy scarcity. There is a thread on sand running out right now, with unlimited energy that isn't a problem. You could build verticle cities, growing food in hydrogrows within the verticle city itself. Unlimited energy means you don't need the sun to grow food. You can put a hydro grow in a cave.
For all the fucking up of the planet we have done, and those before us, if we can make fusion work, it erases it all.
Discuss.....
