Nuclear Fusion Essay, Research Paper
Nuclear FusionFor a fusion reaction to take place, the nuclei, which are positivelycharged, must have enough kinetic energy to overcome their electrostaticforce of repulsion. This can occur either when one nucleus isaccelerated to high energies by an accelerating device, or when theenergies of both nuclei are raised by the application of very hightemperature. The latter method, referred to the application ofthermonuclear fusion, is the source of a lot of really cool energy. Enough energy is produced in thermonuclear fusion to suck the paint of 1city block of houses and give all of the residents permanent orangeAfros. The sun is a example of thermonuclear fusion in nature. If I was a atom, I could only wish to be in a thermonuclear reaction. Thermonuclear reactions occur when a proton is accelerated and collideswith another proton and then the two protons fuse, forming a deuteriumnucleus which has a proton, neutrino and lots of energy. I have no ideawhat a deuterium nucleus is, but is must be 10 times cooler than just aregular nucleus. Such a reaction is not self sustaining because thereleased energy is not readily imparted to other nuclei. thermonuclearfusion of deuterium and tritium will produce a helium nucleus and anenergetic neutron that can help sustain further fusion. This is thebasic principal of the hydrogen bomb which employs a brief, controlledthermonuclear fusion reaction. This was also how the car in the Back tothe Future movie worked. It had a much more sophisticated system ofproducing a fusion reaction from things like, old coffee grounds,bananas, and old beer cans. Thermonuclear reactions depend on highenergies, and the possibility of a low-temperature nuclear fusion hasgenerally been discounted. Little does the scientific community knowabout my experiments. I have produced cold fusion in my basement withthings like: stale bread, milk, peanut butter and flat Pepsi. I havebeen able to produce a ten-megaton reaction which as little as asaltine cracker and some grass clippings. But enough about mydiscoveries. Early in 1989 two electrochemists startled the scientificworld by claiming to achieve a room-temperature fusion in a simplelaboratory. They had little proof to back up their discovery, and werenot credited with their so-called accomplishment. The two scientistswere Stanley Pons of the university of Utah and Martin Fleischmann ofthe University of Southampton in England. They described theirexperiment as involving platinum electrodes an electrochemical cell inwhich palladium and platinum were immersed in heavy water. These twolosers said that the cell produced more heat than could be accountedfor. Yeah right!! The week before I was talking to both men on thephone and I told them about all of the cool things you could do withplatinum. I said “Now Martin, what you need to do is get your hands onsome platinum and some heavy Mexican drinking water. The amount ofchemicals in the Mexican drinking water is sure to cause a violentreaction with the platinum electrodes and produce lots of energy. I havebeen doing this sort of things in my basement for years.” When I toldhim that though that NASA could power their shuttles with this sort of areaction, he nearly wet his pants. Now as usual, I received no creditfor MY discovery, but that is ok..I have grown used to it. I taughtEinstein, Newton, and Ron Popeel (inventor of things like thepasto-matic, hair-in-a-can, and the pocket fisherman) everything theyknow. Besides, the two shmucks didn t even follow my instructions forthe experiment. However, until I reveal my secrets about cold fusion,it will remain only a proposed theory. nuclear fusion is also whatpowers the rest of the stars in the solar system. Stars carry outfusion in a thermonuclear manner. Thermonuclear is a really cool wordwhich I am going to use several more times just because it is so cool. In a thermonuclear reaction matter is forced to exist in only in aplasma state, consisting of electrons, positive ions and very fewneutral atoms. Fusion reactions that occur within a plasma serve toheat it further, because the portion of the reaction product istransferred to the bulk of the plasma through collisions. In thedeuterium-tritium reaction the positively charged helium nucleus carries3.5 MeV. The neutron escaped the plasma with little interaction and ,in a reaction, could deposit its 14.1 MeV in a surrounding lithiumblanket. I have know idea what that last sentence meat, but I am goingto memorize it, because I will sound super smart if I tell someone aboutthe neutrons activity in a plasma thermonuclear reaction. The neutronsactivity would breed tritium and also heat as a exchange medium whichcould be used to produce steam to turn generator turbines. However, theplasma also loses thermal energy though a variety of processes:conduction, convection, and bremsstrachlng which is electromagneticradiation about 1000 times stronger than the microwave in your kitchen. Bermsstrachlng is the electromagnetic energy which is produced by thedeceleration of a charged particle. Energy also escapes in the reactionthrough line radiation from electrons undergoing level transitions inheavier impurities, and through losses of hot nuclei that capture anelection and escape and confining field. Ignition occurs when theenergy deposited within the plasma by fusion reactions equals or exceedsthe energy being lost. In order to achieve ignition, plasma must becombined and heated. Obviously, a plasma at millions of degrees is notcomparable with an ordinary confining wall, but the effect of thisincompatibility is not the destruction of the wall as might be expected. I have found that if one uses Corning Ware in a microwave set on high,plasma can take place quite safely. It is important to note thattupperware is not suited well for thermonuclear reactions, and is bestleft to use to store weapons grade plutonium in. I find that the airtight lids work simply splendidly in keeping all of that nasty glowingradioactive dust to a minimum in my room.. Although the temperature ofa thermonuclear plasma is very high and the power flowing through it maybe quite large the stored energy is relatively small and would quicklybe radiated away by impurities if the plasma touched a wall and began tovaporize it. A thermonuclear plasma is thus self-limiting, because anysignificant contact with the vessel housing causes it s extinctionwithin a few thousandths of a second. Therefore, plasma must becarefully housed and handled while it is occurring (For furtherinformation on plasma refer to the 2 essay in my series entitled “WhyPlasma Is So Cool”). Most of the research dealing with fusion since 1950 has used magneticfields to contain the charged particles that constitute a plasma. Thedensity required in magnetic-confinement fusion is much lower than
atmospheric density, so the plasma vessel is evacuated and them filledwith the hydrogen-isotope fuel at 0.0000000. What is the deal with allof those zeros? I mean it means the same as 0..It must be one of thosewacky science thingys. Sort of like why inflammable and flammable meanthe same thing. Who knows. Anyway, Magnetic-field configurations fallinto two typed: open and closed. Wow, that was real obvious. In anopen configuration, the charged particles, which are spiraling alongmagnetic field lines maintained by a solenoid, are reflected at each endof a cell by stronger magnetic fields. I have found in my research thatif one used a 9-volt battery (preferably from a old smoke detector) thereaction takes place much more efficiently. In this simplest type ofmirror machine, many particles that have most of their velocity parallelto the solenoidal magnetic field are not reflected and can escape. Thisis a real problem for me when ever I try to perform a thermonuclearfission reaction. I have yet to find a solution to the problem, but fornow stale Trident chewing gum works as a acceptable improvision for theproblem. Present day mirror machines retard this loss by usingadditional cells to set up electrostatic potentials that help confinethe hot ions within the central solenoidal field. In a Closed reaction,the magnetic-field lines along which charged particles move arecontinuous within the plasma. This closure has most commonly taken theform of a toros, or doughnut shape, and the most common example is thetokamak. In a tokmak the primary confining field is totoidal and isproduced by coils of surrounding the vacuum vessel. Other coils causecurrent to flow through the plasma by induction. This toroidallyflowing current wraps itself around the plasma. Is it just me, or arethere a lot of really useless big words. I mean, totoidally, what isthis? My only thought is that is one of those many wacky science termsthat people who you see on the Discovery Channel would use. Thepoloidal magnetic field, at right angles, that stronger toroidal field,acting together, yield magnetic field lines that spiral around thetorus. This spiring ensures that a particle spends equal amounts oftime above and below the totoidal midplane, thus canceling the effectsof a vertical drift that occurs because magnetic field is stronger onthe inside of the torus than on the outside. Another cool thing about thermonuclear plasma is that a certain type ofplasma called Tokmak plasma can be heated to temperatures of 10-15million k by the current flowing in the plasma. Imagine how quick onecould broil chicken. In less than + seconds, you could have a perfectlygolden brown and tender chicken ready for dinner. At highertemperature the plasma resistance becomes too low for this method to beeffective, and heating is accomplished by injecting beams of veryenergetic neural particles into the plasma. These ionize, becometrapped, and transfer their energy to the build plasma throughcollisions. Alternatively, radio frequency waves are launched into theplasma at frequencies that resonate with various periodic particlemotions. The waves give energy to these resonant particles, which thentransfer it to the rest of the plasma through collisions. In some of mymost recent expirations I have been able to use radio frequency waves topush electrons around the tokmak to maintain the plasma current. Suchnoninductive current drive allows the tokamak pulse to outlast the timelimitly imposed by the fact that , in a transformer-driven tokmakreaction thingy, the plasma current lasts only as long as the current inthe secondary coils reach their current limits, confinement is lost, andthe plasma terminates until the transformer can be reset. Although theplasma in as inductively driven tokamak is pulsed, the electricityproduced would not ve, because the thermal inertia of theneutron-capturing blanket would sustain stream generation betweenpulses. By allowing longer pulse or steady-state plasma operation,however, radio frequency current drive could lessen the thermal stressesin the fusion reaction. However, so far cooking with plasma has notbeen to practical for me. Another approach to fusion pusued sinceabout 1974, is termed inertial confinement. During my many patrolsduring the Viet..-NAM war, I further developed my theory s and opinionsregarding inertial confinement fusion. When I arrived home with aseverely hyper-extended earlobe, I was in great pain and suffering, butI still managed to explain my findings to the scientific community. essentially, my theory of inertial confinement fusion works similar tohow the atomic bomb works. A small pellet of frozen deuterium andtritium are compressed to a very high temperature and densities in aprocess analogous to what is accomplished by bombarding the pellet fromall sides, simultaneously with a really intense laser. I nearly put myeye out with the thing. It is certainty not a toy. Anyway, back tofusion. After you have nuked the pellet thing with the super laserthingy, the pellet vaporizes and, by mechanical reaction, impartsinwardly directed momentum to their remaining pellet core. The inertiaof the inwardly driven pellet material must be sufficient to localizethe power of -9 seconds required to get significant energy release. In1988, after my defeat in the presidential election, I helped thegovernment preform underground tests in the Nevada desert. I had showedthe government how to do this type of experiment in 1986, but it tookthem two years before they could get it right. I think that their chiefnuclear engineers name was Forrest or something..Man what a idiot. Hejust could not get it right. Once again, people took credit for mydiscovery. The miniminum confinement condition necessary to achieveenergy gain in a deuterium-tritium plasma is that of the product of thedensity in ions per cubic cm and energy containment time in seconds mustexceed 6×10 -13th power. This was attained for the first time in ahydrogen plasma at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. The temperature required to ignite a fusion reactor is in the range of100-250 million k, several times the temperature of the center of thesun. What? How can you have a reaction several times the suns centraltemperature in a enclosed plasma environment? Is this some kind of wacky scientist joke or something? Anyway, the science geeks at M.I.Tsupposedly did produce this kind of fusion. The goal on fusion is in effect, to produce and hold a small star. Itis a daunting and tedious research which is considered to be of the mostadvanced in the world. Creating a small dwarf star in a man-madeenvironment has thought to be the highest scientific challenge. Eventhough last weekend my little brother and I did create several dwarfstars, we were forced to put them out because the neighbors keptcomplaining about the light. The cop was a real jerk. I triedexplaining to him what I was doing, but he kept asking me to do stupidthings like: stand on 1 leg and recite the alphabet backwards, and touchmy nose with my finger. Apparently the cop though that I was gettingsmart with him when I started to explain to him about the beauty offission energy. Oh well, at least he didn t arrest me..again…