If I cook it on the reactor, is it fusion cuisine?

[Umbran]

Scientific American today has an article about how Lockheed had announced they've made a breakthrough that makes fusion energy possible in the near future.I'd very much like to believe in this, as it could save us from so many problems. And it isn't like Lockheed is a two-bit operation. But until they actually demonstrate it....

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lockheed-claims-breakthrough-on-fusion-energy/

 

[Morrus]

Interesting. The fact that it's a major corporation like L-M does make a difference. There have been so many claims about this over the decades.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Cool, but until they tell what type of fuel their fusion reactor will need it's hard to tell how useful it will be.

 

[tuxgeo]

Cool, but until they tell what type of fuel their fusion reactor will need it's hard to tell how useful it will be.

The classical fuels are deuterium and tritium.

 

[tuxgeo]

. . . the double-posting bug is back. . . .

 

[Mishihari Lord]

The classical fuels are deuterium and tritium.

Of course, but even if it isn't something exotic, if I remember my physics right it's a whole lot easier to harvest a quantity of deuterium than it is of tritium.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This could revolutionize the food truck business!

 

[Hand of Evil]

never mind the same story

Looks like we will know in a few years...Space, here we come!

 

[Umbran]

Of course, but even if it isn't something exotic, if I remember my physics right it's a whole lot easier to harvest a quantity of deuterium than it is of tritium.

It is - generally speaking, we don't harvest tritium. The stuff only has a half life of about 12 years, so we must work with recently created tritium.

It is created naturally in very small amounts by cosmic ray interaction with the upper atmosphere (it eventually falls as rain, and gets to the ocean), but he concentrations are very low.

Most tritium in use today is created by bombarding Lithium with neutrons in a fission reactor, or as a byproduct from reactors that use heavy water as coolant (deuterium bombarded with neutrons can become tritium).

 

[GMMichael]

Reality check:

- LM wouldn't straight-up lie about such a discovery, but they WOULD leverage it to gain investor (stock market) interest.

- I highly doubt that fusion would "save" us from problems, because the problems are in human decisions, not capabilities. We already have the technology for a green earth and to end world hunger. We're just not using it until it's profitable.