Posted by Tina
Wander on over to PJ Media for the latest news on fusion. It’s the wave of the future offering a cleaner environment without all of the radical activism, taxation, and scary hype:
Skunk Works is convinced that their system—which will be the size of a jet engine—will be able to power everything, from spaceships to airplanes to vessels—and of course scale up to a much larger size…
[in 5 years] They expect to have a fully operative model ready to go into full-scale production, capable of generating 100MW—enough to power a large cargo ship or a 80,000-home city—and measure 23 x 42 feet, so you “could put it on a semi-trailer, similar to a small gas turbine, put it on a pad, hook it up and can be running in a few weeks.”
It will be years before this technology can replace coal, oil, gas, wind and solar but a steady even course will allow time for transition without devastating jobs losses or causing sudden fatal harm to businesses. Once again it is the people, through innovation and creativity in a free capital rich environment that will bring this miracle to the fore! (God bless America)
The article by Richard Fernandez includes several informational links for those who are geeky enough to appreciate them. 🙂
Well its time to invest in Lithium mining!
Most fusion research focuses on Deuterium Tritium fusion. Deuterium and Tritium are both hydrogen isotopes commonly called heavy hydrogen and heavy heavy hydrogen because the Deuterium nucleus contains one proton and one neutron and the Tritium nucleus contains one proton and two neutrons whereas the the protium (common hydrogen) nucleus contains only a proton.
Deuterium is very common in nature and easily produced from sea water. Tritium only exists in trace amounts in nature because it only has a 10 year half life.
The most common way to create Tritium is through Tritium breeding. This involves bombarding Deuterium atoms with neutrons in a lithium medium. The lithium acts as a catalyst in the process. The Deuterium and Tritium fuse producing an atom of Helium and one extra neutron. That extra neutron can be used to breed more Tritium.
So what happens to all that Helium. Well, without a doubt the environmentalists will probably attribute all kinds of bad things to Helium pollution and will probably lobby the EPA to declare it a harmful gas. But seriously, Helium is one of the most desirable byproducts you could have. Helium is an inert, non-toxic and unreactive gas. It is the second most abundant element in the universe. All you need to do is vent it into the air. It is so light it will rise and disperse and eventually make its way into space. It’s really a self cleaning reaction.
If this is real and we will have working prototypes in 5 years and production reactors in 5 to 10 years this is the “Holy Grail” of energy sources. It means cheap clean energy for thousands of years!
OK, Physics class is dismissed.
I recently saw a T shirt and just had to buy it. It says
“I majored in Physics. To save time, lets just assume I’m always right”
If only that worked!
Excellent..where do I invest?