Nuclear Fusion Remains Decades Away Despite Major Breakthroughs

[Meredith Poor + 889]

The problem with this article the way it is written is that it is 'technically' wrong, since Earth is powered by an enormous fusion reactor - the sun.

So this has to be bounded by the qualification that 'Earthbound Nuclear Fusion...', however there may be a problem with that.

There is a lot of hydrogen in the Earth's mantle, and most likely a certain amount in the core, mostly in the form of hydroxides. Sodium hydroxide (lye) is NaOH, or one atom of sodium, one atom of oxygen, and one atom of hydrogen. Other hydroxides include various iron hydroxides, magnesium hydroxides, etc.

Fusion occurs from a combination of pressure, temperature, and duration. It is distinctly possible that there are conditions in the Earth's core that produce incidental levels of hydrogen fusion. These reactions may occur in sufficient quantity that it keeps the Earth's core molten, and also generates some fraction of the Earth's magnetic field.

All of the outer planets except Neptune radiate more energy than they receive from the Sun. All of these 'gas giants' have significant amounts of hydrogen in some molecular form. It is possible, although not yet proven, that fusion occurs under certain circumstances in each of these planets. One byproduct of hydrogen fusion is helium, so certain levels of detectable helium may be a signature of fusion processes.

If fusion occurs to some degree in the Earth's core, then many geochemical processes may be 'fusion powered', including formation of oil and natural gas.

Even within that limitation the assertion is still technically false. High school students have been able to create fusion reactors in their household garages. These consume more energy than they produce, but they do fuse hydrogen into helium. Humans have been fusing hydrogen in labs since the 1930's.

From Wikipedia:

"Nuclear experiments began using a particle accelerator built by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton at Ernest Rutherfords' Cavendish Laboratory at University of Cambridge. In 1932, Walton produced the first man-made fission by using protons from the accelerator to split lithium into alpha particles.[5] The accelerator was then used to fire deuterons at various targets. Working with Rutherford and others, Mark Oliphant discovered the nuclei of Helium-3 (helions) and tritium (tritons), the first case of human-caused fusion.[6][7][8][9][10]"

So within the additional constraint of 'net gain' hydrogen fusion, the question arises about the relative efficiency and cost of replacing purely 'resistive' heating (such as one might find in a water heater) with a 'fusion assisted' heating process that uses a lot of electricity but augments that heat output with fusion power. A company named brillouinenergy(.com) proposes to make products that operate this way. This might be cheap enough (if mass produced) for everyone to have a fusion reactor in their water heater and/or furnace. The question in this case is not whether it produces 'net gain', but whether it produces more heat output per watt-hour of input than conventional resistance heating.

So the most specific assertion should be 'Centralized Power Plant Hydrogen Fusion Remains Decades Away Despite Major Breakthroughs'. This assertion may well be true. By the time it becomes possible, it's likely that the only people that will care will be operators of submarines and 'outer planet' spaceships.

[markslawson + 1,049]

On 6/10/2023 at 12:46 AM, Meredith Poor said:

The problem with this article the way it is written is that it is 'technically' wrong, since Earth is powered by an enormous fusion reactor - the sun.

So this has to be bounded by the qualification that 'Earthbound Nuclear Fusion...', however there may be a problem with that.

Meredith - I'm confused by your post. You must have meant to link to an article but forgot the link. so I'm not sure what article is technically wrong. As for the points in your article, we've been through this before. Expert evaluations of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (cold fusion in other words) say that the field has yet to amount to much. I see I messed up the link in my earlier post on this matter .. none the less here is link to an article which takes a sceptical look at this stuff. It remains an interesting field but I wouldn't pin any hopes on developments in it.

[Rob Plant + 2,720]

On 6/11/2023 at 1:53 AM, markslawson said:

Meredith - I'm confused by your post. You must have meant to link to an article but forgot the link. so I'm not sure what article is technically wrong. As for the points in your article, we've been through this before. Expert evaluations of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (cold fusion in other words) say that the field has yet to amount to much. I see I messed up the link in my earlier post on this matter .. none the less here is link to an article which takes a sceptical look at this stuff. It remains an interesting field but I wouldn't pin any hopes on developments in it.

Blimey Mark I actually agree with you!

I doubt very much we will see a commercial scale fusion reactor in our lifetimes.

Yes there have been many breakthroughs and yes there are billions of $ being pumped into this holy grail of powergen but there still remain massive hurdles and technological problems to overcome before it can work as envisioned.

Hope we're both wrong but I doubt it.

[Meredith Poor + 889]

How to achieve the Fleischmann-Pons heat effect

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319922047140