Nuclear Fusion - Is it possible?

If scientists managed to create a nuclear fusion on earth all out problem would be solved.

The energy would last forever, create no long-term nuclear waste, and be clean.

Professor Rusi Taleyarkhan has come up with the idea of "sonoluminescence":

"His breakthrough is based on something called sonoluminescence. It is a process that transforms sound waves into flashes of light, focusing the sound energy into a tiny flickering hot spot inside a bubble."

This process effortly reaches temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, hotter than the surface of the sun.

"In order to get fusion, temperatures inside the bubble had to be in the region of 10 million degrees. It seemed improbable that the tiny hot spots could be this hot. But if they were - or if a way could be found to make them so - then a new route to nuclear fusion would be opened up."

Quite interesting I think, I wonder how long it will be until we actually do use nuclear fusion.

That's bubble fusion and yup it works! Unfortunately it doesn't really give off all that much energy that is usefull to us but it will lend us more knowledge. The way to go for Fusion energy is to use a Tokamak(ie Donut Shaped reactor) Here is the link..

www.csmonitor.com...

This sonoluminesence does not produce fusion and has now been proved independently...Fusion creates Neutrenos just like the sun does but this experiment did not produce any neutrenos..All the neutrenos which were detected by the experiment where identified from coming from the sun itself not the sonoliuminesence...

Then where is the anamolous heat coming from?? And please do point me in the direction of the study that has shown this?

Fusion does work today but not above the Lawson limit - e.g. takes more energy in than you get out.

The sonoluminescence stuff is interesting but the data gathering and measurement is likely flawed. The kiddies doing this in a home lab with a digital thermometer and a voltmeter are a far cry from a real lab with accurate measurements of all energy in and out.... Some stuff has shown fusion by-products but the initial anode / cathode samples could be contaminated....

We're getting close and it will change mankind but true fusion still has lot's of nasty radiation to deal with so the usual suspects will come out of the woodwork all over again to scream NIMBY....

all right, all you fusion-weenies!

You need to come over and visit Horacid and I and the rest of the crew at:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

...which is the alternative-energy forum. What we're trying to do is to take as unbiased a look as possible at all the energy sources available in order to evaluate them, do a series of tradeoffs, and recommend the most cost-effective approach(es) for both near- and long-term use.

And best of all, it's free! (the forum, not the energy).

Thanks mate will check it out

Does Fusion exist? In a word, yes.
I was under the impression that fusion works fine in bombs, when kick started by fission. There's a surplus of energy released, and we lack the methods to utilize it, or store it for later use. Of course if you're looking for low and slow release of energy, so as to power a jeep or something..well no dice yet.

Sardion
Good link! Good read.

Have you ever heard of the deep sea crab that uses its specially shaped claw to create and shoot bubbles? It clacks its claw, and a bubble shoots out a few feet in the direction of Tasty Morsel X. When the bubble loses inertia, it collapses under the pressure of the ocean, and implodes with the force of several atom bombs in a very confined area. There is so much pressure the shock wave can't travel very far, a foot or so, but anything in that radius is stunned or killed outright. The crab then has its supper. Amazing isn't it? Crabs with nuclear weapons...

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Have you ever heard of the deep sea crab that uses its specially shaped claw to create and shoot bubbles? It clacks its claw, and a bubble shoots out a few feet in the direction of Tasty Morsel X. When the bubble loses inertia, it collapses under the pressure of the ocean, and implodes with the force of several atom bombs in a very confined area. There is so much pressure the shock wave can't travel very far, a foot or so, but anything in that radius is stunned or killed outright. The crab then has its supper. Amazing isn't it? Crabs with nuclear weapons...

Wow is that true?! Why does the implosion have the force of several atom bombs? Is it due to the pressure of the sea? How big are these bubbles?

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Have you ever heard of the deep sea crab that uses its specially shaped claw to create and shoot bubbles? It clacks its claw, and a bubble shoots out a few feet in the direction of Tasty Morsel X. When the bubble loses inertia, it collapses under the pressure of the ocean, and implodes with the force of several atom bombs in a very confined area...

Did you even thought what you wrote?
Capability to think must be really limited natural resource...

First of all where would all that energy come from?
And no matter how big pressure those energies would be enough to vaporize/turn considerable volume of water to plasma. (and vaporize anything in that radius)

And name of this animal is Snapping Shrimp
news.nationalgeographic.com...
stilton.tnw.utwente.nl...
thereeftank.com...

Well, it's not a crab, it's a shrimp.

A detailed, scientific description (comes in several parts off the main page) of how the snapping shrimp snaps. Avoid this link unless you're comfotable with primary documents, there are links here to the original research involving fluid dynamics and applied physics.
stilton.tnw.utwente.nl...

Here's a VERY high speed series of photos, I think 40,000 frames per second or something ridiculous. The photos show the bubble pretty clearly, and the cavitation.
www.nature.com...

More information.
thereeftank.com...

shrimpoluminescence according to National Geographic.
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Can you find the shrimp in this picture?
www.photovault.com.../AARV01P09_10.1708

C'mon. I couldn't make this stuff up. It's cool isn't it?

My comparison to atomic bombs may not have been accurate; the temperatures inside the bubble could be 20k Fahrenheit, but probably not much higher. I was under the impression the heat was much greater, nuclear blast envelopes are like 300k Celcius +, pretty much universally - big difference. So it's probably not a 'shrimp with nuclear weapons'. The number of photons released by the collapsing bubble isn't anywhere near that of a nuclear weapon, in fact, the light bursts can't be seen with the naked eye.

Still, it's so cool that a shrimp can do that. And elephants can talk to each other across entire continents without wires. Animals in many ways have better tech than we do.

Originally posted by E_T
Did you even thought what you wrote?
Capability to think must be really limited natural resource...

Whoa, I got it, thanks. Retract your claws there cosmonaut.

It's also called the pistol shrimp, Mr. Smarty Pants.

Little Netwonian conservation of energy problem there. Mister gump puts X energy in and bubble bursts with similar energy (although less than mr gump put in). At those depths, the pressure differential is what gets the dinner - even a couple of grams of extra force from the bubble causes a local increase which is too much for the dinner to take on top of the already high pressures and mister gump gets his eats....

Nuclear Fusion is one of the many ways the government could accidently kill all of us right now.It makes me more mad than a joke thats not in any way humerous.