Fusion energy/power

Joshua_mybb_import21010

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Does anyone understand how this works?
I'm currently doing an essay on the topic/subject, but I am finding it quite difficult to understand certain concepts of it.

Why can't we use fusion energy?
I've seen so many multiple answers, all of which are different or too complicated for my simple mind to understand.

Any advice/help is much appreciated, thank you.
 
Sorry if im wrong i did this last year, i think its because the way the amount of energy created by fusion is not substantial on a large scale, because fusion is made by chain of reactions, and with each reaction it loses some of its energy so say we put in 500 kw, you would only get say 100 kw power out of it so, sorry if it doesn't make sense and i could be wrong but i think im right
 
Pretty sure I understand what you mean, I was just reading.
We are losing energy with the procedure of "fusion energy"
We put in large amounts of energy into the process, to receive less energy out of it, because to maintain such high temperatures and pressure, requires a substantial amount of energy.

If that's what you mean :p
Thanks for clarifying :)
 
Yea Pred that is wat i was talking about hope it helped :)
 
Predator said:
Does anyone understand how this works?
I'm currently doing an essay on the topic/subject, but I am finding it quite difficult to understand certain concepts of it.

Why can't we use fusion energy?
I've seen so many multiple answers, all of which are different or too complicated for my simple mind to understand.

Any advice/help is much appreciated, thank you.
Click to expand...

merloman has no idea :p

Here's a simple outline..
  • Fission is the act of splitting an atom to create energy. It's what happens within a nuclear reactor.
  • Fusion is doing the opposite. It fuses two nuclei to form one heavier nucleus. The energy produced via fusion, however, is 3 - 4 times greater than that of fission (nuclear reactor).

The reason why we can't use fusion energy at this time is due to the tremendous requirements needed to sustain a fusion reaction.

Think of it this way.
Let's say you're making a pizza and you've got a nice, flat chunk of dough for the base. It's easy to split it down the middle (fission), right?
What's not easy is trying to 'fuse' the two pieces back together simply by pushing the two pieces into each other (fusion). It would take a lot more effort to form a perfect pizza base without simply remoulding the entire thing.


Hope that helped :)
 
Storm i have an idea i got an A on my essay regearding Fusion and look it up, i was fairly correct
 
merloman said:
Storm i have an idea i got an A on my essay regearding Fusion and look it up, i was fairly correct
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have posted if I didn't.

I don't doubt you. Your post was very.. 'roundabout', and not exactly correct. That's all..
 
Storm is right. Merloman, you're getting yourself confused with different principals I think

Fusion reaction can basically only be seen on the sun. Here on Earth, we don't have the gravitational strength to seccessfully fuse two atoms. And even then, our sun only has the power to turn Hydrogen to Lithium-7 and then as soon as another proton hits it, it becomes unstable and splits into two Helium-4 atoms. These reactions create MASSIVE amount of energy and the mass difference between the hydrogen and helium that was mainly used in the fusion process is majoritively emitted as different light wavelengths.

TL;DR - Gravity required to force atoms together for fusion is too great to support on Earth.
 
Thanks Haunter + Storm + Merlo for the contributive information, it is all much appreciated.
I do believe I've almost completed the assignment, I'll get some results within the next week.
Thanks again guys.
 
Np Pred sorry again, if mine wasn't fully correct, i just tried to remember what i learnt in grade 9, gl on ur marks
 
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