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Essay Name       : 814.txt 
Uploader         : Brian Gubitosa
Email Address    : chuck@yasmine-bleeth.com
Language         : English
Subject          : Chemistry
Title            : Nuclear Fusion
Grade            : 11
School System    : Randolph
Country          : US
Author Comments  : Good Work, Very Creative
Teacher Comments : Imaginative, Good Explanation
Date             : November 19, 1995
Site found at    : Word of Mouth
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For a fusion reaction to take place, the nuclei, which are positively 
charged, must have enough kinetic energy to overcome their electrostatic 
force of repulsion.  This can occur either when one nucleus is 
accelerated to high energies by an accelerating device, or when the 
energies of both nuclei are raised by the application of very high 
temperature.  The latter method, referred to the application of 
thermonuclear fusion, is the source of a lot of really cool energy.  
Enough energy is produced in thermonuclear fusion to suck the paint of 1 
city block of houses and give all of the residents permanent orange 
Afros.  The sun is a example of thermonuclear fusion in nature.
If I was a atom, I could only wish to be in a thermonuclear reaction.   
Thermonuclear reactions occur when a proton is accelerated and collides 
with another proton and then the two protons fuse, forming a deuterium 
nucleus which has a proton, neutrino and lots of energy.  I have no idea 
what a deuterium nucleus is, but is must be 10 times cooler than just a 
regular  nucleus.  Such a reaction is not self sustaining because the 
released energy is not readily imparted to other nuclei.  thermonuclear 
fusion of deuterium and tritium will produce a helium nucleus and an 
energetic neutron that can help sustain further fusion.  This is the 
basic principal of the hydrogen bomb which employs a brief, controlled 
thermonuclear fusion reaction.  This was also how the car in the Back to 
the Future movie worked.  It had a much more sophisticated system of 
producing a fusion reaction from things like, old coffee grounds, 
bananas, and old beer cans.  Thermonuclear reactions depend on high 
energies, and the possibility of a low-temperature nuclear fusion has 
generally been discounted.  Little does the scientific community know 
about my experiments.  I have produced cold fusion in my basement with 
things like: stale bread, milk, peanut butter and flat Pepsi.  I have 
been able to produce  a ten-megaton reaction which as little as a 
saltine cracker and some grass clippings.  But enough about my 
discoveries.  Early in 1989 two electrochemists startled the scientific 
world by claiming to achieve a room-temperature fusion in a simple 
laboratory.  They had little proof to back up their discovery, and were 
not credited with their so-called accomplishment.  The two scientists 
were Stanley Pons of the university of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of 
the University of Southampton in England.  They described their 
experiment as involving platinum electrodes an electrochemical cell in 
which palladium and platinum were immersed in heavy water.  These two 
losers said that the cell produced more heat than could be accounted 
for.  Yeah right!!  The week before I was talking to both men on the 
phone and I told them about all of the cool things you could do with 
platinum.  I said "Now Martin, what you need to do is get your hands on 
some platinum and some heavy Mexican drinking water.  The  amount of 
chemicals in the Mexican drinking water is sure to cause a violent 
reaction with the platinum electrodes and produce lots of energy. I have 
been doing this sort of things in my basement for years."  When I told 
him that though that NASA could power their shuttles with this sort of a 
reaction, he nearly wet his pants.  Now as usual, I received no credit 
for MY discovery, but that is ok..I have grown used to it.  I taught 
Einstein, Newton, and Ron Popeel (inventor of things like the 
pasto-matic, hair-in-a-can, and the pocket fisherman) everything they 
know.  Besides, the two shmucks didn’t even follow my instructions for 
the experiment.  However, until I reveal my secrets about cold fusion, 
it will remain only a proposed theory.  nuclear fusion is also what 
powers the rest of the stars in the solar system.  Stars carry out 
fusion in a thermonuclear manner.  Thermonuclear is a really cool word 
which I am going to use several more times just because it is so cool.  
In a thermonuclear reaction matter is forced to exist in only in a 
plasma state, consisting of electrons, positive ions and very few 
neutral atoms.  Fusion reactions that occur within a plasma serve to 
heat it further, because the portion of the reaction product is 
transferred to the bulk of the plasma through collisions.  In the 
deuterium-tritium reaction the positively charged helium nucleus carries 
3.5 MeV.  The neutron escaped the plasma with little interaction and , 
in a reaction, could deposit its 14.1 MeV in a surrounding lithium 
blanket.  I have know idea what that last sentence meat, but I am going 
to memorize it, because I will sound super smart if I tell someone about 
the neutrons activity in a plasma thermonuclear reaction.  The neutrons 
activity would breed tritium and also heat as a exchange medium which 
could be used to produce steam to turn generator turbines.  However, the 
plasma also loses thermal energy though a variety of processes: 
conduction, convection, and bremsstrachlng which is  electromagnetic 
radiation about 1000 times stronger than the microwave in your kitchen. 
 Bermsstrachlng is the electromagnetic energy which is produced by the 
deceleration of a charged particle.  Energy also escapes in the reaction 
through line radiation from electrons undergoing level transitions in 
heavier impurities, and through losses of hot nuclei that capture an 
election and escape and confining field.  Ignition occurs when the 
energy deposited within the plasma by fusion reactions equals or exceeds 
the energy being lost.  In order to achieve ignition, plasma must be 
combined and heated.  Obviously, a plasma at millions of degrees is not 
comparable with an ordinary confining wall, but the effect of this 
incompatibility is not the destruction of the wall as might be expected. 
 I have found that if one uses Corning Ware in a microwave set on high, 
plasma can take place quite safely.  It is important to note that 
tupperware is not suited well for thermonuclear reactions, and is best 
left  to use to store weapons grade plutonium in.  I find that the air 
tight lids work simply splendidly in keeping all of that nasty glowing 
radioactive dust to a minimum in my room..  Although the temperature of 
a thermonuclear plasma is very high and the power flowing through it may 
be quite large the stored  energy is relatively small and would quickly 
be radiated away by impurities if the plasma touched a wall and began to 
vaporize it.  A thermonuclear plasma is thus self-limiting, because any 
significant contact with the vessel housing causes it’s extinction 
within a few thousandths of a second.  Therefore, plasma must be 
carefully housed and handled while it is occurring (For further 
information on plasma  refer to the 2 essay in my series entitled "Why 
Plasma Is So Cool").

Most of the research dealing with fusion since 1950 has used magnetic 
fields to contain the charged particles that constitute a plasma.  The 
density required in magnetic-confinement fusion is  much lower than 
atmospheric density, so the plasma vessel is evacuated and them filled 
with the hydrogen-isotope fuel at 0.0000000.  What is the deal with all 
of those zeros?  I mean it means the same as 0..It must be one of those 
wacky science thingys.  Sort of like why inflammable and flammable mean 
the same thing.  Who knows.  Anyway, Magnetic-field configurations fall 
into two typed: open and closed.  Wow, that was real obvious.  In an 
open configuration, the charged particles, which are spiraling along 
magnetic field lines maintained by a solenoid, are reflected at each end 
of a cell by stronger magnetic fields.  I have found in my research that 
if one used a 9-volt battery (preferably from a old smoke detector) the 
reaction takes place much more efficiently.  In this simplest type of 
mirror machine, many particles that have most of their velocity parallel 
to the solenoidal magnetic field are not reflected and can escape.  This 
is a real problem for me when ever I try to perform a  thermonuclear 
fission reaction.  I have yet to find a solution to the problem, but for 
now stale Trident  chewing gum works as a acceptable improvision for the 
problem.  Present day mirror machines retard this loss by using 
additional cells to set up electrostatic potentials that help confine 
the hot ions within the central solenoidal field.  In a Closed reaction, 
the magnetic-field lines along which charged particles move are 
continuous within the plasma. This closure has most commonly taken the 
form of a toros, or doughnut shape, and the most common example is the 
tokamak.  In a tokmak the primary confining field is totoidal and is 
produced by coils of surrounding the vacuum vessel.  Other coils cause 
current to flow through the plasma by induction.  This toroidally 
flowing current wraps itself around the plasma.  Is it just me, or are 
there a lot of really useless big words.  I mean, totoidally, what is 
this?  My only thought is that is one of those many wacky science terms 
that people who you see on the Discovery Channel would use.    The 
poloidal magnetic field, at right angles, that stronger toroidal field, 
acting together, yield magnetic field lines that spiral around the 
torus.  This spiring ensures that a particle spends equal amounts of 
time above and below the totoidal midplane, thus canceling the effects 
of a vertical drift that occurs because magnetic field is stronger on 
the inside of the torus than on the outside.  
Another cool thing about thermonuclear plasma is that a certain type of 
plasma called Tokmak plasma can be heated to temperatures of 10-15 
million k by the current flowing in the plasma.  Imagine how quick one 
could broil chicken.  In less than ½ seconds, you could have a perfectly 
golden brown  and tender chicken ready for dinner.  At higher 
temperature the plasma resistance becomes too low for this method to be 
effective, and heating is accomplished by injecting beams of very 
energetic neural particles into the plasma.  These ionize, become 
trapped, and transfer their energy to the build plasma through 
collisions.  Alternatively, radio frequency waves are launched into the 
plasma at frequencies that resonate with various periodic particle 
motions.  The waves give energy to these resonant particles, which then 
transfer it to the rest of the plasma through collisions.  In some of my 
most recent expirations I have been able to use radio frequency waves to 
push electrons around the tokmak to maintain the plasma current.  Such 
noninductive current drive allows the tokamak pulse to outlast the time 
limitly imposed by the fact that , in a transformer-driven tokmak 
reaction thingy, the plasma current lasts only as long as the current in 
the secondary coils reach their current limits, confinement is lost, and 
the plasma terminates until the transformer can be reset.  Although the 
plasma in as inductively driven tokamak is pulsed, the electricity 
produced would not ve, because the thermal inertia of the 
neutron-capturing blanket would sustain stream generation between 
pulses.  By  allowing longer pulse or steady-state plasma operation, 
however, radio frequency current drive could lessen the thermal stresses 
in the fusion reaction.  However, so far cooking with plasma has not 
been to practical for me.   Another approach to fusion pusued since 
about 1974, is termed inertial confinement.  During my many patrols 
during the Viet..-NAM war, I further developed my theory’s and opinions 
regarding inertial confinement fusion.  When I arrived home with a 
severely hyper-extended earlobe, I was in great pain and suffering, but 
I still managed to explain my findings to the scientific  community.  
essentially, my theory of inertial confinement fusion works similar to 
how the atomic bomb works.  A small pellet of frozen deuterium and 
tritium are compressed to a very high temperature and densities in a 
process analogous to what is accomplished by bombarding the pellet from 
all sides, simultaneously with a really intense laser.  I nearly put my 
eye out with the thing.  It is certainty not a toy. Anyway, back to 
fusion.  After you have nuked the pellet thing with the super laser 
thingy, the pellet vaporizes and, by mechanical reaction, imparts 
inwardly directed momentum to their remaining pellet core.  The inertia 
of the inwardly driven pellet material must be sufficient to localize 
the power of -9 seconds required to get significant energy release.  In 
1988, after my defeat in the presidential election, I helped the 
government preform underground tests in the Nevada desert.  I had showed 
the government how to do this type of experiment in 1986, but it took 
them two years before they could get it right.  I think that their chief 
nuclear engineers name was Forrest or something..Man what a idiot.  He 
just could not get it right.  Once again, people took credit for my 
discovery.  The miniminum confinement condition necessary to achieve 
energy gain in a deuterium-tritium plasma is that of the product of the 
density in ions per cubic cm and energy containment time in seconds must 
exceed 6x10 -13th power.  This was attained for the first time in a 
hydrogen plasma at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983.  
The temperature required to ignite a fusion reactor is in the range of 
100-250 million k, several times the temperature of the center of the 
sun.  What? How can you have a reaction several times the suns central 
temperature in a enclosed plasma environment?  Is this some kind of    
wacky scientist joke or something?  Anyway, the science geeks at M.I.T 
supposedly did produce this kind of fusion.  
The goal on fusion is in effect, to produce and hold a small star.  It 
is a daunting and tedious research which is considered to be of the most 
advanced in the world.  Creating a small dwarf star in a man-made 
environment has thought to be the highest scientific challenge.  Even 
though last weekend my little brother and I did create several dwarf 
stars, we were forced to put them out because the neighbors kept 
complaining about the light.  The cop was a real jerk.  I tried 
explaining to him what I was doing, but he kept asking me to do stupid 
things like: stand on 1 leg and recite the alphabet backwards, and touch 
my nose with my finger.  Apparently the cop though that I was getting 
smart with him when I started to explain to him about the beauty of 
fission energy.  Oh well, at least he didn’t arrest me..again...
 
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