OT: fusion is getting SOOOO close -> then comes fusion engines!!! ::P muhuhahah(no j

[Cyrien]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
We were supposed to run out of oil a few years ago Oleg... there is far more oil around than you think there is.

And this is quite true. All those predictions are always based on known oil reserves. The problem is we keep drilling into national parks and the bottom of the ocean etc and finding more of the darn stuff. I can't wait till they start drilling into Antartica.

[Erax]

Heh. Intersting secondary thought on using solar energy of any type.

If you go that way you are still using a Fusion Reactor. One much larger than we can currently ever hope to create.

So that is why there are no pro-nuclear vampires ! (Freefall)

[ November 27, 2003, 16:47: Message edited by: Erax ]

[Taera]

a year ago i've read an article in the local newspaper that marine research companies had found unimaginably rich deposits of oil & natural gas in the ocean along the eastern canada-USA border. it alone shouldve been enough oil for canada and USA for a very, very long time...
just one example.

however, oil is still not finite, and im pretty sure the big heads realize that

[Baron Munchausen]

Hmmmm...

Now why was it that helium-3 was considered valuable enough to go mine it from the moon? (Solar wind 'deposits', basically.) Was it that fusion would be easier with helium-3 than with hydrogen? Or was it that you'd get more energy from a helium-3 reaction than a hydrogen reaction?

[Phoenix-D]

Would have to be more energy. In general, the smaller the element the more energy you get from fusion.

Fission, BTW works opposite; the break-even point is iron.

[Cyrien]

Iron is the break even point for both fusion and fission for producing energy. You can fusion anything upto iron and produce energy and you can fission anything down to iron and produce energy.

And while hydrogen alone gets you the best reaction energywise you have other considerations. Helium-3 Fusion reactions as opossed to the current dueterium/tritium reaction process would produce less radioactive biproducts and wastes. While the current process has at worst materials that will need to be stored away for 50 to 100 years before being safe, Helium-3 biproducts are much safer and less radioactive. Helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth however.

Edit: Also Helium-3 has more problems with the containment field and some other areas of design physics. You can't just take a Hydrogen fusion design and use it for Helium. Helium-3 is more efficient for our energy production needs. Note: Even on the moon He-3 is very rare. 4 or 5 parts per billion in lunar soil. You would have to process 100 tonnes of lunar soil to get 1 tonne of He-3. However it would take 25 tonnes of He-3 in a fusion reaction to create enough energy to power all of the US for one year.

I would say He-3 is a viable power source for any future moon colonies but more efficient and even safer would probably be large scale solar generators at the light pole of the moon which is always covered in light. I wouldn't count on He-3 as a power source down here or other places without a native supply however.

[ November 28, 2003, 03:13: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Cirvol]

oh yeah, and someone mentioned that alpha centauri is a trinary system...

yes it is

which means the likelyhood of decent planets is a little bit lower...

but look at vega

http://science.slashdot.org/article....id=134&tid=160

looks like they do have real 'planets'

and vega is only 25 light years away, or 50 years with .5c fusion/ion engines

[Cyrien]

Actually I would expect a number of different reactor designs to become prevalent in the future for fusion. Each planet or section of space would likely have different designs based on the most abundant fuel for a fusion reaction. On the Earth sea water. The moon HE-3. Europa water again other outer moons maybe ram scoops collecting massive amounts of Hydrogen from neighboring gas giants. Some other locations... depends on what they have.

Edit: And don't forget that even with a .5c engine it would likely take longer than 50 years. First you have to accelerate to .5c and at some point you will have to decelerate unless you want to hit some large solid body or even not so solid body at 1/2 the speed of light.

Those two considerations add a nice solid chunk of time to any transit to another star.

[ December 02, 2003, 22:29: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Cirvol]

Cyrien, good info there thx

but seriously, the way things are progressing rapidly on the fusion front - i doubt he-3 will even be wanted, all the design efforts are going into the common fusion which we can get from sea water

makes more sense for us overall...

and as far as the oil companies go, trust me,
the smart ones are already doing a lot of investing in fusion - they just want to stay rich

long term, i think we WILL see a fusion powered ion engine --- it seems like those ion engines really are the best idea for long long trips

just recently, nasa decided on doing a fission ion engine as a follow up for their first ion engine on deep space 1

slashdot.org had an article about it just the other day... i'll find the link if anyone is really interested

[Cyrien]

The problem with that is we can actually say when Fusion will become available. Heck ITER just formalised the location for their first energy producing fusion power plant. Within the next decade or two you will see fusion being used.

Unified Theory however is still just theory. They can't even prove that it is unified yet let alone work it to do anything. IF it proves true then you are probably right. That MIGHT make a better engine. But quite simply we can't tell anything about it atm. How efficient will the conVersions be? Theory might say 100% but how will that work out in reality? Cost effectiveness for such an engine?

For unified theory there are tons of questions that have no answers right now. Given enough time and assuming that the theory pans out they could indeed be the engines of the future.

Given what is available now and what is known now and what will work now I would have to make an argument for fission and fusion engines over any theoretically possible one using Unified Energy Theory.

Edit: And you would still have to generate the initial energy you are converting into another... Fusion anyone?

[ December 04, 2003, 15:14: Message edited by: Cyrien ]