Fusion. It’s happened. We have beat the highest known temperature that has been thought so far to exist in nature. To know it’s been achieved by a private commercial venture in the UK is prideful news as NASA brings us news of the possible existence of life on Mars in the past, it just balances the scales again.
I’d argue finding proof of life existing on Mars a bit of an old wives tale being confirmed while achieving a fusion temerature of 15 million degree’s celius considerably more important.
Why?
Unlimited free energy. For everyone forever and the only by product… some water.
Think of the oil wars and grasp this. The pride of democracy and the integrity of religion have been brought into question due to the wars waged for oil. Think of it. Free energy for everyone forever and the only ‘pollution’ is water. Pure H2O only.
Perhaps still a decade or two away from realization but with increasing computer power and the achievement of 15 million degrees it really is a hop, skip and jump away now.
How this is possible is simply explained. Einstein worked out E=MC2, perhaps the most easily recognized formula in history. Simply put it means if matter is changed to energy then one gets ALOT of energy. This is the ‘secret’ behind nuclear energy. If you change matter into energy instead of burn it to convert it to make energy then you get tons more energy. This is why the sun is so hot and so bright that we can see it from the distance it is away. It is burning helium at it’s core and this is changed to hydrogen by fusion.
It seems to argue with the idea of conservation of energy but actually doesn’t. Conservation of energy simply put says if you put 10 logs of coal on a fire then you get 10 logs of coal worth of heat from it burning, plus some ash and some smoke and a little sound and if you put them all back together somehow you would again have the same weight as before minus the heat’s mass/energy.
This process of converting fossil fuels to energy has been known since the invention of fire. But changing not converting matter into energy is the difference between energy production and nuclear energy production, both fission and fusion, is massive and was not realized until a nuclear bomb was invented during WWII and then later the first nuclear energy power plant came online.
Bassically the idea of conservation of energy and E=MC2 tells us if we convert matter to energy then we have energy. We already have fission reactors in power plants and have had this technology for decades.
We also have fusion reactors.That are not made for commercial energy but for the killing of people.
It’s called a fusion bomb or also the hydrogen bomb and was the successor of the first nuclear fission bombs or atomic bombs as they were called.
The difference? One converts uranium into energy by splitting atoms and the other uses this process in reverse to combine helium atoms to make massively more energy and hydrogen. The first process… splitting atoms is fission. The second process is fusion, combining atoms.
To date the only energy positive production of fusion has been using a fission bomb to ignite a fusion bomb. Doing this in a lab is not an easy or simple process but it has now been done.
Fission gives us energy and nuclear waste. Fusion gives us massively more energy and water.
With the achievement of 15 million degrees temperature outside of the sun’s core and outside of the inside of a nuclear explosion but in a commercial machine gives us another massive milestone on the way to having free energy for everyone forever.
As my wain try’s to join the people who drop nukes on others, sigh.
What’s the most important: Discovering what has been or making the future?
Congrats to Tokamak Energy, keep up the good work and if you need a hand…