In 1905 Albert Einstein develops E=mc2, which means that one ounce of matter contains 1.8793e+15 foot-pounds or 2.4e+12 BTU of energy. Total energy consumption in the USA has ranged from 334e+6 to 360e+6 BTU per person in recent years.
This means that 1.5 ounces of matter contains as much energy as 10,000 people consume per year in the USA!
FISSION POWER
So far the only way to obtain useable energy from matter, on an ongoing
basis, has been through a
fission nuclear reactor using
radioactive matter,
such as uranium.
Fission means splitting.
A large atom is
split emitting smaller atoms and neutrons that contain about 99.9% as much
matter as the initial atom. The 0.1% is converted into energy. The
emitted neutrons cause other atoms to split and a
chain reaction
occurs.
About 20% of the electricity in the USA comes from nuclear energy; 80% in France. Nuclear powered transportation vehicles have been limited to marine propulsion (for the most part), with the largest usage by the US Navy. A few portable units were built in the 1950's.
The 2001 USA "National Energy Policy" has a strong emphasis on nuclear power, and using nuclear power to generate hydrogen from water. The Los Alamos "Green Freedom" (TM) concept is to create synthetic fuel from hydrogen and CO2 in the air. This synthetic fuel would be considered carbon neutral and could be used in vehicles and aircraft using existing industrial and transportation infrastructure.
FUSION
POWER
Fusion means joining
together. Two light
atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and in doing so,
release energy. Fusion is the process that
powers the sun and stars.
Where
atoms of hydrogen fuse together when they are
heated
to 100 million degrees and held together by gravity. The sun pumps out
100 million times as much energy in a
second as the entire population on Earth uses in a year!
Since the 1950's experiments on earth have tried to replicate the process used by the sun. Where hydrogen is held together by a strong magnetic field and heated by an intense energy beam, such as a laser. Working fusion reactors have cost between $2,000 (built by a teenager) and $13.3 billion. Obtaining net energy in this manner has been illusive. So far all of the hot fusion reactors have required more input energy than the energy produced by the fusion reaction.
COLD
FUSION
In 1989
two chemists announced cold fusion in a bottle, but most reviewers say the
effects are not reproducible. They do not believe that
cold fusion is
an accepted theory in physics. As a result many scientists will not
work on experiments where atoms are excited and fused together by some means
other than very high temperature and pressure. But,
scientists at
UCLA obtained relatively
cold fusion by
using a very powerful
electric field to slam atoms together instead of using intense heat or pressure
to get nuclei close enough together
to fuse. This experiment has been
repeated successfully and other scientists have reviewed the results:
It looks
like the real thing this time. But they still have not been able to
get more energy out than what was put in.
Electronics has advanced considerably since the 1950's and if scientists are now willing to look at electronic means to "slam atoms together," or excite them enough to fuse them together, there is a good chance for a breakthrough soon! It may be people working in basements and garages who will discover how to get excess energy out of nuclear fusion. Or it may have already happened, but not announced to the world. Because it is very hard, if not impossible, to obtain a meaningful patent on a process that does not conform to current physics theory.
POTENTIAL OF FUSION ENERGY
In 1954 Admiral Lewis L.
Strauss, who was Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at the time,
said: "It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy electrical
energy in their homes
too cheap to meter." Strauss was talking about nuclear fusion
energy, not fission that is today's nuclear energy. He was way
ahead of his time!
The US DOE says, "Fusion energy is arguably one of the most important and rewarding research challenges of the 21st Century. Fusion power produces no troublesome emissions, is safe, and has few, if any, proliferation concerns. It creates no long-lived waste and runs on fuel readily available to all nations.
Note: See this article online, with
hyperlinked references, at: http://www.friendlyinnovators.com/mn/20080400.htm
Next time: Accelerating Change
Al Leedahl
Engineering Design Concepts
www.leedahl.com/engineering/design/concepts.htm