#1 Fusion question
Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2010 7:50 pm
As we are apparently still as far away from achieving worthwhile fusion as we were half a century ago for hydrogen fusion to begin with this didn't seem appropriate for the S&L forum.
Assume you have the technology to use fusion as your main source of energy, up to and including fighters.
Fusion as used in SciFi generally means hydrogen and especially Deuterium fusion. So how about the stuff left over from that? Theoretically fusion of elements lighter than iron is a net energy event(though the energy needed to GET them to fuse would likely make that a net loss towards the iron end).
But COULD you use the helium resulting from hydrogen/hydrogen fusion to fuel another fusion reaction and so on?
Assume you have the technology to use fusion as your main source of energy, up to and including fighters.
Fusion as used in SciFi generally means hydrogen and especially Deuterium fusion. So how about the stuff left over from that? Theoretically fusion of elements lighter than iron is a net energy event(though the energy needed to GET them to fuse would likely make that a net loss towards the iron end).
But COULD you use the helium resulting from hydrogen/hydrogen fusion to fuel another fusion reaction and so on?