what are the costs of nuclear fusion?
106996
Currently we are using nuclear FISSION (splitting) in all nuclear reactors of the world. The only problem is all the waste fission produces (radioactive waste whose half-life is one-million years!). Because FUSION (fusing) involves combining, it produces no waste whatsoever. The only problem is that fusion requires MASS amounts of energy (via heat), so in the end, more energy is used than is created. Because it is almost impossible to receive benefit from heat fusion, scientists are currently working on COLD FUSION (requires little energy), but nothing of significance has developed yet. \n\nSo all in all the cost of nuclear fusion is that it requires too much and provides too little.
182000
Well, currently all technologies have their drawback.  I'll go into detail what's up and why:\n\nNuclear fission - older LWR (light water reactors) are inefficient.  They use less and produce more waste as compared to the newer models using heavy water and sodium cooled reactors.  New generations of nuclear fuel are providing greater efficiencies.  I believe the best would had been the Integral Fast Reactor.  This would had provided proliferation resistant means of producing power.  Waste would had been sorted out with their pyroprocessing methods, and stuff that would be buried would have a half life of no more than 100 years.  It could use up LWR waste and other wastes from lesser efficient breeder reactors to produce power indefinitely.  It could convert at most 20% of waste back to fuel, and reuse.  But with the whole process, the waste leaving would be completely free of actinides and other long lasting radioactive materials.  So, nuclear fission would had been my favorite, if there wasn't such a public outcry for the source.  Until public opinion changes, there will not be any new sources in the US for a while.  Additionally, cost overruns of power plant production (because of a lot of safety mechanisms needed) would deter a lot of investors.\n\nNatural Gas - you know gas.  It's gaining a foothold in the US.  Technologies are becoming more efficient and cleaner.\n\nNuclear Fusion - Something for the future, but until it's a proven technology, we can't live off of pipe dreams.\n\nCoal - ah, coal.  It is the current favorite source of power in the US.  There are more advanced power plants called coal gasification power plants which uses scrubbers and other means of cleaning up the air.  This is slated to be replaced by natural gas by DOE's estimates.\n\nWind, Geothermal, and other sources - \nWind requires expensive equipment that could alter the landscape.  Again, go check on the DOE's website, but they require many windmills to achieve what one powerplant can.  Geothermal requires hot sources in the earth.  Yosemite could be one, if it wasn't preserved.  Look at iceland for that. Solar is expensive and dependant of climate conditions.  It is better in the desert, but in cities with varying climates, we are dependant on a consistant power source.  Tidal sources of energy could be feasible if it didn't alter marine life ecosystems.  Currently it's a newer source of energy.  Scientists haven't perfected the technology to provide a competative means of power source.\n\nMy conclusion:\nYes I think coal should be continue to be used for the moment.  Currently, we cannot just change from one source to another because of current technologies and public perception.  There is a great market for this source of power - it won't dissapear in an instant until there are rivalling technologies that could provide comparable rates.  In the end, $$ are the deciding factor between the feasability of one source versus another.
402973
Carrying out a nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature.  Stars, such as the Sun, have fusion chain reactions, but at temperatures exceeding 10000 deg C.
491021
energy is released in the sun from a process called atomic or nuclear fusion. in this process, 4 hydrogen nuclei combine to form a helium nucleus. but the combined mass of 4 hydrogen nuclei is slightly less than the mass of a helium nucleus. this difference in the mass is converted into energy. this process is called nuclear fusion. at any given point of time infinite fusions r takin place inside the sun. this energy eaches us in the form of heat,light energy. this is together called as solar energy.
1032044
I know someone in this research area. Info can be found at...\n\nhttp://www.fusionpower.org/\n\nI'd like to say that within 100 years some kind of clean(er) energy will be produced at the atomic level.\n\nBut the hurdles associated with Fusion, really do seem insurmountable at this time.
911178
fusion \n\nIT CONVERTS HYDROGEN INTO HELIUM
390263
Nuclear fusion power. Look up the Tokamak Reactor.
152530
NUCLEAR POWER\nIn the mid-1950s, nuclear physicists confidently predicted that nuclear energy would usher in a golden age for humanity: the cost of energy would be so low it would be "too cheap to meter." They predicted that, by the year 2000, there would be one thousand commercial reactors and one thousand "breeder" reactors producing unlimited amounts of power. Like the horse and buggy, oil and coal would become little more than historical curiosities.\n\nNuclear power has exceeded some of these early predictions. Its safety record, when compared, say, to the airline industry, is vastly superior. Compared to the air pollution and acid rain caused by the coal industry, its environmental record is admirable. It currently generates over 15 percent of the nation's electricity and has thus reduced the dependence on scarce fossil fuels. Some claim it may also reduce the impact of the greenhouse effect.\n\nIronically, however, this same industry is also teetering on the verge of collapse. Contrary to previous expectations, the United States now has over one hundred commercial reactors, the breeder reactor program is defunct, and there has not been a single reactor order since 1978, one year before an accident at Three Mile Island. Over one hundred reactor orders have been canceled, and costs have escalated so that the Nine Mile Point reactor in upstate New York will soar beyond $6 billion, or about six times the cost of a coal plant of similar power.\n\nNever in modern history has a major technology, with the full backing of industry and the government, come to such an abrupt halt. Well over $100 billion has been invested in nuclear energy, yet the people of California voted to close down an operating reactor, and the people of Long Island, New York, are closing down the fully completed $5 billion Shoreham reactor before it opens.\n\nUtilities that invested heavily in nuclear power have been driven to the wall by its mounting costs; the Washington Public Power Supply System went bankrupt, and the Long Island Lighting Co. incurred billions in losses. What went wrong? \n\nAlthough the reasons for this unprecedented collapse are complex, many of the problems can be traced to unwise decisions made in the 1950s. Specifically, when the Nautilus nuclear submarine sailed effortlessly beneath the North Pole, it touched off a stampede among corporations interested in the commercial development of nuclear energy. The 1960s marked the "gold rush" in reactors, when General Electric, Westinghouse, Combustion Engineering, and Babcock-Wilcox scrambled to bring this technology to the marketplace. In fact, Con Edison even applied for a license to build its Ravenswood reactor in the heart of New York City opposite the United Nations.\n\nBecause large plants are more economical than small ones, designers started with the small (40-megawatt) Nautilus reactor and essentially scaled it up many times to the current 1,000-megawatt design, without clearly thinking through the consequences. Decades later, this would lead to three serious problems. First, in retrospect, scaling up the Nautilus design was a poor choice to begin with because the light-water Nautilus reactor is highly susceptible to a rapid melting of the uranium core. Alternate designs (e.g., gas-cooled high-temperature gas reactors) were much more stable against a meltdown but were ignored. Second, this meant that elaborate and expensive emergency core cooling systems had to be installed, which would later add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the reactor and delay construction for several years. Third, no attention was paid to how reactors would be decommissioned after thirty to forty years of use or where the radioactive nuclear waste would be disposed of.\n\nIn 1957, a prophetic, but secret, report was issued by the Brookhaven National Laboratory, called wash—740. It estimated that a meltdown, a Class 9 accident, could cause $7 billion in pro
567446
Due to the fusion process taking place inside the sun it emits radiation. The sunlight has solar energy.\n\nIf u would use some other source of light may be artificial then may be the energy generated would be less
813772
So, heat of fusion ring any bells?
308950
In the Sun and stars, massive gravitational forces generate the conditions for fusion to occur naturally. The light we see from the sun is the result of tremendous fusion reactions that convert hydrogen to helium. On earth these conditions are much harder to achieve. Harnessing fusion power on Earth could be one of the best options for long term energy supply
807371
hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium atoms\n\n2.a high temperature,rather a very high temperature\n\n3.i do not u/stand the question.however if the question is where do you find fusion reaction the answer is in the stars and sun\n\n4.similarities \na.both are nuclear reactions\nb.both generate enormous amount of energy\nc.both produce a energy in the form of heat\nd.both are non conventional sources of energy\ndissimilarities\na.fusion is pollution free\nb.fusion calls for very high temperatures to start the reaction\nc.in fusion lighter nuclei combine to form heavier nuclei.in fission heavier nuclei break \nd.fission is easier to control and produce as compared to fusion
28066
Nuclear fusion. Deuterium and tritium atoms combine and become helium.
132027
Nuclear fusion has indeed been successful in the past in two types of events.  The first event was totally military in nature when the first hydrogen bomb, USA's Ivy Mike, was detonated on October, the 31st 1952 (GMT).  The nuclear fusion accounted for around 25% of the total energy released (10.4 MT) whereas the rest of the energy was coming from the fission of the U238 pusher/tamper (i.e. the shell).  The bomb was designed around an A-bomb that was acting as an igniter, a tank of liquid deuterium (the fusion fuel) and a shell of U238 that reflected the energy of the A-bomb igniter towards the deuterium.\nSee http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Ivy.html\n\nNow, as for the peaceful use of nuclear fusion, there has been also a successful attempt in 1991 when the European tokamak JET, or Joint European Torus, diverged (that is, provided energy by its fusion process).  A tokamak is a torus volume surrounded by powerful magnetic fields.  The deuterium fuel is introduced into the torus, heated up to a plasma and confined by the magnetic fields (to avoid melting the torus walls).\nTo be sure, it was for a limited time (4 seconds in 1997) but it did give off energy (up to 16 MW, again in 1997).  It has spurred the continuing efforts of the international community and moved the American government to participate (They even tried to steal the whole project from the Europeans!!).  The next projects are the ITER (the "Next Step"), the DEMO (a 2000 MW power plant concept demonstrator) and the PROTO (a 1500 MW power plant prototype).\nSee http://www.jet.efda.org/documents/brochures/jeteuropeansucess.pdf
232862
It would take a lot more energy than is generated in one fusion bomb.  Watch the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
889460
A Tokamak is a machine that creates a doughnut-shaped magnetic field; a plasma (basically a bunch of ionized atoms, each with a positive or negative charge) gets trapped in the magnetic field, which we call being “confined” by the field.  By manipulating the magnetic field and the quantity of plasma, extremely high pressures and temperatures can be attained.  For this reason, the Tokamak design is used for fusion research—the hope is that the ions and electrons in the plasma can be squeezed so close together that they will overcome electrical repulsion and fuse together, releasing energy in the process.  (Two positively-charged ions, for example, experience strong electrical forces that push them apart when they get close together, but if they get close enough, nuclear forces can overcome the repulsion, and the ions can fuse to form a larger one.)\n\nFusion happens all the time in extreme environments—the interior of the Sun, for example, where it provides the enrgy for our star to shine—but humans have never managed to achieve controlled fusion.  Instead, we’ve only managed the uncontrolled variety—in the form of hydrogen bombs.\n\n\nRyan Wyatt\nRose Center for Earth & Space\nNew York, New York
794246
Absolutely.  In fact, there have been several different approaches, including zapping little pellets with a monster laser (NOVA), which are then immersed in water.  These minuscule nuclear bombs fuse and release their energy into the water, creating steam and turning turbines.\n\nThe most promising method, however, is a fusion reactor; a magnetic bottle which traps plasma.  Fusion occurs when the electromagnetic forces of nuclei (which are positive) are overcome.  In order to get nuclei, atoms are injected into the reactor and brought to immense temperatures.  The individual atoms, which are neutral, become so energetic that the electrons are stripped from the nuclei, creating plasma.  Plasma is simply free electrons (negatively charged and unbounded to a nucleus) and the positively charged nuclei.  Because these are positively and negatively charged, the plasma is contained within magnetic field lines.  This is the proverbial "magnetic bottle".\n\nThe nuclei smash into each other, creating helium nuclei and excess neutrons.  These neutrons are EXTREMELY energetic (14 MeV), and are neutrally charged.  Therefore, these neutrons zip right past the magnetic field lines.  The charged plasma remains, continuing the fusion process; and the neutrons are captured in water, where elastic collisions with H2O molecules transfers the energy from the neutrons to the water, heating the water, turning it to steam, and turning the turbines.\n\nThere are a couple of major problems.  First, the sun is very big and very hot.  Getting similar temperatures and pressures on Earth is next to impossible.  Although the energy released is several orders of magnitude greater than the energy put in when the process is going a full capacity, getting it started has been very difficult.  However, through TFTR and the new ITER, already the plasmas have generated more energy than were used to start the process.  This is a big step.\n\nAlso, the magnetic bottle and the plasma can experience some strange instabilities and wave functions.  Any time a harmonic resonance-like phenomena occurs, the fusion can break down, the plasma cools, and the process slows or stops.  As the test reactors continue to gather data, these phenomena are better understood.\n\nFinally, those 14 MeV neutron zip through the magnetic bottle and the water, and interact with impurities in the concrete and building materials, creating radioactive waste.  This waste is not insignificant - huge amounts of concrete becomes low-level waste.  Low level waste is NOT a measure of how dangerous it is - this stuff can be very dangerous - but it will only remain dangerous for about 100 years or so.  It's not the stuff that remains deadly for thousands of years.\n\nSo solve the instabilities, be able to sustain a plasma and reaction long enough to become self-sustaining, and be prepared for the low level waste, and fusion will become an almost unlimited energy supply.