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Protecting Nuclear Reactors: Don’t blow it

Protecting Nuclear Reactors: Don’t blow it. By: David Mailman. Background of Fusion Reactors .

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Protecting Nuclear Reactors: Don’t blow it

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  1. Protecting Nuclear Reactors:Don’t blow it By: David Mailman

  2. Background of Fusion Reactors Fusion reactors, like fission reactors, use nuclear reactions to produce large amounts of energy. The major difference is that fission reactors split atoms to make energy, whereas fusion reactors fuse two atoms or pieces of mass to make even more energy than fission. This can be easily demonstrated by comparing a late 1940’s atomic bomb to the 1952 hydrogen bomb with a force of around 1,500 Hiroshimas. http://vimeo.com/10275608

  3. More background on fusion reactors Fusion reactors are built in two ways, one way, which is the most known way, involves large SuperConductingCoils (or SCC) which heat plasma ions, and get them to move fast enough to fuse and create energy from the fusing atoms. This type of fusion is best seen in the universe’s largest fusion reactors, suns. There the hot hydrogen is moving fast enough that a creates a magnetic field, that works like the coils. This causes the fusing of hydrogen atoms at astonishing rate of over 600 million tons each second. It turns the hydrogen into a little more than 500 million tons of helium. Many wonder where that 50 or so million tons of mass goes. This is answered by Einstein's famous equation E=MC2 . It basically states that matter can be converted to energy, and vice versa. This is where the 50 million tons go.

  4. E=MC2 and fusion/fission info

  5. More background on fusion reactors The other theoretical way to make nuclear fusion is with a particle laser in which you obviously launch particles at each other causing fusion. This though requires more space and more energy to cause fusion. The energy generated from fusion would not be enough to even power the plant, thus making particle laser fusion unusable.

  6. Shielding in a fusion reactor • When shielding a fusion reactors, always protect the SCC due to there importance to running the reactor. • Coolant must be extremely cold. Liquid helium is planned to be used due to being very cold in its liquid form. • The first major layer is the inner blanket and shield followed by the outboard blanket an shield. • This is followed by the cryostat and the bio-shield. • The inner and outer blankets and shields reduce heat greatly. • The cryostat and bio-shield lower temperature even more and shield against radiation.

  7. Fuel Safety • The fuel in a fusion reactor is a mix of tritium, and deuterium which are heavy forms of hydrogen. • Tritium is used in luminescent watches, and has low radiation. It can be made from lithium even though it’s a heavy hydrogen. • Deuterium is extracted from seawater and perfectly safe.

  8. Fusion vs. Fission Fusion Fission Fission produces less energy Fission has a bigger explosion risk and radius Fission reactors are smaller We can build fission reactors because there are working reactors Fission’s fuel can be recovered for bombs • Fusion produces more energy • Fusion has less danger risk of explosion • Fusion reactors are much bigger • A working fusion reactor has not been built • Fusion’s fuel is useless in bomb making

  9. Is it worth it? While fusion reactors could have the potential to be the energy of the future, is it worth the journey? Think about it, to develop a working fusion reactor would cost billions in developing shielding alone. As well as the cost to build one of these behemoths would be millions upon millions of dollars. If we tried to cut corners on shielding or other important devices, even with the benefits of tritium fusion, an explosion could be just as devastating as the Japanese Fukushima explosion or worse…

  10. Credits • http://www.generalfusion.com/safety.html • http://www.fusor.net/newbie/files/Ligon-QED-IE.pdf • http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cpr/pres/105029.pd • http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/MuhammadKaleem.shtml • http://www.google.com/imgres?q=nuclear+explosion&um=1&hl=en&tbo=d&rlz=1C1GGGE___US519US519&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=es4M01AMau5N_M:&imgrefurl=http://uncensor-nuclear.wikispaces.com/Advantage%2Band%2BDisadvantage&docid=8k6y3Bi7J4V-rM&imgurl=http://uncensor-nuclear.wikispaces.com/file/view/nuclear-explosion_0.jpg/215736982/719x496/nuclear-explosion_0.jpg&w=719&h=496&ei=fpv5ULK-Aue40gHnroG4Cg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=688&sig=110353353768351482190&page=3&tbnh=141&tbnw=202&start=48&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:62,s:0,i:338&tx=51&ty=44 • century-hitech.com • The Elements book By: Theodore Gray

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