Fusion Schmusion

No doubt you have already encountered themassive hype by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of their claim that they have successfully extracted more energy from a fusion reaction than they put into it. I ' m not sure what technical level I should pitch this at -- I really don ' t know how much people in general understand about it. So I ' ll start with the basics. Please don ' t feel insulted if you already know this. You do probably know that Einstein mass and energy to be equivalent, that is they are convertible one into the other and are manifestations of the same underlying reality. You certainly are familiar with E=MC^2. C is the speed of light, and because on the human scale this is an enormous number the amount of energy equivalent to a given amount of mass also seems enormous to us. When we burn fuel, are not creating energy, we are merely converting one form of energy -- contained in chemical bonds -- into other forms --- electromagnetic radiation and heat, which is the movement of molecules. The total amount of such chemical energy contained in any kind of fuel is minuscule compared to the energy equivalent of its total mass.*Note, however, that the energy bound up in atomic nuclei contributes to their mass. This is the energy required to hold the nucleons (protons and neutrons) together. It so happens that the required energy goes down as we go from hydrogen through heavier nuclei -- helium, lithium, etc. -- until it is lowest in iron, with ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs