Energy consumption has
doubled worldwide since 1970 and it is believed that it will continue to grow.
Most popular sources of energy on earth are not renewable and have very
damaging influence on our environment. While alternative sources of energy are
becoming quite popular, those are not sufficient to supply current energy needs
of civilization. On the other hand, nuclear fission has a bad reputation due to
some accidents (mainly Chernobyl and Fukushima) and our lack of ability to
recycle nuclear waste. Many people believe that achieving stable, net-positive
nuclear fusion will solve this problem. But how do we know it works ?
Mass-energy equivalence
E = mc^2 is probably the most famous equation of 20th
century that emerges from Einstein’s special theory of relativity. It basically
states that an object standing still in a reference frame, possesses a huge
amount of energy. We can calculate that one gram of mass has energy equivalent to
25.0 million kilowatt-hours. If you
could use 10% of this energy to power your computer, it would run for about
285 years (considering it uses 1kW of power). Theoretically it looks amazing,
ability to change mass to energy would solve all energy problems we can think
of. But how can we release this energy ? The simplest way to do this is nuclear
fission: uranium-235 nucleus after being hit by a neutron with sufficient
energy decays into cesium and rubidium and releases energy; neutrons that will hit other atoms and
start fission in them. Released energy heats water and assuming we can control
this reaction it is possible to connect a turbine and gather power. While the
process itself is quite safe (a nuclear reactor cannot explode like a fission
bomb, a different construction is necessary), we still have to deal with toxic
waste and meltdowns caused by natural disasters (Fukushima) or a human mistake
(Chernobyl).
Creating sun on earth
Another
nuclear process, fusion, is the holy grail of energy industry. It is the same
process that occurs within stars, heating our planet and providing light for
plants to grow. It is like fission watched backwards. Lighter nuclei crash
together with high speed and bound together to form a nucleus of a heavier
element. The mass of the heavier element is lesser than sum of lighter
elements, the missing part is emitted as radiation. This process occurs only in
extreme temperatures, comparable to those on the Sun. While it seems impossible
to achieve such conditions on the Earth, recent developments in the National
Ignition Facility yielded positive results. A small portion of hydrogen
isotopes was heated using powerful laser impulses starting short fusion
reaction that delivered more energy than an amount required to start it. While
those results are promising, this is just the first step to build a hot fusion
reactor.
While
hot fusion reactors are out of reach for our current technology, several groups
have claimed that they possess working cold fusion reactors. In theory Low
Energy Nuclear Reactions that are claimed to be the base of current prototypes,
would solve all problems with nuclear energy. The fuel would be nickel, there
would be no toxic waste (only copper created from nickel). If estimations are
true, 1% of current nickel production would satisfy worldwide energy needs. But
there is a catch. Many scientists believe that those devices are a scam. There
is no proof that any of these devices work.
Sources & articles worth reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission
http://www.nature.com/news/laser-fusion-experiment-extracts-net-energy-from-fuel-1.14710
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/864/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
Sources & articles worth reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission
http://www.nature.com/news/laser-fusion-experiment-extracts-net-energy-from-fuel-1.14710
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/864/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
I'm glad, that you haven't written about anything connected with cars or motorbikes, because for sure I wouldn't be able to comment on anything this week. Maybe Physics isn't much easier to write about, but still alternative energy is more pleasant topic for me. Nowadays we are consuming more and more not only the energy, but food, natural resources, land as well. It’s good that we’re inventing new ways of getting energy, because when we will use up fossil fuels and coal supplies, we will be forced to find something to replace those. I wasn’t familiar with this technologies, so thank you very much for that brief summary.
ReplyDeleteI admit, because of our lifestyle we are rapidly draining our planet's resources. In my honest opinion nuclear based power plants aren't the safest way to improve this situation. I think the future lays in harvesting of lightning during a thunderstorm. Based on Nikola Tesla solution we can get enough power for small town for a day from a single lightning.
ReplyDeleteI found nice article about it:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/apr/23/dark-lightning-search-thunderstorms-weather
While lightnings carry huge amounts of energy, we still lack technology to safely capture and store it. I'm aware of many inventions made by Tesla, but I believe there is some kind exaggerated myth surrounding him, one of them is that he developed many free energy devices that were supposed to capture cosmic rays. If any of those devices existed and worked, they should become really popular and I haven't seen any in my life.
DeleteNowadays the topic which you have described is very important and definitely we - as a global society - should deeply analyze it. Especially if we know that natural resources will be ended in a pretty close future. I have heard a little about those futuristic alternative sources of energy and I am really interested in how it will be developed.
ReplyDeleteI think the future is in nuclear energy. We should look on the past, there is only two accidents, no more and these accidents are few years ago. The World goes forward, and with him technological capabilities. Maybe We are need 30 years, to build more nuclear power plants, maybe in future it will be a live standard like a mobile phone today.
ReplyDeleteThere were more than two nuclear accidents. Two were widely known. There is more information about them on wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents)
DeleteBut why you didn't write about natural energy sources ? I'm not a greenpeace follower or something like that but in my opinon this is our future. Wind, water, sun, we can take very much from the nature. Of course not everywhere it is possible but we can produce more energy in one place, and send it to any corner of the world.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing in technology you've described is that it will becme (sooner or later) a wepoen of mass destruction OR it will first be a wepoen then something good for people. Like atomic bomb, first was the war, then was the energy. Now we still have problems with that
Well, that is quite strange question, considering the fact that this energy is natural. The process itself occurs within stars, and those are created by nature. Wind/water/sun energy is really expensive and problably it is impossible(with current technology) to meet energy needs of civilization using only those sources.
DeleteAbout weapons, first fusion bomb was detonated in 1952. This technology is already accesible for mass destruction needs, but somehow noone ever used it against people.
I'm a big fan of technology that is making our lives easier and I never really cared much about environment but somehow the idea of solar power plants or wind turbines seems better to me. Maybe it's because I'm not able to fully grasp the science behind nuclear energy, even if you dumb it down and try to explain it as you just did. I love sci-fi post-apocalyptic novels, games or movies and on many occasions I wonder how would it be like to live in a destroyed world but when it comes to experiencing in in real life, I suppose noone would like that. I'm not saying this energy source is bad and that we'll all die because of it. I have no idea if it's good or bad. It's just that the only association with nuclear power I have in my mind, is the post apocalypse. Wouldn't taking power from nature be less...troublesome? I mean, it's all there. The wind, the sun, water currents. We don't have to break any atoms and build countermeasures around those sources...
ReplyDeleteThat is one of the reasons why people struggle to accept nuclear energy. In popular culture word nuclear is almost a synonyme for something dangerous, and radiation is a dark force that will kill us all. Many of those fears origin from lack of knowledge. For example, coal plants produce more radiation that nuclear plants (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/). The problem with solar panels and wind turbines, is that they are expensive to build and not really efficent enough to depend on them for producing energy.
DeleteThis is a very interesting post. I think that you should talk on such topics more often, even though very few people have an impact on the development of physics and especially nuclear fusion and energy sources in the future.
ReplyDeletePower engineering is of course extremely important nowadays, due to the ammount of waste produced worldwide and the pollution that affects our health directly. Even Polish cities like Kraków are a great example and it should be more alarming for the authorities than it is right now, that we need solutions for solving the problem of pollution, which starts mostly with the topic of energetics.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately energetics are an enormous business, the biggest one. Unimaginable money comes with it, and people working with such ammounts of money usually do not have their moral compasses set right.
Let's hope we will soon have a clean, safe and cheap energetic technology developed!
Very interesting article!
ReplyDeleteI never knew that something like a fusion reactor even exist!
I think there are a lot of myths concerning nuclear energy. You're probably right that radioactivity connects in people minds only with dark and dangerous things.
I found interesting article claiming that nuclear power saved more lives than it put to risk. The amount of air polluting gases which would be produced by coal plants of comparable power is huge!
Here's the article: http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html
On the other hand I heard on TV that no first world country is currently building nuclear plant. Speaker implied that it is a sign of retreat from using nuclear power in favour of renewable sources. I found some confirmation but a bit outdated: http://timeforchange.org/who-builds-new-nuclear-power-plants-future
I'm not sure what is the reason for that.
Nuclear energy is expensive. I know about a better alternative solutions. Let's stay with the common known CHP but let's change the material used for combustion. Basically nowadays the power stations CHP, runs on the coal and that is not a good thing for the environment. I have that luck! I know the guy who actually have developed the technology of processing garbage to biofuel which than can be used in place of coal. The biofuel is nothing else than just a garbage dried in some complicated chemical process, which looks like confetti after the whole process and its just a clean "thing" that can be combusted and it is few times cheaper than a coal, weighs much much less so it can be transported very easily in tons and the less amount of biofuel actually gives you more power than a coal. It is way cheaper technology and much more cleaner for the environment. So it's a big no for a nuclear fusion which is already outdated technology and I don't know why we really want to have that here. It's cool that Japan and other countries used that technology but it was cool 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWell, as long as our electricity supply is mainly run by coal we create a lot of pollution which devastate our planet. Alternative sources of obtaining energy are obviously good for us, used and mixed all together might give satisfying results, for example heating and lights at our houses supplied by solar power, more energy demanding devices run by electricity obtained by biomass, turbines, run by wind or water, and occasionally nuclear power. In my opinion it will take something like 10 to 15 years to replace traditional power stations with those creating eco and Earth-friendly power. More and more industries use such electricity, farms run by solar panels are perfect example for that case. Wind turbines provide electricity to nearest cities what in perfect conditions might be enough to run small size city. People all around the world work on inventing new ways of gaining electricity, the only problem with making it official are formalities with approving it as a reliable and safety source what supposingly takes loads of time.
ReplyDelete