Lets talk energy

[steven woodman]

I know there are very many intellegent people who use daniweb so i decided i start a thread on matter and antimatter, to see if i can learn from some people or possibly them from me.

What amazes me, is that scientist say when energy become form, it happens in pairs; matter and anti matter and when they are braught together a flash of pure energy occurs with no physical product. aparently there is enough energy in one gram of matter to provide for a med sized town for a day.

makes you wonder why we spend money on gas not the producttion of antimatter. ohhhh ya it cost 300 billion dollars per gram.

Any thoughts or fact that might be interesting.

hmmmmm just found the wiki on antimatter.........interesting :p

[sittas87]

hmmm interesting,looks like im going to have to learn from you this time around

[bumsfeld]

1 g of hydrogen fused to helium will give you 174,000 kilowatt-hours of energy.

Let's assume average house consumes 30 kilowatt-hours/day.

[steven woodman]

1 g of hydrogen fused to helium will give you 174,000 kilowatt-hours of energy.

Let's assume average house consumes 30 kilowatt-hours/day.

really? thats amazing but im not familiar with fusion. I would assume that for say 500 000 Hydrogen atoms there would be 250 000 He atoms? Ya that would make sense.

so Fusion consumes that much energy hey? Nice! so that would mean that the fission of the same amount of He would release en aequal amount of energy?

[steven woodman]

found this link on antimatter, pretty staright forward easy reading for anyone interested.

[bumsfeld]

The typical 50 hp all electric car with very efficient battery and electric motor would spent about $0.30 per mile, if each kwh of electricity costs $0.10.

[bumsfeld]

really? thats amazing but im not familiar with fusion. I would assume that for say 500 000 Hydrogen atoms there would be 250 000 He atoms? Ya that would make sense.

so Fusion consumes that much energy hey? Nice! so that would mean that the fission of the same amount of He would release en aequal amount of energy?

You are talking 2 deuterium atoms for each helium atom. The sun has mostly hydrogen available, so it takes 4 hydrogen atoms for each helium atom. Not quite sure if man could ever copy that process and conditions!

The sun produces 108,000,000,000,000,000,000 kwh of energy every second!

[steven woodman]

when i say hydrogen i mean what is actually deuterium, but when you say hydrogen you mean what? a single proton?

[steven woodman]

My chemistry is pretty good but havent used it a lot lately. i think i am mistaken. deuterium is 1 proton, 1 neutron and no electrons, is that right?

and hydrogen has no neutrons?

if that where the case and you needed 4 hydrogens for the fission of one helium, where would the protons come from.

got any good links to this kinda of stuff (fission/fusion, antimatter that sort of thing)

[bumsfeld]

when i say hydrogen i mean what is actually deuterium, but when you say hydrogen you mean what? a single proton?

Right, that's all the sun has to go on! Conditions have to be nasty enough to make some neutrons.

The most common universal product of fusion is actually iron.

[steven woodman]

hold on im confused so, When you join to atoms (fusion) it realeases energy. i thought that occured during splitting (fission).

Alright just looked it up and it can absorb or release depending on the atons involved. weird make me want to go back to school.

[bumsfeld]

Only few very large atoms can release energy when splitting into smaller ones. Most commonly certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium.

[GrimJack]

The fusion cycle start with hydrogen to helium and ends with iron - the production of iron, instead of releasing energy, absorbs energy (about 3,000,000,000 degs Kelvin); this reverses the expansion pressure which becomes compression and the sun collapses and the heavier elements are produced - overly simplified.

A different form of energy is the energy of cavitation; the surface temperatures produced as the bubbles collapse are incredible. In one experiment, a hydrogen atom was encased in a bubble which was painted with a beam of infra-red energy and the bubble split into 2 bubbles. Work that one through -- it makes my head spin.

The temperature inside a collapsing bubble in concentrated sulfuric acid approaches 20,000 degs k, even higher at the core of the bible - some predict the ability to produce neutrons from inertial confinement fusion.

but I digress and babble a bit.

[jwenting]

Deuterium is hydrogen with an extra neutron pulled into the core.
It will have its single electron in atomic form, else it'd be a deuterium ion :)

Both fission and fusion can release energy. It all depends on the energy states of the isotopes involved.
In theory fission of light atoms could provide energy, but the states under which fission happens in light atoms are high in relation to the amount of energy released because light atoms are generally more stable than heavy ones.
But do remember that normal decay of even lightweight isotopes releases energy. Problem is that this energy is in forms not readily converted into electricity.
What you want is for that decay to release relatively slow particles and a lot of low energy gamma rays. Decay is of course not fission, but there are some similarities (both involve the release of energy and particles to affect a change in energy state of the atom, leaving another atom in its place).
Those can be used to heat water to steam, which in turn can power a turbine.
If you get small amounts of high energy gamma rays, they just shoot out of your containment vessel with little loss of energy, causing a severe hazard to the surrounding area.

That's why for example lab sources of Cobalt 60 need massive amounts of shielding for even small samples.
I did some experiments requiring the use of a Cobalt 60 radiation source for my graduate work in university, and our few grams of Cobalt were contained in a block of solid lead about 40cm on a side, with a tiny mica window a few millimeters in diameter to let out the radiation (and that could be blocked by turning a lever which caused a thick slab of lead to block the window).
Exposure to even that pencil-thin beam of radiation could have serious consequences. When in use the source had to be positioned to have several thick brick and concrete walls between the beam and any inhabited spaces, and the path of the beam through the room was marked by warning signs and a red/white checkered chain to prevent anyone from walking through it.

In contrast, a fuel rod for a nuclear powerstation is quite harmless until it's been in the reactor for a while.
Even solid Uranium metal (in non-critical masses of course, meaning less than a few hundred kilos) is quite harmless, its radiation levels hardly above background radiation.
It's only when bombarded with slow neutrons that it starts its fission cycle and releases energy.

[Salem]

> When you join to atoms (fusion) it realeases energy. i thought that occured during splitting (fission).
Lighter elements release energy by fusion.
Heavier elements release energy by fission.
The mid-point of this is around iron / nickel.

[sneekula]

Would so called 'cold fusion' , like deuterium trapped in certain metals, ever have a chance to be realistic?

[jwenting]

Who knows. I find it highly unlikely that there are catalysts that can induce nuclear fusion at room temperature.

[GrimJack]

Room temperature nuclear fusion does seem rather far fetched but I have been reading about 'silane' (a single silicon atom with four hydrogen atoms to form a molecular hydride) for room temperature superconductivity, unfortunately they substitute high pressure for low temperatures. There has also been some experiments with 'striping' in 2D fluctuating superconductivity in a high-temperature superconductor but these guys have a different idea of 'high-temp' than I - it could range from -270 to ??.

The point being that 'room temperature' superconductivity could lead to room temperature fusion.

[steven woodman]

Hey there josh, if your refering to me, I would take a step back and look at the most unintelligent post here before you start the pre-pubecent act of name calling.

I satrted this post to increase my knowledge of the subject while also seeing what the members of daniwebs know.

As you can see i achieved that! If you read in my first post i clearly mentioned the intellect of the members of this site. i didnt realize there was immature whiners that had nothing to contribute but name calling using the site because with the ignorace ive just seen from you i would have left that statement out due to the fact that your "stupidity" cancels it all out.

[steven woodman]

btw thank you for your reponses (everyone besides this josh guy). I ve learned a lot. Im interested in hearing more if you got it.