How can fusion energy be harnessed and used to generate energy daily?

Why is this question meaningful to you?

Cold fusion could be the next step in energy and we still don’t know that much about it. I still live on this planet and would like to be on this planet for a little while longer. Cold Fusion is “clean” energy or the cleanest we know of. Cold fusion interests me because I’m interested in energy studies. I like the thought that our universe’s currency is energy and to get anything we need to deposit energy. I want to learn more about it so that I can educate others that there are better energy sources then the old methods of oil and coal.

Meaningful to others?

Our governments are all talking about clean energy when as I write this the Canadian government is buying another pipeline. Instead we could be investing in fusion power to replace types of power like coal and oil because it’s much more efficient and cleaner. Coal and oil will burn faster, and we will use up coal and oil a lot faster than fusion power. It originally theorized for space rockets, if we can develop the tecknowologie we can start exploring space. The country that develops the first successful fusion power plant could be the next superpower.

Sub Questions
1.      What has and has not worked in the past for fusion power?	2.      What are we currently doing to further fusion power?	3.      How much energy does nuclear fusion generate?
4.      What is the difference between fusion power and fission power?	5.      How is fusion power cleaner then currant forms of generating energy?	6.      How is politics potentially slowing down the process of developing fusion power?

What further research needs to be done?

I would need to go further in depth with my sub questions. I would need to continue to research how to produce more energy than the process requires. Then I would move to researching ways to making that energy marketable and viable so governments will want to expand and invest in this technology. If that’s too ambitious maybe just focusing on clean energy production.

Is there a community expert or organization that could help you discover new information?

There is currently a Burnaby, British Columbia based fusion power lab called General Fusion that’s doing research with the university of McGill. They aim to have a completed prototype by the year 2030. They will most likely not offer me any extra information then what’s on their website because they don’t want to disclose any company secrets and I’m not government or a scientist.

Can scientific investigation/experiment help you determine an answer?

No, at the currant moment we have not developed the technology to solve my question because we are only at the prototype stage. Once we have found a way to generate more energy then the process produces then this question can be tested.

Creative Commons image

Imaging, R’lyeh. “Plasma (1 of 10).” Flickr, Yahoo!, 26 Jan. 2013, www.flickr.com/photos/radio_free_rlyeh/8415977317/in/photolist-dPMDuS-dPG5Rc-dPMDPb-5CQjuU-6P1Qqy-e6SLRT-e6Ypcq-e6SRf6-e6YtPd-e6YtCQ-dwA9rU-e6SMU4-e6Yscm-e6Yqj7-qpGoW-e6Yp1b-e6SMaX-e6SNm2-7h3Jve-e6SLaD-e6Yq57-8LEuAv-e6SNfc-e6Yrvf-e6YrJf-e6SQJ6-e6Yr9f-e6SQiB-e6YrgJ-e6YsCC-e6SLmK-e6YtfG-e6SQPZ-e6YqFQ-7QWty-gWrofJ-nZLytw-araToX-dvgxga-aQu1UZ-nEEgyK-9teLVN-6gHaiK-bF7or7-dvgw4Z-UBXzj4-nwHes-awVaEv-nLmvP-cbDvoL/ . 

Research Sites

Source 1

Title: World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Be Built With The Help Of L

Author: N/A

Source: “World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Be Built With The Help Of L.” Chemical Industry Digest, 22 Oct. 2018. Science in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A560325818/GPS?u=43riss&sid=GPS&xid=518b6ea9. Accessed 25 Feb. 2019.

Date of publication: Oct. 22 2018

Summary/How will this information help answer my question:

Currant estimates suggest that the fusion power plant in France will be completed by 2025. India has now decided to support the program with an Indian company Larson and Toubro suppling major components. They operate out of a facility in Hazira and have already delivered 24 parts and is scheduled to complete it’s part by the end of 2019. The cryostat base will be he signal largest component of the project and the project has up to 54 segments. This will be the world’s largest fusion power plant and maybe able to generate 500MWs of power. Many of the pieces will be fabricated in India like the 3,850-tonne cryostat’s base. India is expected to take 10% of the cost. Other key players include the European Union, Japan, China, Russia, the US, South Korea, and India. The 2006 ITER agreement is a 35-year collaboration to build the machine or tokamak.

This article explains the currant steps countries are taking to further fusion research. This helps answer one of my sub questions and explains a governmental stand point for fusion power.

Source 2

Title: The new industry of building stars

Author: Will Dunn

Source: Dunn, Will. “The new industry of building stars.” New Statesman, 30 Nov. 2018, p. S26+. Canada in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A573241489/GPS?u=43riss&sid=GPS&xid=eb752ada. Accessed 25 Feb. 2019.

Date of publication: Nov 30, 2018

Summary/How will this information help answer my question:

The Culham Center for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire is home to two fusion reactors by the names JET, and MAST with JET being the larger of the two. When fully operational the technology that goes into these two machines will offer almost limitless clean energy for the earth. The projects are both governments funded because we are still very far away from having a working fusion plant. There’re two things the scientists at these facilities have discovered that is blocking the progression of nuclear fusion. The project requires a machine that can hold a substance hotter than our sun called plasma. The solution to this problem maybe the tokamak or magnetic field design. The second problem is the heat exhaust. The solution for this is pending. JET is currently the only working fusion reactor at large scale but many private companies are becoming more advanced in their research.

A second reactor is near by the JET reactor and is owned by the Tokamak Energy company. The company finds that research for fusion power is so slow that they decided to make their own company to try and speed up the research. Their fusion reactor holds the plasma in a ball shape, placing massive pressure on the plasma so it doesn’t move around too much. The problem with using magnetic fields in these reactors is that what they use to make the magnets (copper) provides a lot of resistance and grows extremely hot. The solution to this problem is to use a new supper conductor in the from of a silvery magnetic tape. Small reactors like this one would be perfect for powering small cities at 1MW of power. The biggest problem for privet companies is the funding. Fusion power plants are expensive, and a lot of privet companies don’t have government funding.

This article explains all the different problems and solutions each way of starting a fusion reaction causes. This article answers some of my questions and explains how my wonder question will be very difficult to answer because the technology is just not there yet.

Source 3

Title: A white-hot elephant; Nuclear fusion

Author: N/A

Source: “A white-hot elephant; Nuclear fusion.” The Economist, 25 Nov. 2006, p. 61(US). Global Issues in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A155023168/GPS?u=43riss&sid=GPS&xid=ea9c6999. Accessed 25 Feb. 2019.

Date of publication: Nov 25, 2006

Summary/How will this information help answer my question:

Politics has its foot in almost anything that has to do with money including fusion power. The first suggestions of fusion power came from the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev who proposed it to Ronald Regan. The project would be expensive but today multiple countries share 12 billon dollar burden. America, the European Union, Japan, Russia, China, India and South Korea but the countries involved have changed with the years with Canada backing out in 2003. The decision making for where to build the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) played a part in invading Iraq. United States wanted the project to be placed in Japan because they both wanted to invade Iraq. Russia and China didn’t want to attack Iraq, so they wanted the project to be placed in France. They finally settled on Cadarache, France with a compromise that Kaname Ikeda (a Japanese ambassador) will oversee the project. The cost of the project is 6 billion dollars and the other 6 billion dollars is just to operate it for 20 years.

This information will help answer my question because it shows how politics are potentially slowing down science. It also shows that at least the world governments are trying to develop clean energy and they are putting funds towards fusion power projects.

Information Fluency

What questions did you need to research in order to research your topic?

All my questions relate to energy production or why we are having troubles forwarding fusion power. With fusion power it’s the in 30 years we will have fusion power joke. Fusion power has been a slow process and in order to answer my question we need to know why it’s currently impossible to answer my question.

• What has and has not worked in the past for fusion power?
• What are we currently doing to further fusion power?
• How much energy does nuclear fusion generate?
• What is the difference between fusion power and fission power?
• How is fusion power cleaner then currant forms of energy production?
• How is politics potentially slowing down the process of developing fusion power?

What new or familiar digital tools did you try to use as you worked through this project?

I had plenty of digital sources to answer my question. I learned how to use the digital gale engage library that provide many scientific articles and papiers. For the sources that I didn’t use in my research organizer is a YouTube channel that I trust called Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, sci show, ted ed and crash course. I also used Google to find multiple articles from the news, national geographic and government funded projects.

What was the process you used to investigate the topic?

1. I started with my edublog post organizer to determine what questions and topics I would have to further investigate so I’m not doing a random unguided search for information.
2. I then began to collect all the articles, videos and website that I would read over later so I would have a lot of sources to collect my information from and I would have my own little data library.
   • From all my sources I watched the videos first to develop a basic understanding of fusion power before I started reading the articles.
   • Then I read the articles now that I had a better understanding for fusion power, and I understood the terminology.
   • Last, what ever the articles did not answer I looked up on google and the websites that I compiled.
3. I moved on to taking notes from the sources that I found useful and discarded all the sources that where not useful or had repetitive information.
4. I picked three articles to include in my edublog post from the ones I found the most useful.

How did you verify and cite the information you found?

I verified my information by using only sources that I trust. I also used multiple sources and if the information was repeated multiple time then I knew that it is less likely to be incorrect.

How did the process of completing this challenge go? What could you have done better?

Understanding fusion power by using videos was a good technique to get the basics down but I started having troubles when I moved to gale engage library and the internet. I found that in the gale engage library since it had a lot of articles that finding a currant article that wasn’t repetitive or too hard for me to understand was difficult. In the internet I had troubles finding websites that went into more depth than just explaining what fusion power was. I also found using Creative Commons difficult because it didn’t have many pictures that related to my subject. Next time I do a research project like this one I would narrow down my search a little more so I would have less websites with the same information.