Hydrogen Engines
Discussion
Surely antimatter engines will have the same efficiency problems as any other combustion engine. Annihilating electrons with positrons, for example, doesn't give you a nice clean stream of electricity but merely a big explosion.
Presumably the heat from this would have to be harnessed, but as soon as you're talking small car-sized heat engines, you're talking inefficiency.
And of course the matter/antimatter explosion may not just produce heat - you may get all sorts of exotic particles / radiation that would be very dangerous.
Would engine manufacturers design an antimatter drive that needs to be refueled every 300 miles?? I doubt it - you could make a sealed antimatter engine that lasts for 200,000 miles with a thimbleful of antimatter. Much more dangerous if it all got out, though.
Presumably the heat from this would have to be harnessed, but as soon as you're talking small car-sized heat engines, you're talking inefficiency.
And of course the matter/antimatter explosion may not just produce heat - you may get all sorts of exotic particles / radiation that would be very dangerous.
Would engine manufacturers design an antimatter drive that needs to be refueled every 300 miles?? I doubt it - you could make a sealed antimatter engine that lasts for 200,000 miles with a thimbleful of antimatter. Much more dangerous if it all got out, though.
danhay said:
Still much safer and cleaner than fission or fusion reactors though and a VASTLY higher energy yield.
I can't see why a nuclear FUSION reactor would be any more unsafe than an antimatter reactor?
Care to explain?
It is a question of damage to the surrounding area. Presumably, with an anti-matter reactor, you'd keep a relatively small amount of fuel on hand at any given time. That way, in case of a loss of containment, the damage would be limited to the facility and the immediate area.
Sustained fusion reactions require extremely high temperatures (depending on who you ask, anywhere from 35-200 million deg F). In the case of a loss of containment, this would cause catastrophic damage and loss of life in a radius of hundreds of miles.
Take a country like England. Where would you build a fusion reactor, even if it were technically feasible to do so? Knowing that a worst-case-scenario accident would completely obliterate the entire UK and a good chunk of Europe (bits of North Africa, Iceland, Scandinavia, etc...)
The primary destruction would actually be greater than that resulting from a fission reactor although the damage from the latter would probably be more persistent.
Actually, England is a particularly awful example of what could go wrong. Think about the repercussion of every drop of water for (very conservatively) 500 miles in every direction from the center of the plant being instantly and explosively turned to vapor.
I reckon it'd have some long-lasting negative effects on the earth's ecosystem with some nasty, short-term effects like massive tidal waves, horrible damage to countless marine species, etc...
Regular fission reactors are models of calm, tranquility and safety by comparison.
Take a country like England. Where would you build a fusion reactor, even if it were technically feasible to do so? Knowing that a worst-case-scenario accident would completely obliterate the entire UK and a good chunk of Europe (bits of North Africa, Iceland, Scandinavia, etc...)
Actually, England is a particularly awful example of what could go wrong. Think about the repercussion of every drop of water for (very conservatively) 500 miles in every direction from the center of the plant being instantly and explosively turned to vapor.
Don't wish to worry you but there are ALREADY fusion reactors in the UK at Culham.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1573450.stm
danhay said:
Take a country like England. Where would you build a fusion reactor, even if it were technically feasible to do so? Knowing that a worst-case-scenario accident would completely obliterate the entire UK and a good chunk of Europe (bits of North Africa, Iceland, Scandinavia, etc...)
Actually, England is a particularly awful example of what could go wrong. Think about the repercussion of every drop of water for (very conservatively) 500 miles in every direction from the center of the plant being instantly and explosively turned to vapor.
Don't wish to worry you but there are ALREADY fusion reactors in the UK at Culham.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1573450.stm
They're not really functioning though. They're early prototypes for research purposes. An actual continually-operating fusion reactor is many years in the future.
Personally, I doubt that it will ever get off the group.
The anti-nuclear people don't think much about fusion right now because it is so far in the future and they've got enough to complain about with fission reactors.
Wait until the final breakthroughs are made that would allow a commercial fusion plant to go online and see the howls of outrage then.
I for one think that Fusion reactors are a better bet than some sort of Antimatter power source.
Where would you get the anti-matter from? It takes more energy to create anti matter than is released when it is reacted. So it's not truly a source of power, only a way of storing power...unless you could find a naturally occuring source of the stuff?
Fusion on the other hand, creates energy from the stuff that surrounds us. Plus it's not as dangerous as you make out. The amount of matter in the reactor that is hotter than the centre of the sun would be very small, and would not be enough to vapourise all the water in a 500 mile radius!
While in Fission reactor you can get a runaway reaction, the same is not true of a Fusion reactor. This is because once the containment fields/vessel are breached, the conditions would no longer exist to allow the reaction to continue. Though obviously there could still be a pretty serious explosion!
Where would you get the anti-matter from? It takes more energy to create anti matter than is released when it is reacted. So it's not truly a source of power, only a way of storing power...unless you could find a naturally occuring source of the stuff?
Fusion on the other hand, creates energy from the stuff that surrounds us. Plus it's not as dangerous as you make out. The amount of matter in the reactor that is hotter than the centre of the sun would be very small, and would not be enough to vapourise all the water in a 500 mile radius!
While in Fission reactor you can get a runaway reaction, the same is not true of a Fusion reactor. This is because once the containment fields/vessel are breached, the conditions would no longer exist to allow the reaction to continue. Though obviously there could still be a pretty serious explosion!
danhay said: I for one think that Fusion reactors are a better bet than some sort of Antimatter power source.
Where would you get the anti-matter from? It takes more energy to create anti matter than is released when it is reacted. So it's not truly a source of power, only a way of storing power...unless you could find a naturally occuring source of the stuff?
Fusion on the other hand, creates energy from the stuff that surrounds us. Plus it's not as dangerous as you make out. The amount of matter in the reactor that is hotter than the centre of the sun would be very small, and would not be enough to vapourise all the water in a 500 mile radius!
While in Fission reactor you can get a runaway reaction, the same is not true of a Fusion reactor. This is because once the containment fields/vessel are breached, the conditions would no longer exist to allow the reaction to continue. Though obviously there could still be a pretty serious explosion!
Antimatter is, as you say, just a way to store energy - about the most effecient way there is.
By the time anti-matter production becomes commercially viable, it will also be viable to build power-generation facilities in space.
It would be a simple matter to build huge solar collectors in space (no worried about environmental issues, weather, etc.) to generate the antimatter - probably anti-hydrogen.
Then, this material could be shipped back to earth and put into anti-matter reactors and converted back into energy.
Granted, it isn't something likely to happen tommorow - but then again, neither is fusion.
Also, it doesn't really matter that there isn't a lot of plasma in the reactor - you don't need a lot of material at 100,000,000 degrees+ for it to do massive damage if it ever breaks containment.
There are also some nagging radiation-related issues. The neutrons released by the fusion reaction are going to act on the materials in the reactor vessel and not only make that material radioactive (oops, there's that pesky radioactive waste problem again) but also cause it to degrade so as to significantly limit the lifespan of the reactor.
Plus, most fusion advocates don't like to talk about the massive amounts of energy required to start the reaction in the first place. How do you heat the plasma to the required temperature?
Sure, once the plant is running, it would produce lots of power but someone has to prime the pump. The hundreds of megawatts needed to jumpstart the thing have to come from somewhere. Where? Fossil fuels? Fission plants?
haha
Like most pistonhead threads this ones managed to mutate into a totally different debate. This time about anti matter Vs fusion
However neither is likely in the near term so its back to hydrogen (maybe?) and possibly renewable carbon based fuels (ethanol, bio methane) for the time being.
Although I have no stance on the whole fusion/anti matter debate all I can say that fission is almost guarantee to become reality before anti matter collection from space.
At the moment NASA has enough problems simply getting shuttles back from space let alone anti matter.
Besides didn't someone somewhere develop cold fusion or am I just imagining things now.
Andy
Like most pistonhead threads this ones managed to mutate into a totally different debate. This time about anti matter Vs fusion
However neither is likely in the near term so its back to hydrogen (maybe?) and possibly renewable carbon based fuels (ethanol, bio methane) for the time being.
Although I have no stance on the whole fusion/anti matter debate all I can say that fission is almost guarantee to become reality before anti matter collection from space.
At the moment NASA has enough problems simply getting shuttles back from space let alone anti matter.
Besides didn't someone somewhere develop cold fusion or am I just imagining things now.
Andy
The Pons-Fleichmann (sp?) cold fusion method was widely condemned as a hoax after large numbers of scientists failed to replicate their results.
But, conspiracy hat on, there are still large numbers of corporations / govt agencies STILL doing research into the basic concepts.
Actually there are a shed-load of 'alternative' energy generation technologies that 'orthodox' scientists will have nothing to do with, most of them being hoaxes, misunderstandings or investment scams. But the 'vacuum energy' concept in quantum theory suggests that there may be a way of pulling free energy out of space...
But, conspiracy hat on, there are still large numbers of corporations / govt agencies STILL doing research into the basic concepts.
Actually there are a shed-load of 'alternative' energy generation technologies that 'orthodox' scientists will have nothing to do with, most of them being hoaxes, misunderstandings or investment scams. But the 'vacuum energy' concept in quantum theory suggests that there may be a way of pulling free energy out of space...
Like the best of debates, this one has gone off topic drastically!
Cold fusion I believe was a genuine misinterpretation of results, but the end result is the same - no new way forward.
Wherever we get our energy from, be it solar power, anti matter, fusion...whatever - it needs to be sustainable. Perhaps the Brazilians had it right?
My view is that vehicles powered by hydrogen (produced from fusion) or ethanol from plants or bacteria are the way forward...but that may just be because I love the sound of the internal combustion engine!
Jon, I disagree with you entirely, but would defend to the death your right to air your views.
Cold fusion I believe was a genuine misinterpretation of results, but the end result is the same - no new way forward.
Wherever we get our energy from, be it solar power, anti matter, fusion...whatever - it needs to be sustainable. Perhaps the Brazilians had it right?
My view is that vehicles powered by hydrogen (produced from fusion) or ethanol from plants or bacteria are the way forward...but that may just be because I love the sound of the internal combustion engine!
Jon, I disagree with you entirely, but would defend to the death your right to air your views.
lx993 said: The Pons-Fleichmann (sp?) cold fusion method was widely condemned as a hoax after large numbers of scientists failed to replicate their results.
But, conspiracy hat on, there are still large numbers of corporations / govt agencies STILL doing research into the basic concepts.
Actually there are a shed-load of 'alternative' energy generation technologies that 'orthodox' scientists will have nothing to do with, most of them being hoaxes, misunderstandings or investment scams. But the 'vacuum energy' concept in quantum theory suggests that there may be a way of pulling free energy out of space...
You're talking about exploiting the Casimir Effect? I've got a couple of books about this at home. It sounds interesting but it'll be a long time (if ever) before a practical way is found to generate energy from it practically.
danhay said: Like the best of debates, this one has gone off topic drastically!
Cold fusion I believe was a genuine misinterpretation of results, but the end result is the same - no new way forward.
Wherever we get our energy from, be it solar power, anti matter, fusion...whatever - it needs to be sustainable. Perhaps the Brazilians had it right?
My view is that vehicles powered by hydrogen (produced from fusion) or ethanol from plants or bacteria are the way forward...but that may just be because I love the sound of the internal combustion engine!
Jon, I disagree with you entirely, but would defend to the death your right to air your views.
Disagree? About what?
deltaf said: John L you need to get out more ...lol
You're not wrong!
lx993 said: Would engine manufacturers design an antimatter drive that needs to be refueled every 300 miles?? I doubt it - you could make a sealed antimatter engine that lasts for 200,000 miles with a thimbleful of antimatter. Much more dangerous if it all got out, though.
Yeah, 'zackly. However, even the amount needed to drive for 200,000 miles (0.006 grams), should it explode, would only create a similar amount of devastation to the amount of petrol needed for 200,000 miles going bang. Not a pretty sight, but not going to destroy the continent either.
>> Edited by JohnL on Wednesday 5th February 11:41
JonGwynne said:
You're talking about exploiting the Casimir Effect? I've got a couple of books about this at home. It sounds interesting but it'll be a long time (if ever) before a practical way is found to generate energy from it practically.
Yep you got it - problem as ever is getting some resonant oscillation going so energy can be extracted from it. You can bet though that the Casimir effect isn't the only phenomenon that could be exploited. It does strike me though that the only people doing this sort of research are the freelance 'mad scientist' types, due to the entire 'free energy' field not being taken seriously.
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