@Ponderable New work is proceeding both on engineering and fundamental findings. The latest is the result of tests showing plasma turbulence goes about ten times faster than heat traveling through the same plasma, which means new means of detecting turbulence
leading to loss of heat can now be predicted in enough time to modulate the magnetic fields used to confine the plasma.
So once this fusion becomes perfected and cheap, could it be easily weaponized?
Will any angry, frustrated teenager be able to vaporize a city with it?
I doubt it. The technology as it's developing would be nowhere near to being portable.
Actually we already have "fusion bombs," otherwise known as hydrogen bombs or thermonuclear weapons. They work, I think, by using a nuclear fission chain reaction to subject deuterium or tritium (heavy forms of hydrogen) to a temperature and pressure sufficient for nuclear fusion to occur. The whole process probably happens in a fraction of a second, which is all that's needed for a big ka-boom, and we've had the know-how to do this for over half a century.
Fusion power reactors, in contrast, must maintain temperatures and pressures sufficient for fusion to occur in a continuous fashion, day in and day out. That's a real challenge.
@bunnyknight What do you mean? The fusion thing is ALREADY weaponized, that is how you get megaton bombs.
The only thing we will get from fusion is electricity, not much of a way to weaponize a box that weights 300 tons or more🙂 Aircraft carriers have nuclear fission already, enough juice to run for months without stopping, don't think going to fusion would give them much more energy but if they can the end result will be much less dangerous ways to use in terms of nuclear waste.
@sonhousesaid @bunnyknight What do you mean? The fusion thing is ALREADY weaponized, that is how you get megaton bombs.
The only thing we will get from fusion is electricity, not much of a way to weaponize a box that weights 300 tons or more🙂 Aircraft carriers have nuclear fission already, enough juice to run for months without stopping, don't think going to fusion would give them much ...[text shortened]... gy but if they can the end result will be much less dangerous ways to use in terms of nuclear waste.
It's good to avoid making nuclear waste, but how would you get electricity from nuclear fusion? Nuclear reactors (fission) heat water that turns to steam that drive turbans that produce electricity. Does it work the same way with fusion? Would the energy created by fusion be used to heat water for driving turbans? If so how would you get the energy produced by fusion to the water?
Sounds like a daunting (perhaps dangerous?) task to control a fusion reactor.
Sure, no annoying radioactive waste material to deal with, but I wouldn't want to go anywhere near an operating fusion reactor... at least not until (and without a doubt) it is proven to be safe.