Chapter 259: Nuclear Fusion Device
The three forms of nuclear reactions known to mankind were nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and nuclear decay.
Among these, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion provided energy for humans. According to Einstein’s ma.s.s-energy equation, E=mc^2, as long as there was ma.s.s attenuation after the nuclear reaction, it meant that a certain amount of energy had been released.
Nuclear fission was the production of energy through ma.s.s loss caused by the fission of heavy atoms.
On the contrary, with nuclear fusion, the aggregation of light atomic nuclei produced heavier atomic nuclei and ma.s.s attenuation would occur, thereby generating energy.
Nuclear fusion was better than nuclear fission not only because nuclear fusion released a larger amount of energy, but also, more importantly, the raw materials for nuclear fusion could be extracted from seawater. Deuterium was abundant in the Earth’s seawater, amounting to 40 zillion tons. If all of it was used in fusion reactions, the energy released would last humans tens of billions of years.
The common raw material for nuclear fission — uranium-235 — had scarce reserves and the resulting nuclear waste would affect geology for hundreds of years. Therefore, nuclear fission could not compare to nuclear fusion, both in terms of reserves and cleanliness.
Therefore, nuclear fusion energy was an infinite, clean, and safe new energy that countless people yearned for.
Of course, nuclear fusion did not refer only to deuterium-tritium fusion. As long as an element was lighter than iron in the periodic table, it could be used for nuclear fusion. The reason humans chose only tritium and deuterium as fusion materials was that their conditions for nuclear fusion were the simplest.
Compared with other elements, the hydrogen isotope deuterium and the tritium nucleus both only had one proton. The fusion reaction between tritium and deuterium just needed to overcome the repulsive force between the two protons, while other elements would have to overcome the repulsive force between a bunch of protons. The difficulty was not the same.
Now that Chen Chen had determined his next step to conquer nuclear fusion, he returned to his office and dug out the nuclear fusion reactor technology from the world of Elysium.
Still, after a few glances, Chen Chen frowned. He had always specialized in medicine and biology. Although he had some understanding of nuclear physics, it was superficial, a little better than lay people at most.
Thus, Chen Chen looked up and said, “X, put together immediately a doc.u.ment that will allow me to quickly understand nuclear physics.”
As he spoke, he took out the chewing gum tin box, opened it gently, and an NZT-48 pill instantly flew into his mouth.
After that, Chen Chen’s expression turned sharp and clear.
At the same time, Little X had swiftly compiled information on nuclear physics from the basics to advanced stuff. Chen Chen flipped through the technology doc.u.ment Little X had provided while corroborating it against the data regarding Elysium’s nuclear reactor.
This time, Chen Chen could understand almost everything.
“I didn’t think that there would be more than one type of nuclear fusion reactor technology used in Elysium’s dimension.”
Chen Chen smiled and turned to the second drawing. “It’s an inertial confinement nuclear fusion reactor and a magnetic confinement nuclear fusion reactor? How incredible...”
“The ones mainly used across the continents of the Earth Federation are mostly these two types too.”
Little X explained, “But if these technologies are subdivided, they can be divided into multiple branches. There are even jokes of that sort circulating on the Internet...”
“What jokes?” Chen Chen could not refrain from asking.
“They would divide all kinds of fusion technology into the nine camps of DnD’s alignment chart in a straightforward and intuitive manner. Each camp is even represented by an anthropomorphic statement.”
Little X explained, “For example, a stellarator that represents ‘lawful good’ would state: My heart and my actions are as calm as stars and everything I do is steady.
“As for the neutral good magnetic confinement fusion, it’s anthropomorphic statement is: there’s no magnetism to exude, no helium-3 to combust, because I don’t want to be a reactor anymore!
“And the chaotic good tokamak: Plasma current, I’ll tell you again — don’t you cause any more trouble!”
“In addition, there’s the spherical tokamak representing lawful neutral, the field-reversed configuration tokamak representing true neutral, the magnetized target fusion representing chaotic neutral, and so on...”
As Little X went on, its voice became increasingly excited. “The funniest one is the laser fusion technology that represents chaotic evil — its anthropomorphic statement is: I’m about to f*cking shoot my load!”
“...”
Chen Chen looked up, startled. “X, did I hear correctly — you’re cracking a dirty joke?”
“I, I didn’t...”
Little X started to stammer. “How is that a dirty joke? Humans are dirty jokes. I’m an intelligent lifeform... Are dirty jokes even possible with intelligent lifeforms? I’m just referring to a meme, the meme of nuclear physics!”
Chen Chen shook his head and did not press the matter. He just took note that Little X was becoming increasingly human. Meanwhile, he said, “Now I understand why the development of nuclear fusion is more difficult than nuclear fission. It’s because the physical principles of the two reactions are different.
“The ma.s.s of nuclear fission nuclei is relatively large and it’s unstable, so fission reactions can be induced under normal temperature and pressure. However, nuclear fusion is different, for it must overcome the strong electrostatic repulsion between the nuclei. Without enough energy or special environmental conditions to break past the critical point of this repulsive force, one wouldn’t be able to fuse atomic nuclei together.
“So, the key is to create a high-pressure, high-temperature environment?”
“Yup.”
Little X replied, “The most common nuclear fusion reaction in the universe is the Sun. Because of its own ma.s.s, the Sun forms an ultra-high pressure of 200 billion atmospheres at its core, plus a temperature of 15 million degrees. Thus it can fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms.
“However, if humans want to achieve the same nuclear fusion on earth, the ultra-high pressure conditions would be completely impossible to achieve. Therefore, humans’ current nuclear fusion devices need to perform at high temperatures, requiring a temperature of more than 100 million degrees compared to the Sun’s core temperature of 15 million degrees.
“The simplest, most direct method is to use a large number of energized coils to form a ring along the coils, generating a strong magnetic field that produces a magnetically confined nuclear fusion reactor. This device that can generate a sufficiently strong ring-shaped magnetic field is called a ‘tokamak device’.
“The other option, which is the inertial confinement nuclear fusion reactor, uses a gaseous mixture of deuterium and tritium, measured to the milligram, to fill a small ball a few millimeters in diameter. A laser beam heats it up uniformly from the outside. The spherical surface absorbs the energy and expands outward, producing a reaction force where the gas inside is compressed and highly pressurized, accompanied by a sharp rise in temperature. When the temperature reaches the required ignition point, the gas in the ball will explode and produce a lot of heat!”