Ways to solve the problem of thermonuclear fusion. Problems of thermonuclear fusion control (CTF) One of the problems of thermonuclear fusion

1. Introduction

2. Thermonuclear reactions in the Sun

3. Problems of thermonuclear fusion control

3.1 Economic problems

3.2 Medical problems

4. Conclusion

5. References

1. Introduction

The problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion is one of the most important tasks facing mankind.

Human civilization cannot exist, much less develop without energy. Everyone is well aware that the developed energy sources, unfortunately, may soon be depleted. According to the World Energy Council, the proven reserves of hydrocarbon fuel on Earth remain for 30 years.

Today, the main sources of energy are oil, gas and coal.

According to experts, the reserves of these minerals are running out. There are almost no explored, exploitable oil fields left, and already our grandchildren may face a very serious problem of lack of energy.

The most fuel-provided nuclear power plants could, of course, supply mankind with electricity for more than one hundred years.

Object of study: Problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion.

Subject of study: Thermonuclear fusion.

Purpose of the study: Solve the problem of thermonuclear fusion control;

Research objectives:

· Study the types of thermonuclear reactions.

· Consider all possible options for delivering the energy released during a thermonuclear reaction to a person.

· Put forward the theory of converting energy into electricity.

Initial fact:

Nuclear energy is released during the decay or fusion of atomic nuclei. Any energy - physical, chemical, or nuclear is manifested by its ability to perform work, emit heat or radiation. Energy in any system is always conserved, but it can be transferred to another system or changed in form.

Achievementthe conditions of controlled thermonuclear fusion are hampered by several basic problems:

· First, you need to heat the gas to a very high temperature.

· Secondly, it is necessary to control the number of reacting nuclei for a sufficiently long time.

· Third, the amount of energy released must be greater than that used to heat and limit the density of the gas.

The next problem is the accumulation of this energy and converting it into electricity

2. Thermonuclear reactions on the Sun

What is the source of solar energy? What is the nature of the processes that generate enormous amounts of energy? How long will the sun still shine?

The first attempts to answer these questions were made by astronomers in the middle of the nineteenth century, after physicists formulated the law of conservation of energy.

Robert Mayer suggested that the sun shines due to the constant bombardment of the surface with meteorites and meteoric particles. This hypothesis was rejected, since a simple calculation shows that in order to maintain the luminosity of the Sun at the present level, it is necessary that 2 ∙ 1015 kg of meteoric matter fall on it every second. For a year this will amount to 6 ∙ 1022 kg, and during the lifetime of the Sun, for 5 billion years - 3 ∙ 1032 kg The mass of the Sun is M /\u003e \u003d 2 ∙ 1030 kg, therefore, in five billion years, matter 150 times more than the mass of the Sun should have fallen on the Sun ...

The second hypothesis was also expressed by Helmholtz and Kelvin in the middle of the 19th century. They suggested that the Sun emits due to compression by 60-70 meters annually. The reason for the compression is the mutual attraction of the Sun's particles, which is why this hypothesis was called /\u003e contraction... If we make a calculation according to this hypothesis, then the age of the Sun will be no more than 20 million years, which contradicts modern data obtained from the analysis of the radioactive decay of elements in geological samples of the earth's soil and the soil of the Moon.

The third hypothesis about possible sources of solar energy was expressed by James Jeans at the beginning of the 20th century. He suggested that the interior of the sun contains heavy radioactive elements that spontaneously decay, while energy is emitted. For example, the conversion of uranium into thorium and then into lead, accompanied by the release of energy. Subsequent analysis of this hypothesis also showed its inconsistency; a star consisting of only uranium would not release enough energy to provide the observed luminosity of the Sun. In addition, there are stars whose luminosities are many times greater than the luminosity of our star. It is unlikely that those stars will also contain more radioactive material.

The most probable hypothesis turned out to be the hypothesis of the synthesis of elements as a result of nuclear reactions in the interiors of stars.

In 1935, HansBete hypothesized that the source of solar energy could be a thermonuclear reaction of the conversion of hydrogen into helium. It is for this that Bethe received the Nobel Prize in 1967.

The chemical composition of the Sun is about the same as that of most other stars. About 75% is hydrogen, 25% is helium and less than 1% is all other chemical elements (mainly carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.). Immediately after the birth of the Universe, there were no "heavy" elements at all. All of them, i.e. elements heavier than helium, and even many alpha particles, were formed during the "combustion" of hydrogen in stars during thermonuclear fusion. The characteristic lifetime of a star like the Sun is ten billion years.

The main source of energy - the proton-proton cycle - is a very slow reaction (characteristic time is 7.9 ∙ 109 years), since it is caused by weak interaction. Its essence lies in the fact that from four protons, nucleogelia is obtained. In this case, a pair of positrons and a pair of neutrinos are released, as well as 26.7 MeV energy. The number of neutrinos emitted by the Sun per second is determined only by the luminosity of the Sun. Since the release of 26.7 MeV produces 2 neutrinos, the rate of neutrino emission is 1.8 ∙ 1038 neutrinos / s. A direct test of this theory is the observation of solar neutrinos. High-energy neutrinos (boron) are recorded in chlorine-argon experiments (Davis experiments) and consistently show the lack of neutrinos in comparison with the theoretical value for the standard model of the Sun. Low-energy neutrinos that arise directly in the pp reaction are recorded in gallium-germanium experiments (GALLEX at Gran Sasso (Italy - Germany) and SAGE at Baksan (Russia - USA)); they are also “not enough”.

According to some assumptions, if neutrinos have a nonzero rest mass, oscillations (transformations) of various types of neutrinos (the Mikheev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein effect) are possible (there are three types of neutrinos: electron, muonic, and tauon neutrinos). Because other neutrinos have much smaller cross sections for the interaction of matter than electron, the observed deficit can be explained without changing the standard model of the Sun, built on the basis of the entire set of astronomical data.

The sun processes about 600 million tons of hydrogen every second. The reserve nuclear fuel will last for another five billion years, after which it will gradually turn into a white dwarf.

The central parts of the Sun will shrink, warming up, and the heat transferred with this outer shell will lead to its expansion to a size monstrous in comparison with modern ones: the Sun will expand so much that it will swallow Mercury, Venus and will spend "fuel" a hundred times faster than at present ... This will lead to an increase in the size of the Sun; our star will become a red giant, the size of which is comparable to the distance from the Earth to the Sun!

We, of course, will be notified in advance of such an event, since the transition to a new stage will take approximately 100-200 million years. When the temperature of the central part of the Sun reaches 100,000,000 K, helium will begin to burn, turning into heavy elements, and the Sun will enter the stage of complex cycles of contraction and expansion. At the last stage, our star will lose its outer shell, the central core will have an incredibly high density and dimensions, like Earth. A few more billion years will pass, and the Sun will cool down, turning into a white dwarf.

3.Problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion

Researchers from all developed countries pin their hopes for overcoming the coming energy crisis with a controlled thermonuclear reaction. Such a reaction - the synthesis of helium from deuterium and tritium - has been going on on the Sun for millions of years, and under terrestrial conditions they have been trying to implement it for fifty years in giant and very expensive laser installations, tokamaks (a device for carrying out a thermonuclear fusion reaction in a hot plasma) and stellarators (a closed magnetic trap for high-temperature plasma). However, there are other ways to solve this difficult problem, and instead of huge tokamaks for the implementation of thermonuclear fusion, it will probably be possible to use a rather compact and inexpensive collider - an accelerator on colliding beams.

The Tokamak requires very small amounts of lithium and deuterium to operate. For example, a 1 GW reactor burns about 100 kg of deuterium and 300 kg of lithium per year. If we assume that all thermonuclear power plants will produce 10 trillion kW / h of electricity per year, that is, as much as all the power plants on Earth produce today, then the world's reserves of deuterium and lithium will be enough to supply mankind with energy for many millions of years.

In addition to the fusion of deuterium or lithium, a purely solar thermonuclear is possible when two deuterium atoms combine. In the case of mastering this reaction, energy problems will be solved immediately and forever.

In any of the known variants of controlled thermonuclear fusion (CTF), thermonuclear reactions cannot enter the regime of uncontrolled increase in power, therefore, such reactors are not inherent in intrinsic safety.

From a physical point of view, the task is not difficult to formulate. For the implementation of a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction, it is necessary and sufficient to observe two conditions.

1. The energy of the nuclei participating in the reaction must be at least 10 keV. For nuclear fusion to start, the nuclei participating in the reaction must fall into the field of nuclear forces, the range of which is 10-12-10-13 cm. However, atomic nuclei have a positive electric charge, and like charges repel. At the boundary of the action of nuclear forces, the energy of the Coulomb repulsion is of the order of 10 keV. To overcome this barrier, nuclei in collision must have a kinetic energy, at least not less than this value.

2. The product of the concentration of reacting nuclei by the confinement time, during which they retain the specified energy, must be at least 1014 s.cm-3. This condition - the so-called Lawson criterion - determines the limit of the energy profitability of the reaction. In order for the energy released in the fusion reaction to at least cover the energy consumption for the initiation of the reaction, atomic nuclei must undergo multiple collisions. In each collision in which the reaction of fusion between deuterium (D) and tritium (T) occurs, 17.6 MeV of energy is released, that is, approximately 3.10-12 J. If, for example, an energy of 10 MJ is spent on ignition, then the reaction will be non-loss if at least 3.1018 DT pairs participate in it. And for this, a rather dense high-energy plasma must be kept in the reactor for a long enough time. This condition is expressed by the Lawson criterion.

If both requirements can be met simultaneously, the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion will be solved.

However, the technical implementation of this physical problem faces enormous difficulties. After all, an energy of 10 keV is a temperature of 100 million degrees. The substance at such a temperature can be kept for even fractions of a second only in a vacuum, by isolating it from the walls of the installation.

But there is another method for solving this problem - cold fusion. What is cold thermonuclear? It is an analogue of a "hot" thermonuclear reaction taking place at room temperature.

In nature, there are at least two ways of changing matter within one dimension of the continuum. You can boil water over a fire, i.e. thermally, but it is possible in a microwave oven, i.e. The result is one - the water boils, the only difference is that the frequency method is faster. Reaching ultra-high temperatures is also used to split the nucleus of an atom. The thermal method gives an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The energy of cold fusion is the energy of a transition state. One of the main conditions for the design of a reactor for the reaction of a cold fusion is the condition for its pyramidal - crystalline form. Another important condition is the presence of rotating magnetic and torsion fields. The intersection of the fields occurs at the point of unstable equilibrium of the hydrogen nucleus.

Scientists Ruzi Taleyarkhan of Ok Ridge National Laboratory, Richard Lehi of the Polytechnic University. Rensilira and Academician Robert Nigmatulin - recorded a cold thermonuclear reaction under laboratory conditions.

The group used a liquid acetone measuring glass, about the size of two to three glasses. Sound waves were intensely passed through the liquid, producing an effect known in physics as acoustic cavitation, which results in sonoluminescence. During cavitation, small bubbles appeared in the liquid, which increased to two millimeters in diameter and exploded. The explosions were accompanied by flashes of light and the release of energy, i.e. the temperature inside the bubbles at the moment of explosion reached 10 million degrees Kelvin, and the released energy, according to the experimenters, is sufficient to carry out thermonuclear fusion.

The "technical" essence of the reaction is that as a result of the combination of two deuterium atoms, a third is formed - an isotope of hydrogen, known as tritium, and a neutron, characterized by a colossal amount of energy.

3.1 Economic problems

When creating the TCB, it is assumed that it will be a large installation equipped with powerful computers. It will be a whole small city. But in the event of an accident or equipment breakdown, the work of the station will be disrupted.

This is not foreseen, for example, in modern NPP projects. It is believed that the main thing is to build them, but what later is not important.

But in case of failure of 1 station, many cities will be left without electricity. This can be seen in the example of a nuclear power plant in Armenia. Removing radioactive waste has become very expensive. The demand for green nuclear power plant has been closed. The population was left without electricity, the equipment of the power plant was worn out, and the money allocated by international organizations for the restoration was wasted.

A serious economic problem is the decontamination of abandoned production facilities where uranium was processed. For example, "in the city of Aktau, we have our own small" Chernobyl. "It is located on the territory of the chemical and hydrometallurgical plant (KHGMZ). The radiation of the gamma background in the uranium processing shop (UMC) in some places reaches 11,000 micro-roentgens per hour, the average background level is 200 micro-roentgens (Normal natural background From 10 to 25 micro-roentgen per hour) .After the plant shutdown, no decontamination was carried out at all. A significant part of the equipment, about fifteen thousand tons, already has irreparable radioactivity. At the same time, such dangerous items are stored under the open sky, poorly guarded and are constantly taken away from the territory of KHGMZ.

Therefore, since there are no eternal productions, due to the emergence of new technologies, TCB may be closed and then items, metals from the enterprise will enter the market and the local population will suffer.

The cooling system of the TCB will use water. But according to environmentalists, if we take statistics on nuclear power plants, the water from these reservoirs is not suitable for drinking.

According to experts, the reservoir is full of heavy metals (in particular, thorium-232), and in some places the level of gamma radiation reaches 50 - 60 microroentgens per hour.

That is, now, the construction of a nuclear power plant does not provide for funds that would return the property to its original state. And after the closure of the enterprise, no one knows how to bury the accumulated waste and clean up the former enterprise.

3.2 Medical problems

The harmful effects of UTS include the production of mutants of viruses and bacteria that produce harmful substances. This is especially true of viruses and bacteria found in the teleperson. The emergence of malignant tumors and cancer will most likely be a common disease of the residents of villages living near TCB. Residents always suffer more, since they have no means of protection. Dosimeters are expensive, and medicines are not available. Waste from the UTS will be dumped by the river, bleed into the air or pumped into underground layers, which is currently happening at the nuclear power plant.

In addition to damage that manifests itself soon after exposure to high doses, ionizing radiation has long-term consequences. Basically, carcinogenesis and genetic disorders that can occur at any dose and nature of radiation (single, chronic, local).

According to reports from the doctors who registered the diseases of the NPP workers, first there are cardiovascular diseases (heart attacks), then cancer. The heart muscle becomes thinner under the influence of radiation, becomes flabby, less strong. There are completely incomprehensible diseases. For example, liver failure. But why this is happening, none of the doctors still knows. If radioactive substances enter the respiratory tract during an accident, doctors cut out the damaged tissue of the lung and trachea and the disabled person walks with a portable device for breathing

4. Conclusion

Humanity needs energy, and the needs for it are increasing every year. At the same time, the reserves of traditional natural fuels (oil, coal, gas, etc.) are finite. There are also finite reserves of nuclear fuel - uranium and thorium, from which plutonium can be obtained in breeder reactors. There are practically inexhaustible reserves of thermonuclear fuel - hydrogen.

In 1991, for the first time, it was possible to obtain a significant amount of energy - approximately 1.7 million watts as a result of controlled nuclear fusion at the Joint European Laboratory (Torus). In December 1993, researchers at Princeton University used a tokamak-type fusion reactor to produce a controlled nuclear reaction, the energy released was 5.6 million watts. However, both the tokamak reactor and the Torus laboratory consumed more energy than was received.

If the production of nuclear fusion energy becomes practically available, it will give an unlimited source of fuel

5. References

1) Journal "New Look" (Physics; For the future elite).

2) Textbook of physics grade 11.

3) Academy of Energy (analytics; ideas; projects).

4) People and Atoms (William Lawrence).

5) Elements of the Universe (Seaborg and Valens).

6) Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary.

7) Encyclopedia Encarta 96.

8) Astronomy- www.college.ru./astronomy.

1. Introduction

3. Problems of thermonuclear fusion control

3.1 Economic problems

3.2 Medical problems

4. Conclusion

5. References

1. Introduction

The problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion is one of the most important tasks facing mankind.

Human civilization cannot exist, let alone develop, without energy. Everyone is well aware that the mastered energy sources, unfortunately, may soon be depleted. According to the World Energy Council, the proven reserves of hydrocarbon fuels on Earth remain for 30 years.

Today, the main sources of energy are oil, gas and coal.

According to experts, the reserves of these minerals are running out. There are almost no explored and exploitable oil fields left, and our grandchildren may already face a very serious problem of energy shortages.

The most fuel-endowed nuclear power plants could, of course, supply mankind with electricity for more than one hundred years.

Object of study: Problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion.

Subject of study: Thermonuclear fusion.

Purpose of the study: Solve the problem of thermonuclear fusion control;

Research objectives:

· Study the types of thermonuclear reactions.

· Consider all possible options for delivering the energy released during a thermonuclear reaction to a person.

· To put forward a theory about the conversion of energy into electricity.

Initial fact:

Nuclear energy is released during the decay or fusion of atomic nuclei. Any energy - physical, chemical, or nuclear - is manifested by its ability to perform work, emit heat or radiation. Energy in any system is always conserved, but it can be transferred to another system or changed in form.

Achievement The conditions for controlled thermonuclear fusion are hampered by several main problems:

· First, you need to heat the gas to a very high temperature.

· Secondly, it is necessary to control the number of reacting nuclei for a sufficiently long time.

· Third, the amount of energy released must be greater than that used to heat and limit the density of the gas.

The next problem is the accumulation of this energy and converting it into electricity

2. Thermonuclear reactions in the Sun

What is the source of solar energy? What is the nature of the processes that generate enormous amounts of energy? How long will the sun still shine?

The first attempts to answer these questions were made by astronomers in the middle of the 19th century, after physicists formulated the law of conservation of energy.

Robert Mayer suggested that the sun shines by constantly bombarding the surface with meteorites and meteoric particles. This hypothesis was rejected, since a simple calculation shows that in order to maintain the luminosity of the Sun at the present level, it is necessary that 2 ∙ 10 15 kg of meteoric matter fall on it every second. For a year it will be 6 ∙ 10 22 kg, and over the lifetime of the Sun, for 5 billion years - 3 ∙ 10 32 kg. The mass of the Sun is M \u003d 2 ∙ 10 30 kg, therefore, over five billion years, matter 150 times more than the mass of the Sun should have dropped on the Sun.

The second hypothesis was put forward by Helmholtz and Kelvin also in the middle of the 19th century. They hypothesized that the sun radiates by compressing 60–70 meters annually. The reason for the contraction is the mutual attraction of the Sun's particles, which is why this hypothesis is called contraction. If we make a calculation according to this hypothesis, then the age of the Sun will not be more than 20 million years, which contradicts modern data obtained from the analysis of the radioactive decay of elements in geological samples of the earth's soil and the soil of the Moon.

The third hypothesis about possible sources of solar energy was expressed by James Jeans at the beginning of the twentieth century. He suggested that the depths of the sun contain heavy radioactive elements that spontaneously decay, while energy is emitted. For example, the conversion of uranium to thorium and then to lead is accompanied by the release of energy. Subsequent analysis of this hypothesis also showed its inconsistency; a star made of uranium alone would not emit enough energy to provide the observed luminosity of the sun. In addition, there are stars whose luminosity is many times greater than the luminosity of our star. It is unlikely that those stars will also contain more radioactive material.

The most likely hypothesis turned out to be the hypothesis of the synthesis of elements as a result of nuclear reactions in the interiors of stars.

In 1935, Hans Bethe hypothesized that the source of solar energy could be a thermonuclear reaction that converts hydrogen into helium. It is for this that Bethe received the Nobel Prize in 1967.

The sun's chemical composition is about the same as that of most other stars. About 75% is hydrogen, 25% is helium and less than 1% is all other chemical elements (mainly carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.). Immediately after the birth of the Universe, there were no "heavy" elements at all. All of them, i.e. elements heavier than helium, and even many alpha particles, were formed during the "combustion" of hydrogen in stars during thermonuclear fusion. The characteristic lifetime of a star like the Sun is ten billion years.

The main source of energy - the proton-proton cycle - is a very slow reaction (characteristic time 7.9 ∙ 10 9 years), since it is caused by a weak interaction. Its essence lies in the fact that a helium nucleus is obtained from four protons. In this case, a pair of positrons and a pair of neutrinos are released, as well as 26.7 MeV energy. The number of neutrinos emitted by the Sun per second is determined only by the Sun's luminosity. Since the release of 26.7 MeV produces 2 neutrinos, the rate of neutrino emission is 1.8 ∙ 10 38 neutrinos / s. A direct test of this theory is the observation of solar neutrinos. High-energy neutrinos (boron) are recorded in chlorine-argon experiments (Davis experiments) and consistently show a lack of neutrinos in comparison with the theoretical value for the standard model of the Sun. Low-energy neutrinos that arise directly in the pp reaction are recorded in gallium-germanium experiments (GALLEX at Gran Sasso (Italy - Germany) and SAGE at Baksan (Russia - USA)); they are also "missing".

According to some assumptions, if neutrinos have a nonzero rest mass, oscillations (transformations) of various types of neutrinos are possible (the Mikheev - Smirnov - Wolfenstein effect) (there are three types of neutrinos: electron, muon, and tauon neutrinos). Because other neutrinos have much smaller cross sections for interaction with matter than electron neutrinos, the observed deficit can be explained without changing the standard model of the sun, built on the basis of the entire set of astronomical data.

The Sun processes about 600 million tons of hydrogen every second. The reserves of nuclear fuel will last for another five billion years, after which it will gradually turn into a white dwarf.

The central parts of the Sun will shrink, warming up, and the heat transferred with this outer shell will lead to its expansion to a size monstrous in comparison with modern ones: the Sun will expand so much that it will swallow Mercury, Venus and spend "fuel" a hundred times faster, than currently. This will increase the size of the sun; our star will become a red giant, the size of which is comparable to the distance from the Earth to the Sun!

We, of course, will be notified in advance of such an event, since the transition to a new stage will take approximately 100-200 million years. When the temperature of the central part of the Sun reaches 100,000,000 K, helium will begin to burn, turning into heavy elements, and the Sun will enter the stage of complex cycles of contraction and expansion. At the last stage, our star will lose its outer shell, the central core will have an incredibly high density and size, like that of the Earth. A few more billion years will pass, and the Sun will cool down, turning into a white dwarf.

3. Problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion

Researchers from all developed countries pin their hopes for overcoming the coming energy crisis with a controlled thermonuclear reaction. Such a reaction - the fusion of helium from deuterium and tritium - has been going on on the Sun for millions of years, and under terrestrial conditions they have been trying to implement it for fifty years in giant and very expensive laser installations, tokamaks (a device for carrying out a thermonuclear fusion reaction in hot plasma) and stellarators ( closed magnetic trap for confining high-temperature plasma). However, there are other ways to solve this difficult problem, and instead of huge tokamaks for the implementation of thermonuclear fusion, it will probably be possible to use a rather compact and inexpensive collider - an accelerator on colliding beams.

The Tokamak requires very small amounts of lithium and deuterium to operate. For example, a 1 GW reactor burns about 100 kg of deuterium and 300 kg of lithium per year. Assuming that all thermonuclear power plants will produce 10 trillion. kWh of electricity per year, that is, as much as all the power plants of the Earth produce today, the world's reserves of deuterium and lithium will be enough to supply mankind with energy for many millions of years.

In addition to the fusion of deuterium and lithium, a purely solar fusion is possible when two deuterium atoms combine. In the case of mastering this reaction, energy problems will be solved immediately and forever.

In any of the known variants of controlled thermonuclear fusion (CTF), thermonuclear reactions cannot enter the mode of uncontrolled increase in power, therefore, such reactors are not inherent in internal safety.

From a physical point of view, the problem is not difficult to formulate. For the implementation of a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction, it is necessary and sufficient to comply with two conditions.

1. The energy of the nuclei participating in the reaction must be at least 10 keV. For nuclear fusion to start, the nuclei participating in the reaction must fall into the field of nuclear forces, the range of which is 10-12-10-13 cm. However, atomic nuclei have a positive electric charge, and like charges repel. At the turn of the action of nuclear forces, the energy of the Coulomb repulsion is on the order of 10 keV. To overcome this barrier, nuclei in collision must have kinetic energy, at least not less than this value.

2. The product of the concentration of reacting nuclei by the retention time during which they retain the specified energy must be at least 1014 s.cm-3. This condition - the so-called Lawson criterion - determines the limit of the energy profitability of the reaction. In order for the energy released in the fusion reaction to at least cover the energy consumption for initiating the reaction, atomic nuclei must undergo many collisions. In each collision, in which the fusion reaction between deuterium (D) and tritium (T) occurs, 17.6 MeV of energy is released, that is, approximately 3.10-12 J. If, for example, an energy of 10 MJ is spent on ignition, then the reaction will be non-loss if at least 3.1018 DT pairs participate in it. And for this, a rather dense high-energy plasma must be kept in the reactor for a long time. This condition is expressed by the Lawson criterion.

If both requirements can be met simultaneously, the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion will be solved.

However, the technical implementation of this physical problem faces enormous difficulties. After all, an energy of 10 keV is a temperature of 100 million degrees. A substance at such a temperature can be kept for even fractions of a second only in a vacuum, by isolating it from the walls of the installation.

But there is another method for solving this problem - cold fusion. What is a cold thermonuclear? It is an analogue of a "hot" thermonuclear reaction that takes place at room temperature.

In nature, there are at least two ways of changing matter within one dimension of the continuum. You can boil water over a fire, i.e. thermally, but it is possible in a microwave oven, i.e. frequency. The result is the same - the water boils, the only difference is that the frequency method is faster. Reaching ultra-high temperatures is also used to split the atomic nucleus. The thermal method gives an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The energy of the cold fusion is the energy of the transition state. One of the main conditions for the design of a reactor for the reaction of a cold fusion is the condition for its pyramidal - crystalline form. Another important condition is the presence of rotating magnetic and torsion fields. The intersection of the fields occurs at the point of unstable equilibrium of the hydrogen nucleus.

Scientists Ruzi Taleyarkhan of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Richard Lehi of Polytechnic University. Rensilira and Academician Robert Nigmatulin - recorded a cold thermonuclear reaction under laboratory conditions.

The group used a beaker of liquid acetone about the size of two to three glasses. Sound waves were intensely passed through the liquid, producing an effect known in physics as acoustic cavitation, which results in sonoluminescence. During cavitation, small bubbles appeared in the liquid, which increased to two millimeters in diameter and exploded. The explosions were accompanied by flashes of light and the release of energy, i.e. the temperature inside the bubbles at the time of the explosion reached 10 million degrees Kelvin, and the released energy, according to the experimenters, is sufficient to carry out thermonuclear fusion.

"Technically" the essence of the reaction is that as a result of the combination of two atoms of deuterium, a third is formed - an isotope of hydrogen, known as tritium, and a neutron, characterized by a colossal amount of energy.

3.1 Economic problems

This is not foreseen, for example, in modern NPP projects. It is believed that the main thing is to build them, and what will be later is not important.

But in case of failure of 1 station, many cities will be left without electricity. This can be seen in the example of a nuclear power plant in Armenia. Removing radioactive waste has become very expensive. At the request of the greens, the nuclear power plant was closed. The population was left without electricity, the equipment of the power plant was worn out, and the money allocated by international organizations for the restoration was wasted.

Decontamination of abandoned production facilities where uranium was processed is a serious economic problem. For example, "in the city of Aktau, it has its own small" Chernobyl ". It is located on the territory of the chemical and hydrometallurgical plant (KHMZ). The radiation of gamma background in the uranium processing shop (HMC) in some places reaches 11000 micro-roentgen per hour, the average background level is 200 micro-roentgen ( The usual natural background is from 10 to 25 micro-roentgens per hour.) After the plant was shut down, no decontamination was carried out at all. A significant part of the equipment, about fifteen thousand tons, already has irreparable radioactivity. At the same time, such dangerous items are stored in the open air, poorly guarded and constantly taken apart from the territory of KhGMZ.

Therefore, since there are no eternal productions, due to the emergence of new technologies, the TCB can be closed and then items, metals from the enterprise will enter the market and the local population will suffer.

The cooling system of the TCB will use water. But according to environmentalists, if we take statistics on nuclear power plants, the water from these reservoirs is not suitable for drinking.

According to experts, the reservoir is full of heavy metals (in particular, thorium-232), and in some places the level of gamma radiation reaches 50 - 60 microroentgens per hour.

That is, now, during the construction of a nuclear power plant, funds are not provided that would return the area to its original state. And after the closure of the enterprise, no one knows how to bury the accumulated waste and clean up the former enterprise.

3.2 Medical problems

The harmful effects of TCF include the production of mutants of viruses and bacteria that produce harmful substances. This is especially true for viruses and bacteria in the human body. The emergence of malignant tumors and cancer will most likely be a common disease of the residents of the villages living near the TCB. Residents always suffer more because they have no means of protection. Dosimeters are expensive and medicines are not available. Waste from the CCF will be dumped into rivers, released into the air or pumped into underground layers, which is currently happening at the nuclear power plant.

According to the reports from the doctors who registered the diseases of the NPP workers, first there are cardiovascular diseases (heart attacks), then cancer. The heart muscle becomes thinner under the influence of radiation, becomes flabby, less strong. There are completely incomprehensible diseases. For example, liver failure. But why this is happening, none of the doctors still knows. If radioactive substances enter the respiratory tract in an accident, doctors cut out the damaged tissue of the lung and trachea and the disabled person walks with a portable device for breathing

4. Conclusion

In 1991, for the first time, it was possible to obtain a significant amount of energy - approximately 1.7 million watts from controlled nuclear fusion at the Joint European Laboratory (Torus). In December 1993, researchers at Princeton University used a tokamak-type fusion reactor to produce a controlled nuclear reaction, the energy released was 5.6 million watts. However, both the tokamak reactor and the Torus laboratory consumed more energy than was received.

If the production of nuclear fusion energy becomes practically available, then this will provide an unlimited source of fuel

5. References

1) Journal "New Look" (Physics; For the future elite).

2) Physics Textbook Grade 11.

3) Power Engineering Academy (analytics; ideas; projects).

4) People and Atoms (William Lawrence).

5) Elements of the Universe (Seaborg and Valens).

6) Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary.

7) Encyclopedia Encarta 96.

8) Astronomy- http://www.college.ru./astronomy.

July 9, 2016

In the near future, innovative projects using modern superconductors will make it possible to carry out controlled thermonuclear fusion, some optimists say. Experts, however, predict that practical implementation will take several decades.

Why is it so difficult?

Fusion energy is considered a potential source of energy for the future. This is the pure energy of the atom. But what is it and why is it so difficult to achieve? First, you need to understand the difference between classical nuclear fission and thermonuclear fusion.

Atomic fission means that radioactive isotopes - uranium or plutonium - are fissioned and converted into other highly radioactive isotopes, which must then be buried or reprocessed.

The thermonuclear fusion reaction consists in the fact that two isotopes of hydrogen - deuterium and tritium - merge into a single whole, forming non-toxic helium and a single neutron, without producing radioactive waste.

Control problem

The reactions that take place on the sun or in a hydrogen bomb are thermonuclear fusion, and engineers are faced with a daunting task - how to control this process at a power plant?

This is what scientists have been working on since the 1960s. Another experimental fusion reactor, called Wendelstein 7-X, began work in the northern German city of Greifswald. It is not yet designed to create a reaction - it is just a special design that is being tested (a stellarator instead of a tokamak).

High energy plasma

All thermonuclear installations have a common feature - a ring-like shape. It is based on the idea of \u200b\u200busing powerful electromagnets to create a strong electromagnetic field in the shape of a torus - an inflated bicycle tube.

This electromagnetic field must be so dense that when it is heated in a microwave oven to one million degrees Celsius, a plasma should appear in the very center of the ring. It is then ignited so that fusion can begin.

Demonstration of possibilities

Two similar experiments are currently underway in Europe. One of them is Wendelstein 7-X, which recently generated its first helium plasma. The other is ITER, a huge experimental fusion plant in the south of France that is still under construction and will be ready to go live in 2023.

It is assumed that real nuclear reactions will occur on ITER, however, only for a short period of time and certainly no longer than 60 minutes. This reactor is just one of many steps towards putting nuclear fusion into practice.

Fusion reactor: smaller and more powerful

Several designers have recently announced a new design for the reactor. According to a group of MIT students and representatives of the arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, thermonuclear fusion can be carried out in installations that are much more powerful and smaller than ITER, and they are ready to do it within ten years.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe new design is to use modern high-temperature superconductors in electromagnets, which manifest their properties when cooled with liquid nitrogen, rather than conventional ones, which require liquid helium. The new, more flexible technology will allow a complete redesign of the reactor.

Klaus Hesch, in charge of fusion technology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in southwestern Germany, is skeptical. It supports the use of new high temperature superconductors for new reactor designs. But, according to him, it is not enough to develop something on a computer, taking into account the laws of physics. It is necessary to take into account the challenges that arise when translating an idea into practice.

Science fiction

According to Hesh, the MIT student model only shows the feasibility of a project. But it's actually a lot of science fiction. The project assumes that the serious technical problems of thermonuclear fusion have been solved. But modern science has no idea how to solve them.

One such problem is the idea of \u200b\u200bcollapsible coils. In the MIT design model, the electromagnets can be disassembled to get inside the plasma-containing ring.

This would be very useful, because it would be possible to access and replace objects in the internal system. But in reality, superconductors are made of ceramic material. Hundreds of them must be intertwined in a sophisticated way to form the correct magnetic field. And this is where more fundamental difficulties arise: the connections between them are not as simple as those of copper cables. No one has even thought about the concepts that would help solve such problems.

Too hot

High temperatures are also a problem. In the core of the thermonuclear plasma, the temperature will reach about 150 million degrees Celsius. This extreme heat stays in place - right in the center of the ionized gas. But even around it it is still very hot - from 500 to 700 degrees in the reactor zone, which is the inner layer of a metal tube, in which the tritium necessary for nuclear fusion will be "reproduced".

The fusion reactor has an even bigger problem - the so-called power release. This is the part of the system that receives used fuel from the fusion process, mainly helium. The first metal components that get hot gas are called the "divertor". It can heat up to over 2000 ° C.

Divertor problem

In order for the installation to withstand such temperatures, engineers are trying to use the metallic tungsten used in old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The melting point of tungsten is about 3000 degrees. But there are other limitations as well.

In ITER, this can be done, because heating does not occur constantly in it. It is assumed that the reactor will operate only 1-3% of the time. But this is not an option for a power plant that needs to operate 24/7. And, if someone claims to be able to build a smaller reactor with the same capacity as ITER, it is safe to say that they have no solution to the divertor problem.

Power plant in a few decades

Nevertheless, scientists are optimistic about the development of thermonuclear reactors, however, it will not be as fast as some enthusiasts predict.

ITER should show that controlled thermonuclear fusion can actually produce more energy than would be expended to heat the plasma. The next step will be the construction of an entirely new hybrid demonstration power plant that would actually generate electricity.

Engineers are already working on its design. They will have to learn from ITER, which is scheduled to launch in 2023. Given the time required for design, planning and construction, it seems unlikely that the first fusion power plant will be launched much earlier than the mid-21st century.

Rossi's cold fusion

In 2014, an independent test of the E-Cat reactor concluded that the device produced an average of 2800 watts of output power over a period of 32 days with a consumption of 900 watts. This is more than any chemical reaction can produce. The result speaks either of a breakthrough in thermonuclear fusion, or of outright fraud. The report has disappointed skeptics who question whether the test was truly independent and speculate that the test results could be falsified. Others set out to figure out the "secret ingredients" that allow Rossi's fusion to replicate the technology.

Is Rossi a scammer?

Andrea is imposing. He publishes proclamations to the world in unique English in the comments section of his website, the pretentiously titled Journal of Nuclear Physics. But his previous unsuccessful attempts included an Italian project for converting garbage into fuel and a thermoelectric generator. Petroldragon, a waste-to-energy project, has failed in part because the illegal disposal of waste is controlled by Italian organized crime, which has filed criminal charges against him for violating waste regulations. He also created a thermoelectric device for the US Army Corps of Engineers, but during testing, the gadget produced only a fraction of the declared power.

Many do not trust Russia, and the editor-in-chief of the New Energy Times called him a felon with a series of unsuccessful energy projects behind him.

Independent verification

Rossi signed a contract with the American company Industrial Heat to conduct a year-long secret testing of a 1-MW cold fusion plant. The device was a shipping container packed with dozens of E-Cats. The experiment had to be monitored by a third party who could confirm that there was indeed heat generation. Rossi claims to have spent most of the past year practically living in a container and overseeing operations for more than 16 hours a day to prove the commercial viability of the E-Cat.

The test ended in March. Rossi's supporters anxiously awaited the report of the observers, hoping for an acquittal of their hero. But in the end they got a lawsuit.

Trial

In a statement to a Florida court, Rossi claims the test was successful and an independent arbitrator confirmed that the E-Cat reactor produces six times more energy than it consumes. He also claimed that Industrial Heat had agreed to pay him $ 100 million - $ 11.5 million upfront after a 24-hour trial (ostensibly for licensing rights so the company could sell the technology in the US) and another $ 89 million after successfully completing an extended trial. within 350 days. Rossi accused IH of carrying out a "fraudulent scheme" aimed at stealing his intellectual property. He also accused the company of misappropriating E-Cat reactors, illegally copying innovative technologies and products, functionality and designs, and improperly trying to obtain a patent for its intellectual property.

Goldmine

Elsewhere, Rossi claims that during one of his demonstrations, IH received $ 50-60 million from investors and another $ 200 million from China after a replay involving top Chinese officials. If this is true, then a lot more than a hundred million dollars are at stake. Industrial Heat has dismissed these claims as unfounded and will actively defend itself. More importantly, she claims that "for over three years, she has been working to validate the results that Rossi allegedly achieved with his E-Cat technology, and all to no avail."

IH does not believe the E-Cat will work, and the New Energy Times sees no reason to doubt it. In June 2011, a representative of the publication visited Italy, interviewed Rossi and filmed a demonstration of his E-Cat. A day later, he announced his serious concerns about the method of measuring heat output. After 6 days, the journalist posted his video on YouTube. Experts from all over the world sent him analyzes, which were published in July. It became clear that this was a hoax.

Experimental confirmation

Nevertheless, a number of researchers - Alexander Parkhomov from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia and the Martin Fleischman Memory Project (MFPM) - managed to reproduce Rossi's cold thermonuclear fusion. The MFPM report was titled "The End of the Carbon Era is Near." The reason for this admiration was the discovery of a burst of gamma radiation, which cannot be explained otherwise than as a thermonuclear reaction. According to the researchers, Rossi has exactly what he is talking about.

A viable open recipe for cold fusion has the potential to trigger an energetic gold rush. Alternative methods could be found to circumvent Rossi's patents and leave him out of the multibillion-dollar energy business.

So perhaps Rossi would have preferred to avoid this confirmation.

3. Problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion

1. The energy of the nuclei participating in the reaction must be at least 10 keV. For nuclear fusion to start, the nuclei participating in the reaction must fall into the field of nuclear forces, the range of which is 10-12-10-13 cm. However, atomic nuclei have a positive electric charge, and like charges repel. At the turn of the action of nuclear forces, the energy of the Coulomb repulsion is on the order of 10 keV. To overcome this barrier, nuclei in collision must have kinetic energy, at least not less than this value.

If both requirements can be met simultaneously, the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion will be solved.

But there is another method for solving this problem - cold fusion. What is a cold thermonuclear? It is an analogue of a "hot" thermonuclear reaction that takes place at room temperature.

In nature, there are at least two ways of changing matter within one dimension of the continuum. You can boil water over a fire, i.e. thermally, but it is possible in a microwave oven, i.e. frequency. The result is the same - the water boils, the only difference is that the frequency method is faster. Reaching ultra-high temperatures is also used to split the atomic nucleus. The thermal method gives an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The energy of the cold fusion is the energy of the transition state. One of the main conditions for the design of a reactor for the reaction of a cold fusion is the condition for its pyramidal - crystalline form. Another important condition is the presence of rotating magnetic and torsion fields. The intersection of the fields occurs at the point of unstable equilibrium of the hydrogen nucleus.

The current in the superconducting state is zero, and, therefore, a minimum amount of electricity will be consumed to maintain the magnetic field. 8. Ultrafast systems. Controlled thermonuclear fusion with inertial confinement The difficulties associated with magnetic confinement of plasma can, in principle, be circumvented by burning nuclear fuel in extremely short times, when ...

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The main problems associated with the implementation of thermonuclear reactions

In a thermonuclear reactor, the fusion reaction must proceed slowly, it must be possible to control it. The study of reactions occurring in high-temperature deuterium plasma is the theoretical basis for obtaining artificial controlled thermonuclear reactions. The main difficulty is maintaining the conditions necessary to obtain a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction. For such a reaction, it is necessary that the rate of energy release in the system where the reaction occurs should be no less than the rate of energy removal from the system. At temperatures of the order of 10 8 K, thermonuclear reactions in deuterium plasma have a noticeable intensity and are accompanied by the release of high energy. In a unit volume of plasma, when deuterium nuclei are combined, a power of 3 kW / m 3 is released. At temperatures of the order of 10 6 K, the power is only 10 -17 W / m 3.

And how to practically use the released energy? During the synthesis of deuterium with tritium, the main part of the released energy (about 80%) is manifested in the form of the kinetic energy of neutrons. If these neutrons are slowed down outside the magnetic trap, then heat can be obtained, and then converted into electrical energy. During the fusion reaction in deuterium, about 2/3 of the released energy is carried by charged particles - the reaction products and only 1/3 of the energy - by neutrons. And the kinetic energy of charged particles can be directly converted into electrical energy.

What conditions are needed to carry out synthesis reactions? In these reactions, the nuclei must connect with each other. But each nucleus is positively charged, which means that repulsive forces act between them, which are determined by Coulomb's law:

Where Z 1 e is the charge of one nucleus, Z 2 e is the charge of the second nucleus, and e is the modulus of the electron charge. In order to connect with each other, the nuclei must overcome the Coulomb repulsive forces. These forces become very large when the nuclei move closer together. The least repulsive forces will be in the case of hydrogen nuclei with the lowest charge (Z \u003d 1). To overcome the Coulomb repulsive forces and unite, the nuclei must have a kinetic energy of about 0.01 - 0.1 MeV. This energy corresponds to a temperature of the order of 10 8 - 10 9 K. And this is more than the temperature even in the interior of the Sun! Due to the fact that fusion reactions occur at very high temperatures, they are called thermonuclear.

Fusion reactions can be a source of energy if the energy release exceeds the cost. Then the synthesis process is said to be self-sustaining.

The temperature at which this occurs is called the ignition temperature or critical temperature. For the DT (deuterium - tritium) reaction, the ignition temperature is about 45 million K, and for the DD (deuterium - deuterium) reaction, about 400 million K. Thus, the DT reactions require much lower temperatures than for the DD reactions. Therefore, plasma researchers give preference to DT reactions, although tritium is not found in nature, and special conditions must be created for its reproduction in a thermonuclear reactor.

How to keep the plasma in some kind of installation - a thermonuclear reactor - and heat it up so that the fusion process begins? Energy losses in high-temperature plasma are mainly associated with heat escape through the walls of the device. The plasma must then be insulated from the walls. For this purpose, strong magnetic fields are used (magnetic thermal insulation of the plasma). If a large electric current is passed through the plasma column in the direction of its axis, then forces arise in the magnetic field of this current, which compress the plasma into a plasma column torn off the walls. Keeping the plasma separated from the walls and combating various plasma instabilities are the most difficult problems, the solution of which should lead to the practical implementation of controlled thermonuclear reactions.

It is clear that the higher the concentration of particles, the more often they collide with each other. Therefore, it may seem that for the implementation of thermonuclear reactions it is necessary to use a plasma of a high concentration of particles. However, if the concentration of particles is the same as the concentration of molecules in gases under normal conditions (10 25 m -3), then at thermonuclear temperatures the pressure in the plasma would be colossal - about 10 12 Pa. No technical device can withstand such pressure! For the pressure to be of the order of 10 6 Pa and correspond to the strength of the material, the thermonuclear plasma must be highly rarefied (the concentration of particles must be of the order of 10 21 m -3). However, in a rarefied plasma, collisions of particles with each other occur less frequently. In order to maintain a thermonuclear reaction under these conditions, it is necessary to increase the residence time of the particles in the reactor. In this regard, the retention capacity of the trap is characterized by the product of the concentration of n particles by the time t of their retention in the trap.

It turns out that for the reaction DD

nt\u003e 10 22 m -3. from,

and for the reaction DT

nt\u003e 10 20 m -3. from.

Hence it can be seen that for the DD reaction at n \u003d 10 21 m -3, the retention time must be more than 10 s; if n \u003d 10 24 m -3, then it is sufficient that the holding time exceeds 0.1 s.

For a mixture of deuterium with tritium at n \u003d 10 21 m -3, a thermonuclear fusion reaction can begin if the plasma confinement time is greater than 0.1 s, and at n \u003d 10 24 m -3 it is sufficient for this time to be more than 10 -4 s. Thus, under the same conditions, the required retention time of the DT reaction can be significantly shorter than in the DD reactions. In this sense, the DT reaction is easier to carry out than the DD reaction.

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