[Cooliorob (OP)]

I was wondering... Is cold fusion a viable energy source?  And is there any way to create a fusion/fission reactor where it recycles the waste products?

thanks,
Rob [)]

[lyner]

No.

[Cooliorob (OP)]

Why not? And no to both questions?

[another_someone]

At present there is inadequate evidence to believe that cold fusion is possible.

As for recycling the waste product of any energy generator, that would amount to a means of producing perpetual energy, which would violate the laws governing the conservation of energy.

[science_guy]

concerning release of energy in fusion and fission, the waste of such a process could not possibly release energy in the reverse process.  a fundamental law is that a process, when reversed, will have the opposite energy output.

en example is that when you are fusing hydrogen into helium, the energy output is equal to the energy required to split a helium atom into two hydrogen atoms

correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what i've guessed based upon my puny junior-year high-school education.

[Bored chemist]

If you could get a viable fusion reactor then one thing it would do (for most plausible choices of fuel) is produce a lot of neutrons.
There are some types of radioactive waste that would absorb neutrons and be converted into other isotopes which would either be stable or have much shorter half lives so you wouldn't need to wait long before they decayed into something stable.
However the current fission reactors already produce lots of neutrons; the problem is sorting out the waste to get the right isotopes to make the exercise worthwhile. Isotope separation is tedious and expensive so I don't see how a fusion reactor would help. Neutron irradiation of most waste would make the problem worse.

[Cooliorob (OP)]

hmm... back to fusion, what about the double crystal fusion reactor research done at Renssalaer in '06?  Anyone know if that would work? here's the link.


http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1358 [nofollow]

[lyner]

In the small print it is implied that the system doesn't produce 'excess energy' so it isn't suitable to put in your motor car. It seems to be an elegant, portable way of producing neutrons; very useful but not what you are after.

[Bored chemist]

I said a viable fusion reactor. There are plenty of ways of getting hot fusion, none of them produce any net energy (unless you want to use them as a heater in which case you might get something like 1.00000000001 Kw of heating for each Kw of electricity you put in).

[Cooliorob (OP)]

so it is hopeless for now at our current tech level?

[lyner]

that's what the man said. It may not even be possible with any technology.

[Kryptid]

It depends on what you mean by cold fusion. Muon-catalyzed fusion has been demonstrated to work at cryogenic temperatures (far colder than room temperature). It involves replacing the electrons in hydrogen atoms with muons (which are 207 times heavier). Their greater mass allows them to bring the hydrogen nuclei far closer together than electrons could, which makes the probability of quantum tunneling between the nuclei, and therefore fusion, significant. Unfortunately, the muons have a very short lifetime which limits their usefulness as a catalyst. Also, the helium atoms produced by the fusion reaction sometimes "steal" the muons so that they cannot catalyze more fusion reactions. I suspect that we will need to find a way to produce muons quickly and cheaply if we are going to make muon-catalyzed fusion practical.

[Cooliorob (OP)]

Ferroelectric crystal fusion is what i'm talking about

[Bored chemist]

Running a fusion reactor is easy. There's one about 93 million miles away.
Building one like that would take rather more sophisticated technology than we currently have.

[Cooliorob (OP)]

Where is the complication?

[McQueen]

I seem to remember that there was a huge scandal in the scientific world about cold fusion. It seems that the findings were doctored to give a result that was not really there. I know it had something to do with palladium and the amount of hydrogen it can absorb or something like that.

[Cooliorob (OP)]

Thats interesting... can you refer me to your source for that?

[McQueen]

All I can tell you is that it took place in the late 80's and involved all of the leading research institutions! Maybe you could Google it? I do remember reading a very interesting book on the subject that involved the properties of palladium and its ability to absorb hydrogn or something like that !! Check out Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons!!!

[qazibasit]

i think u have recently watched the movie  " The Saint". They there used to be US research labs in the antarctica working on the super conductors along with cold fusion and its almost entirely impossible.