Fusion FAQ

01 What is fusion?

Fusion means many things when discussed on the newsgroup. ...

02 How does fusion release energy?

If you add up the masses of the particles which go into a ...

03 Where does fusion occur in nature?

The conditions needed to induce fusion reactions are extreme; ...

04 Why doesn't fusion occur anywhere else in nature?

Current scientific knowledge indicates that very little ...

05 What are the basic fusion reactions?

While it is possible to take any two nuclei and get them to fuse,...

06 Could you tell me more about these different elements? (Fusion)

(Note: there's more information in the glossary too.)...

07 Why is the deuterium-tritium (D-T) reaction the easiest? (Fusion)

Basically speaking, the extra neutrons on the D and T nuclei ...

08 What is aneutronic fusion?

Some researchers feel the advantages of neutron-free ...

09 What sort of fusion reactor is the sun?

Fortunately for life on earth, the sun is an aneutronic ...

10 Why is it so hard to create controlled man-made fusion reactions?

In order to get two nuclei to fuse, you basically have to ...

11 What is plasma physics, and how is it related to fusion?

Plasma physics is the area of physics which studies ionized ...

12 Just how hot and confined do these plasmas need to be? (Fusion)

(Or, what conditions are needed for controlled fusion?)...

13 What are the basic approaches used to heat and confine the plasma? (Fusion)

(Or, what is magnetic confinement? Inertial confinement?)...

14 What would a fusion energy plant look like?

In the most basic picture, you need a fusion reactor to create ...

15 What fuels can a fusion reactor burn?

The different fusion reactions were discussed in Section 1. It ...

16 What are the different methods for converting fusion energy to useful energy?

Generally it is expected that fusion energy will be converted ...

17 What would a D-T fusion reactor look like?

[[ The following paraphrases answers written by Arthur Carlson. ]]...

18 How do you get the plasma hot enough for fusion to occur?

Much of the answer given below is taken from the PPPL World-Wide ...

19 What are the materials requirements for fusion? Are any of these materials scarce?

First we need some definitions: ...

20 How large would a fusion reactor be? Why?

Fusion reactors are generally expected to have ...

21 What are fusion's major potential environmental advantages?

Fusion, like fission, creates no greenhouse gases, no smog,...

22 But isn't fusion nuclear? What about radioactive waste?

Fusion *is* a nuclear technology, but there are ...

23 What key technologies are needed to achieve these advantages? (Fusion)

*Any* working fusion reactor would have minimal ...

24 What about renewable energy sources? Why do we need fusion at all?

(After all, renewables will be ready much sooner than fusion.)...

25 Recent Results on TFTR: D-T Experiments (Fusion)

* (a) What was done?...

26 Recent Results on JET (Fusion)

JET ran some experiments in 1991 using a 10% tritium mix, and ...

27 Recent Results in Muon-Catalyzed Fusion (Fusion)

(Based on information provided by Steven Jones of BYU.)...

28 Recent Political News (Fusion)

* (a) U.S. Magnetic Fusion News:...

29 Appendix on TFTR and JET results (Fusion)

TFTR results vs JET results from 1991:...

30 What opportunities are there for interested students? (Fusion)

* Undergraduate Opportunities: Academic-year ...

31 I'm an undergraduate interested in becoming a "fusioneer". What should I study?

Basic Answer: ...

32 What sorts of experiments are there for high-school students? How can I get the equipment? Has anyone else done this? (Fusion)

While there are few fusion experiments that would be ...

33 What about those summer programs you mentioned above? (Fusion)

I am currently aware of two major plasma/fusion summer programs....

34 When/where are the major fusion conferences?

** Major Annual Conferences:...

35 Newsgroups (Fusion)

sci.physics.fusion (unmoderated)...

36 WAIS (Wide-Area Information Server) Databases (Fusion)

[ Information on the sunsite.unc.edu WAIS database ...

37 World-Wide Web (Fusion)

* Much of the public-domain fusion info is now available ...

38 Gopher (Fusion)

* Garching (Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics): ...

39 Anonymous FTP Sites (Fusion)

sunsite.unc....

40 LISTSERV ("FTP by email") (Fusion)

vm1.nodak.edu also works as a listserver:...

41 Electronic Bulletins (Fusion)

* TFTR Updates - published occasionally by Rich Hawryluk,...

42 Individuals Willing to Provide Additional Information (Fusion)

Many of the participants on sci.physics.fusion are conventional/...

43 Recent articles in the popular literature (Fusion)

* Conn, et al, The International Thermonuclear ...

44 General References and Histories (Fusion)

(suitable for those with minimal background in physics or fusion)....

45 Fusion Research Review Articles & Texts

* Breunlich, W. H., and Kammel, P., Muon-Catalyzed Fusion,...

46 Plasma Physics - General Texts

(focus is on the science of plasmas, rather than engineering of ...

47 Plasma Physics - Device-Specific (Publications)

* Wesson, John. _Tokamaks_ [309 p.] Oxford Science Publications, ...

48 Fusion Reactor Engineering References

* Kammash, Terry. _Fusion reactor physics: principles and ...

49 List of Relevant Scientific Journals (Fusion)

(Anyone care to write short blurbs about some of these journals?)...

50 Unclassified / Unsummarized works (Fusion)

(Please help me move ...

51 Citations and Acknowledgements (fusion-faq)

****** Blanket Acknowledgement ******...