Science Question! Please assist!

[Sexy Devil]

Your average fusion scientist isn't an utter moron like Otto. Attempting to literally recreate a star in miniature like he did is incredibly stupid, even if it was possible, not least due to the gravitational problems.

He just wanted to have an excuse to unironically say "The power of the sun in the palm of my hand." Is that really such a crime?

 

[Quaxar]

If the reactor screws up then the plot of Spider-man 2 happens. And I don't think there's a real-life Spider-man to save us from Otto...

Your average fusion scientist isn't an utter moron like Otto. Attempting to literally recreate a star in miniature like he did is incredibly stupid, even if it was possible, not least due to the gravitational problems.

Well, the real idiocy was doing so in the middle of Manhattan instead of the Nevada desert and building self-aware robot arms instead of hiring cheap and expendable college students but that's probably not really relevant to the topic.

 

[madox ford]

I was fortunate enough to be able to visit JET, the place in the uk with the largest functioning fusion core and a number of simmilar question were asked. in summary Nuclear fusion is an all round better alternative to fission. However there are a number of problems facing fusion the largest being that igniton,(the point at which the reaction becomes self sustanable) has never been acheived. Theres a recuring joke that fusion is thirty years away and always will be.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Also, if fusion interests you, you could check out the homemade cold fusion machines. It is relatively easy to achieve fusion, but very difficult to get it self-sustainable, i.e. getting more power out than you pump in.
These homemade fusion reactors works by accelerating electrons from a spherical shell towards a metallic spherical net in the center of the outer shell. The electrons pass through the net, continues out the other side, and is then accelerated back into the center. This keeps going until the electron eventually collides with the net. Inside the center cathode, there will be a very high concentration of electrons, hence a virtual anode, which is used to accelerate hydrogen ions to the kind of extreme velocities required for fusion. It has been built by some amateurs, and they do get fusion, but not enough to sustain the itself, since energy is required to maintain the strong electric field (often over 8kV), and the continuous flow of electrons. This sort of fusion is called cold fusion since it does not use high temperatures to obtain the velocities needed for fusion. It's also much simpler, so simple that a person with a bit of technical knowledge and access to high-voltage equipment, a vaccuum pump and a metal workshop can make it.

Video:

I thought cold fusion was a hoax, that a bunch of shady scientists pretended they got working, and then spectacuarly failed to ever reproduce? When did this happen?

 

[Daverson]

Actually, if you blew up a fusion reactor, it'd just stop working. Most fusion reactions can't sustain themselves (the obvious except being the stars), so it'll just fizzle out. If Plasma starts leaking it'll probably damage nearby equipment, but it'll quickly dissipate, and isn't dangerous after that. (Or at least, not any more so than the elements by themselves, hydrogen would still be retain it's explosive properties, for example)

If it were a self-sustaining fusion reaction, it'd likely go out of control until it depleted all it's resources, leaving behind a chunk of iron and a fuckton of radiation.

This is all theoretically speaking, of course. There may be engineering considerations in a working fusion reactor that would lead to other side effects.

 

[Hoplon]

I thought cold fusion was a hoax, that a bunch of shady scientists pretended they got working, and then spectacularly failed to ever reproduce? When did this happen?

Not the same thing, That cold fusion wasn't so much a fraud as people jumping the gun.

This is cold relative the the 150 million degrees fusion places like jet are doing.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

The plasma might leak out but it would rapidly cool and dissipate, and there would be no explosion. Also, no radiation.
Fusion power is like fission power's good twin.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I thought cold fusion was a hoax, that a bunch of shady scientists pretended they got working, and then spectacularly failed to ever reproduce? When did this happen?

Not the same thing, That cold fusion wasn't so much a fraud as people jumping the gun.

This is cold relative the the 150 million degrees fusion places like jet are doing.

Ah right. According to the Youtube comments they seem to say that it is a working model, but there is no way to achieve the necessary initial reaction to start the process. I'm guessing it's like building a working internal combustion engine, but with no spark plug.

Still, if this sort of tech gets developed to a commercially viable level, goodbye fossil fuel power plants!

 

[Jewrean]

We are gonna read about you in papers soon, aren't we?

Naw just writing a book... but wanted to get my facts straight.

 

[Jewrean]

It couldn't possibly explode. The Tokamak type of fusion reactor you were describing is not physically capable of producing an explosive reaction. Unlike with fission, the moment a plasma based fusion reaction is interrupted, it stops producing energy, and what you are left with isn't much more dangerous or difficult to get rid of than something as commonplace as molten steel.

If it leaked, someone standing right next to it would be lucky to only suffer third degree burns, and a fair amount of equipment in the room will be damaged, but nothing more. No radiation leaks, no destroyed cities, no planet of the apes scenario.

I probably should have been more specific. What if... perhaps... a bundle of C4 was planted next to it?... or at least something powerful enough to tear a hole and open the tube.

EDIT: Also, to clarify... if this DID happen... and the room the machine was in was also filled with people... would everyone in that room pretty much die from the extreme heat leaking out? Or providing they weren't right next to the thing... would they be safe?

 

[McMullen]

It couldn't possibly explode. The Tokamak type of fusion reactor you were describing is not physically capable of producing an explosive reaction. Unlike with fission, the moment a plasma based fusion reaction is interrupted, it stops producing energy, and what you are left with isn't much more dangerous or difficult to get rid of than something as commonplace as molten steel.

If it leaked, someone standing right next to it would be lucky to only suffer third degree burns, and a fair amount of equipment in the room will be damaged, but nothing more. No radiation leaks, no destroyed cities, no planet of the apes scenario.

I probably should have been more specific. What if... perhaps... a bundle of C4 was planted next to it?... or at least something powerful enough to tear a hole and open the tube.

EDIT: Also, to clarify... if this DID happen... and the room the machine was in was also filled with people... would everyone in that room pretty much die from the extreme heat leaking out? Or providing they weren't right next to the thing... would they be safe?

There's no point in blowing up a fusion reactor with C4, because C4 is more destructive than a failing fusion reactor. It's like asking what would happen if you used C4 to blow up the heat sink on your PC's CPU. Yes, a failed heat sink on a CPU will cause the CPU to fry itself, but that's about it. Same here. A failing fusion reactor will just fry itself, but for reasons outlined elsewhere in this thread, the damage will probably not spread outside the reactor.

Yes, the plasma is hot, but simply having a high temperature doesn't mean that a plasma can do a great deal of harm. There needs to be a lot of high-temperature plasma, and there isn't much in these reactors compared to the amount of air outside them. There is high temperature plasma in the upper atmosphere that is hot enough that it would vaporize the spacecraft that pass through it, but there's so little of it that the actual thermal effect on a person being exposed to it would be that they freeze to death.

Trying to incinerate a town or even a room with the fusion plasma would be like trying to boil a person alive with a single drop of scalding water.

Sorry if you've got a lot of work done on this book already, but a fusion plant isn't a reasonable target unless the objective of the attack is to make the money spent on the plant go to waste. Choose a different target.

And no, the Large Hadron Collider has very little in common with fusion reactors, and wouldn't be a good target either.

Unfortunately, while I realize that it would be far more helpful to suggest alternatives than just tell you what you shouldn't do, I'm not comfortable with going on the internet and explaining to a person where and how to achieve the kinds of events that you're looking for. Not because I'm afraid you'll do them, but because the people who's job it is to find people talking on the internet about that stuff don't tend to care very much about whether the discussion is serious or hypothetical.

 

[Heronblade]

We are gonna read about you in papers soon, aren't we?

Naw just writing a book... but wanted to get my facts straight.

It couldn't possibly explode. The Tokamak type of fusion reactor you were describing is not physically capable of producing an explosive reaction. Unlike with fission, the moment a plasma based fusion reaction is interrupted, it stops producing energy, and what you are left with isn't much more dangerous or difficult to get rid of than something as commonplace as molten steel.

If it leaked, someone standing right next to it would be lucky to only suffer third degree burns, and a fair amount of equipment in the room will be damaged, but nothing more. No radiation leaks, no destroyed cities, no planet of the apes scenario.

I probably should have been more specific. What if... perhaps... a bundle of C4 was planted next to it?... or at least something powerful enough to tear a hole and open the tube.

EDIT: Also, to clarify... if this DID happen... and the room the machine was in was also filled with people... would everyone in that room pretty much die from the extreme heat leaking out? Or providing they weren't right next to the thing... would they be safe?

As Mcmullen above mentions, people in the room would be safe aside from the damage caused by the C4. There is just enough plasma involved to cause serious harm, but only if you come into direct contact with it, before it begins to dissipate (and it will dissipate to the point of uselessness within a foot or two of travel) Anyone standing in a position close enough for the plasma to be a threat would be killed by the C4 first.

If you're looking into plausible terrorist scenarios involving futuristic power plants, check up on geothermal. Small geothermal plants in only slightly active fault zones cause mini earthquakes on a regular basis. If a large one were built in California for instance, and someone who knows what they're doing messed around with it, causing a category 7 or higher earthquake would (in theory at least) be quite possible.

 

[Jewrean]

I probably should have been more specific. What if... perhaps... a bundle of C4 was planted next to it?... or at least something powerful enough to tear a hole and open the tube.

EDIT: Also, to clarify... if this DID happen... and the room the machine was in was also filled with people... would everyone in that room pretty much die from the extreme heat leaking out? Or providing they weren't right next to the thing... would they be safe?

As Mcmullen above mentions, people in the room would be safe aside from the damage caused by the C4. There is just enough plasma involved to cause serious harm, but only if you come into direct contact with it, before it begins to dissipate (and it will dissipate to the point of uselessness within a foot or two of travel) Anyone standing in a position close enough for the plasma to be a threat would be killed by the C4 first.

If you're looking into plausible terrorist scenarios involving futuristic power plants, check up on geothermal. Small geothermal plants in only slightly active fault zones cause mini earthquakes on a regular basis. If a large one were built in California for instance, and someone who knows what they're doing messed around with it, causing a category 7 or higher earthquake would (in theory at least) be quite possible.[/quote]

Cheers!

Basically I'm writing a scene where a character threatens to destroy it and potentially harm everyone in the room. But now that we've clarified that it wouldn't pose any real danger if it had a massive leak, then I'll rewrite the scene to show that.

Thanks again all!