Fusion – Ria Lina, Yasmin Andrew and Howard Wilson

Howard, you, you mentioned cold fusion there.

Mm-hmm.

The first question was to describe what fusion is, but maybe in that context, because many people might not know why cold fusion is your choice as a ridiculous energy source.

Should we start with what fusion is and then-

Yeah, and then-

... people will start to realize how-

And then why cold fusion doesn't work?

(laughs)

... how ridiculous cold fusion is?

Yeah.

So, so fusion is the process that powers the stars, powers our own star, the sun.

You, you take the light elements, hydrogen, really the light end of the... of the periodic table, or isotopes of hydrogen, heavy forms of hydrogen, and if you push them together close enough, such that the nuclei that sit in the middle of the atom, if those nuclei to touch each other, there is a significant probability that they will fuse to create something heavier, a heavier element, and they release energy at the same time.

And that's the energy that powers the sun.

It's actually the process whereby all of you are made, because you start off with the light elements from the Big Bang, and it's through the fusion process that the heavier elements that we're made up from come from.

So it's absolutely fundamental in terms of energy, 'cause it's where the sun gets its energy from, and it's fundamental in terms of w-... our being wh- wh- where our materials come from.

So, how do you get two nuclei close enough together? That doesn't sound like a hard thing.

Well, it is, because they're both positively charged.

They don't want to come close together, and so you've got to get enough energy in them to overcome what we call the Coulomb propulsion, that like charges repel.

That takes a lot of energy, and we tend to do it just by heating it to ridiculous temperatures.

So, the temperature at the center of the sun is, what, about 10 million degrees centigrade or so? The sun is a fusion reactor power plant, but it's not a very efficient one.

We have to achieve temperatures 10 times that temperature to get these nuclei to get close enough together.

Why do cold fusion think they're gonna get these nuclei to come close enough together at room temperature? And there was an argument that by putting them in a, in a particular metal, palladium, and passing the current through them, that they would come close enough together to, to fuse.

It didn't sound plausible, and it wasn't true.

(audience laughs)

It's funny, 'cause energy from the palladium, again, has such a showbiz air.

Howard, you, you mentioned cold fusion there.

Mm-hmm.

The first question was to describe what fusion is, but maybe in that context, because many people might not know why cold fusion is your choice as a ridiculous energy source.

Should we start with what fusion is and then-

Yeah, and then-

... people will start to realize how-

And then why cold fusion doesn't work?

(laughs)

... how ridiculous cold fusion is?

Yeah.

So, so fusion is the process that powers the stars, powers our own star, the sun.

You, you take the light elements, hydrogen, really the light end of the... of the periodic table, or isotopes of hydrogen, heavy forms of hydrogen, and if you push them together close enough, such that the nuclei that sit in the middle of the atom, if those nuclei to touch each other, there is a significant probability that they will fuse to create something heavier, a heavier element, and they release energy at the same time.

And that's the energy that powers the sun.

It's actually the process whereby all of you are made, because you start off with the light elements from the Big Bang, and it's through the fusion process that the heavier elements that we're made up from come from.

So it's absolutely fundamental in terms of energy, 'cause it's where the sun gets its energy from, and it's fundamental in terms of w-... our being wh- wh- where our materials come from.

So, how do you get two nuclei close enough together? That doesn't sound like a hard thing.

Well, it is, because they're both positively charged.

They don't want to come close together, and so you've got to get enough energy in them to overcome what we call the Coulomb propulsion, that like charges repel.

That takes a lot of energy, and we tend to do it just by heating it to ridiculous temperatures.

So, the temperature at the center of the sun is, what, about 10 million degrees centigrade or so? The sun is a fusion reactor power plant, but it's not a very efficient one.

We have to achieve temperatures 10 times that temperature to get these nuclei to get close enough together.

Why do cold fusion think they're gonna get these nuclei to come close enough together at room temperature? And there was an argument that by putting them in a, in a particular metal, palladium, and passing the current through them, that they would come close enough together to, to fuse.

It didn't sound plausible, and it wasn't true.

(audience laughs)

It's funny, 'cause energy from the palladium, again, has such a showbiz air.