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Cold fusion is the holy grail in the sense that nobody has ever been able to reproduce it after it was first claimed to have been observed. Cold fusion is all a bunch of balls though.

If we can properly utilise fusion we're sorted for energy for yonks so in some ways that's the holy grail of a lot of things.

You're right with fission splitting and fusion fusing.
( Captain V, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:02, 1 reply, 17 years ago)

My knowledge of that comes from Jasper Fforde
where they manage to get a cold fusion machine out of a radioactive cucumber.
That's where i learnt about entropy too.
It's all bullshit, but it's brilliantly written bullshit.

I know very little about science. But fusion is what goes on in the sun, so having fusion on a small scale is having a mini-sun? Won't that be horrifically dangerous?

I'm so getting kicked out of Utopia. I'd jsut be bitching about how it doesn't make etymological sense.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:05, Reply)

It's being done quite frequently already
It's just that, as K2 said, we need more energy to maintain it than we get from the reaction.

:edit: Horrifically dangerous would be three drunk manic depressives and an axe in the same building...
( Captain V, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:09, Reply)

Yes,
There should be checks in place to stop that happening.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:45, Reply)

Fusion
The resulting radiation is a fraction of what you get from existing nuclear plants, all you need is the technology to contain the reaction and a supply of deuterium. As it happens, there is a lot of it on the moon, which is why Russia, India, the US, Japan and the EU are working towards a permanent manned presence there within the next thirty years or so.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:13, Reply)

Dangerous?
Nope - fusion (in a tokamak) is totally self-regulating and the reaction will stop naturally if there's a leak.
(Shippy likes linebreaks and doesn't care what you think, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:24, Reply)

Oh, that's good.
So fission is more dangerous, because any leak basically pwns the world?

I'm aware of how stupid I'm sounding. Sorry.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:26, Reply)

not sounding stupid at all
it's more than acceptable to not know about something, and at least you are asking sensible questions
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:30, Reply)

Ha, it's more like all I'm doing in this thread is asking things.
It's like, GTFO and come back when you can actually contribute something!

Ah well. There do seem to be a lot of sciencey bods here. I feel so intimidated!
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 11:34, Reply)