4 ms·
>would it be easier to create a fusion reactor if we made it bigger? Absolutely-but only when you approach mass scales on par with small suns. So not in a prac
by nnfy 9y ago
>would it be easier to create a fusion reactor if we made it bigger?
Absolutely-but only when you approach mass scales on par with small suns. So not in a practical sense.
To elaborate, plasma in stellar bodies is essentially contained by gravity, as opposed to complex electroomagnetic fields that have to be painstakingly engineered and tend to be unstable.
- ajuc 9y agoWhat if we made a small black hole and put plasma in orbit?
- petters 9y agoA small black hole would probably glow very bright by itself, so it could be a useful energy source in orbit (for a while, until it crashes into Earth).
- dredmorbius 9y agoObjects in orbit don't suddenly stop being in orbit. There's no reason a black hole would de-orbit into Earth. And if it did, it would largely continue to orbit through the Earth, or what bits of it remained following passage. That said, I don't suspect the approach would be particularly viable.
- MR4D 9y agoOdds are, it wouldn't crash "into" Earth. Rather, it would more likely crash "through" Earth. Difference seems subtle, until you find out that a black hole (one made by us at least) is soooo tiny that it would miss most of the atoms in the Earth, falling _between_ them. Apparently, you need lots of mass to make a black hole that is both sustainable and big enough to affect anything around it.
- Retric 9y agoNo ITER style reactors also get much easer when you scale them. Which is why ITER is larger than JET etc. It's as simple as heat loss is on the surface, energy it released in the volume. You can somewhat get around this by increasing density, as eventually you need to slow down the reaction because your walls can only take so much heat and radiation. But, it's a lot more stable at lower density which means larger is vastly easer to control. PS: We could have built an impractical, but working fusion reactor 30 years ago. But, the total cost would have been incredible and we only have so much tritium anyway.