![]() ![]() If a star is at least eight times as massive as our Sun, not only are copious amounts of neon produced, but the pressures and temperatures are high enough to burn neon into still heavier elements. ![]() Not in the Sun, not in the cores of the most massive stars, and (to the best of our knowledge) not even in supernova explosions!įrom both an astrophysics and a nuclear physics standpoint, we can conclude that these reactions are not happening, and that they're certainly not happening at the incredibly low energies claimed by the e-Cat team. That doesn't look so prohibitive, does it? Of course, there is the fact that you've got to overcome the tremendous Coulomb barrier (the electrical repulsion between nickel and hydrogen nuclei), which - according to our knowledge of nuclear physics - requires temperatures and pressures not found naturally anywhere in the Universe. If you want to create copper from any of these elements by adding a proton (hydrogen nucleus) to them, here are the reactions you're looking for: These isotope ratios are the same on Earth as they are in meteorites and in the Sun, and are pretty universal to any sample of nickel naturally found here on Earth. There are five known stable isotopes of Nickel, and here on Earth they are found in the percentages shown in the chart above. Image generated using the free graphing software at nces.ed.gov. To accomplish this, all you'd need is two atomic nuclei whose initial states have more total mass than the final fused nucleus will - which is possible thanks to binding energy - and you can, in principle, have nuclear fusion between those two elements. Perhaps more pointedly, we'd like to have controlled nuclear fusion, where we can control the rate of fusion and harness practically all of the energy generated from the reactions. Of course, a reaction like the Tsar Bomba is not what we want when it comes to meeting our energy needs. No other known reaction (that doesn't involve antimatter) is capable of generating as much energy from a given amount of matter as nuclear fusion can, in the entire Universe. ![]() Nuclear fusion is responsible for the most powerful release of energy ever generated on our planet: the Tsar Bomba, above. Video credit: an old Soviet documentary, featured in Trinity and Beyond. Unlike a nuclear fission reaction, neither the original reactive material nor the products are radioactive in most instances of nuclear fusion. What would be ideal, rather than the current nuclear fission power we use, would be nuclear fusion, where lighter elements are fused together into heavier ones. Nuclear power is abundant and efficient, but with the dangers of radioactivity (and Fukushima still fresh in people's minds), it clearly isn't an ideal solution either. The cheap sources - coal, oil, and gas - are dirty, destructive, and limited, while the clean sources - wind and solar - are expensive and inefficient. Peter Thieberger, Senior Physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.)Ī cheap, clean, efficient and virtually limitless source of energy would be just what our world needs right about now. "Every time you look up at the sky, every one of those points of light is a reminder that fusion power is extractable from hydrogen and other light elements, and it is an everyday reality throughout the Milky Way Galaxy." - Carl Sagan ![]()
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