Fusion Reaction- What about Water?

I'm guessing you are Kulas.

my FIRST thought

Well, there won't be any base singers left.

If the truth hurts, go somewhere else.

Guess why we rotate Earth! So the sun is not too long in one spot.

Its all engineered so we do not convert all Hydrogen into Helium!

Wait, something fishy here!

The sun converts H to He? And you have been in the sun too long?

You better start counting hydrogen atoms. Make sure they do not molecule away!

Let us know when you have a number and we tell you how long it takes!

Actually the fuel for fusion reactors is Deuterium (Hydrogen with a neutron in it's nucleus) With an abundance of about 300 parts per million in sea water, to paraphrase Lyn, the supply of Deuterium will outlast the supply of fools.

The deuterium will have all boiled away long before we can use it. The sun is expanding and will consume the earth in less than a billion years. The average life of a species before becoming extinct is only a few million years at most. Will man be an exception? Does any one have the list of order and timeline in which we will consume/waste essentials e.g. water, iron, oil, coal, food, so that we can no longer produce a suitable equivalent? Deuterium and Silicon are a long way down the list.

Hi Phaddy, where do you get "the average life of the species is only a few million", never heard that one? What studies made you extrapolate such conclusions?

Just read it somewhere or heard it on a science show. Can't be exact.

Yeah, but if we look at the rate the Sun is consuming Hydrogen, and compare it to the rate that Earth is fusing hydrogen into helium, and the answer becomes clear:

With the rate of consumption in fusion reactors to date, it can be estimated that 99.9999999...% of earth hydrogen will be consumed, not by Earth, but by the Sun after it expands into a red giant and swallows the Inner Planets.

Hey - if you really want to worry about something, think of the sun. Now that's a fusion reactor with a bad reality - someday the H will be all converted to He - then what happens????

"Think about the Sun, Pipin.

"Think about her Golden glance.

"How She lights the world up,

"Well, now! It's! Your! Chance!

Assuming that seawater contains .0312% deuterium,

there are 1.3 billion kilograms of deuterium per cubic mile of ocean

Assuming that 0.723% of deuterium's mass is converted to energy when 4 molecules fuse together to become helium,

and the speed of light is 300000000 meters/sec

e = mc^2

the fusion energy available in 1 cubic mile of ocean is 8.46 x 10^23 joules (846000 exajoules)

If the world consumes 500 exajoules/year of energy,

one cubic mile of ocean contains enough deuterium to supply earth's energy needs for 1692 years.

What's bad about nuclear reaction is, its pretty irreversible. When it gets going there is no turning back. You can not convert He to H again. Nope, it aint gonna happen.

The trend for the demand of energy is ever increasing exponentially. People live with couple of gadgets nowadays compares to candles and sticks. Not only population growth is the main factor, but as well as our way of life. I bet one could not live with out a cellphone Iphone or Ipad nowadays. People are buying - simply because they can a "psychological thing-ego booster, pride of life". Instead of listening and shutting up-they talk, instead of buying what is only necessary, they hoarded. Instead of having a car, they collected several which only ended up in a garage. I think the real issue, the root cause is a "social or psycho-social disease" which start in the mind.

Comes a time there will be less rain, less biomass production, less life near future.

I mean, is it sustainable that way? I doubt, it is. I like the way Einstein look at the future, "fight with sticks and stones".

Peeewee

"What's bad about nuclear reaction is, its pretty irreversible. When it gets going there is no turning back. You can not convert He to H again. Nope, it aint gonna happen."

Well, due to the Three laws of Thermodynamics⁽¹⁾, ANY transformation of energy from one form into another (known in physics as 'work') involves energy being lost as 'waste heat.' No change in energy is 100% efficient, so everything done in this universe only accelerates our march to Heat Death⁽²⁾.

Notes:

1. The Three laws are⁽³⁾:
1. Neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed, but they can change form.
2. In changing form, some energy will be lost as 'waste heat.'
3. In a closed system, there is a finite amount of matter and energy to start with.
2. Unless the Universe manages to last long enough to experience the Big Rip, where in the end, due to the expanding fabric of space-time, every last photon (and at this point, there will only be photons left, everything larger has been 'pulled apart, by the expanding spacetime) will be accelerating away from every other photon at speeds exceeding light. each photon is isolated inside its own Observable Universe.
3. Or to put it into simple terms, using only ten words:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't quit.
   

Oops, 3rd law says at zero absolute temperature, all processes freeze to zero thus entropy is zero.

Well, sounds like these guys are gonna be wifeless. Pretty sure there is an effect of the increase of oxygen concentration in air and water become scarce.

I wonder, how will it be to live in a 40% O₂ atmosphere. If its true that at higher concentration of these guys promotes corrosion, a nasty oxidation of everything.

Our lung might evolve and become tinier or heart beats slower and we age faster and die young eventually. It's a crazy world by then, perfect for another sci-fi movie, but i doubt if promoters and patrons of the Fusion Tech will permit such.

Your implication, i have found a little humor. It's like since we knew we are doomed sooner or later, then we go careless about it.

It's like on reflecting for the reasons why we wipe our asses after poop. Since, we poop again and again, then what's the damn reason to clean it. LOL. It's a nasty ideology.

But well, we'll see.

Peeewee

40% oxygen? Where did that number come from? Fusion converts heavy hydrogen to helium. I can't see any mechanism that increases the oxygen level. Please enlighten us.

Our air currently contains about 20.9% oxygen. It is my understanding that we would start having a lot more fires if the level rose to >24%. We would not survive very long if the level dropped below about <17%.

If 1 cubic mile of ocean water has enough deuterium to yield 846,000 exajoules of energy and there are about 320 million cubic miles of ocean on our little planet, I wouldn't worry too much about fusion being irreversible.

Our standard of living is pretty good. Despite all of our problems, I would much rather be living now than 200 years ago. I'm not talking about our selection of high-tech toys, either. I'd rather flip on a light switch than light an oil lamp. Cars and roads and airplanes have made the world a much smaller place. You can live 500 miles away and it's no big deal to come home for a visit several weekends each year. 200 years ago, a broken arm or an infected tooth could easily result in a slow, painful death. Sewage treatment was non-existent. Cities like London and Paris stunk beyond belief. Water quality was terrible.

I sort of enjoy crunching numbers, so here are a few more:

There are 846,000 exajoules of available fusion energy in a cubic mile of ocean and there are 320 million cubic miles of ocean.

Let's assume we can only convert .01% of this available fusion energy into useful electrical power.

That would translate to 5.4 billion years (at 500 exajoules/year)

If the demand for energy increases 100X (to 50,000 exajoules/year), the ocean's supply of deuterium would only last 54 million years.

5.4 billion years? The sun will "go red giant" in around 2 billion, therefore it's nothing for this generation to worry about.

I bet, we go headed their first than the sun.

Peeewee

Okay, I see where the oxygen is coming from. Deuterium is found in nature as D2O and DHO (Heavy water), so the process of separating deuterium from the water molecule liberates oxygen...

I crunched a few more numbers to see if your 40% figure is possible:

If my assumptions and math are correct, recovering all the deuterium present in one cubic mile of ocean would liberate about 201 billion (2.01E+11) cubic feet of O2. That sounds like a lot, until you calculate the quantity of oxygen that already exists in earth's atmosphere (assuming 20.9% oxygen).

Again, if my assumptions and math are correct, there are about 1.85E+19 cubic feet of oxygen in earth's atmosphere. Adding another 2.01E+11 cubic feet is not going to have much effect. (The change would show up in about the 8th decimal place. That's similar to peeing in a lake.)