China's scientists and engineers move forward on fusion energy

[whistle]

...generation to suplant their growing need for oil. Where has the U.S. and the Bush administration taken us in the last five and a half years? Greater and greater dependence on oil, that's where. Time is running out for the U.S. to be the leader in new sources of energy.

<snip>
China claims fusion reactor test a success
Governments hope fusion provides clean, limitless energy source

AP Updated: 3:22 p.m. ET Sept 28, 2006

BEIJING - Scientists on Thursday carried out China's first successful test of an experimental fusion reactor, powered by the process that fuels the sun, a research institute spokeswoman said.

China, the United States and other governments are pursuing fusion research in hopes that it could become a clean, potentially limitless energy source. Fusion produces little radioactive waste, unlike fission, which powers conventional nuclear reactors.

Beijing is eager for advances, both for national prestige and to reduce its soaring consumption of imported oil and dirty coal. The test by the government's Institute of Plasma Physics was carried out on a Tokamak fusion device in the eastern city of Hefei, said Cheng Yan, a spokeswoman at the institute.

Cheng said the test was considered a success because the reactor produced plasma, a hot cloud of supercharged particles. She wouldn't give other details. <.....>

China is the world's No. 2 oil consumer and its No. 3 importer, consuming at least 3.5 million barrels of foreign oil per day last year.

China plans to build dozens of nuclear power plants and is trying to promote use of cleaner alternative energy sources such as natural gas, wind power and methanol made from corn.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15043462/

[shadowknows69]

1. Meanwhile back here in the dark ages...

n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Nonsense

People need to bone up on the facts with regard to the Laws of Thermodynamics, i.e. high school physics.

1. Turning hydrogen into water (burning hydrogen) is an energy negative process because it takes more energy to extract hydrogen from water to serve as fuel than it generates. Even Popular Mechanics consistently fails to tell people this. (you could get hydrogen from natural gas by burning off the natural gas in the ANWR/McKenzie Delta, or using the natural gas to power extraction of heavy oil from the tar sands of Alberta, but what would be the point? There's 10x the energy stored in the natural gas as there is in the free hydrogen trapped in natural gas fields.)

2. It takes energy to isolate the right hydrogen isotope for fusion. (heavy water -- you have to use centrifuges and electrolysis, the most energy negative way to extract hydrogen)

3. It takes massive amounts of energy to create plasma.

4. No fusion reactor in the world is energy-positive -- they don't generate enough energy to make up for the power needed to maintain the reaction.

5. The Chinese said they were able to generate plasma using a US design tokamak, not positive energy output. I could generate temps 1000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun in a lab. Does that mean I have found a source of energy? No.