What about tritium? Apparently only 25 pounds of it on the entire planet...

Tritium is just hydrogen with 2 neutrons, so that's also useful. You either need 2 deuterium isotopes or 1 triterium and 1 standard to make a helium atom.

I know what it is fool, I do Chemistry at AS level with ease.
What will we do with all the Helium, President Skillers? Inhale it all at a party or is there a useful thing we can do with it such as fission?

Helium was made for lulz...

a) Don't call me fool.
b) It's not really chemistry, I have only ever come across it in particle physics.
c) You have no idea how efficient nuclear fusion is. E=mc^2 means a lot. You don't need much for masses of energy. Creating 1kg of Helium from deuterium would, I think (late night maths and all), create about 5.5×10^14J of energy. That's 550TJ. A massive amount.
d) It wouldn't just be helium, other stuff is created too.

So yeah, mr "I do chemistry at AS level with ease" (for the record I cruised chem and got an A at ALevel), can you say pwned?

Well I came across it at a young age and haven't spoken much in Physics (only mentioned during nuclear power), just in Chemistry where it is mentioned sometimes when talking about isotopes.
Not knowing what Tritium is at AS level would make me a fool. You thinking that I don't know what tritium is would make you a fool, I wouldn't have mentioned it had I not known what it is, I just wanted to know from you how useful it would be in nuclear power possiblilities since it appears that one of my physics teachers lied to me. I call you a fool when it actually applies to you.
I can say "pwned" when it applies to me Skillers, once again this can end in a stalemate unless you want to just change my post because you can do that to show you in better light and put me in the dark as usual.

i'll read through when i finish college.
seems interesting. i'm sure we've already had this chat in random sh*t though xD
Fusion is very efficient and also quite safe. it depends on a very exact balance so as soon as the field brakes the reation will stop frank. there is so little fuel in the chamber so i doubt there will be any real damage. also i think its 100 million degrees for only a second or so.

cold fusion is the way

McFusion seem better.

McFusion! :O don't be crazy! there is no way we could control or contain that amount of power!

In regards to nuclear fusion, that's only ever covered in physics. Yes, they are isotopes, but it's just mentioned as an aside, as far as chemistry is concerned.

Not knowing what tritium is isn't really a big thing, it's not important to anything, really. Except that it can be part of the fuel for fusion. Seeing as it is actually a incorrect name with regards to standard nomenclature (hydrogen-3 is the correct name), it really wouldn't matter. Infact, I would go as far as saying you're a fool for even thinking that.

Also, you didn't actually address the main point of you thinking there would be a ridiculous amount of helium produced, which there most certainly isn't. And that's just considering a pure deuterium-> helium conversion, a rather simplistic look at things.

I forgot to address another point about "what to do with the helium". Firstly, fission of helium takes energy (the same amount created by fusion, actually), so that would be pointless. Infact, the helium would continue to fuse up until the point of becoming iron (the most stable element, both fission and fusion tend to iron and can't go past it without having energy put in, it's why it's the most abundant element). That's ignoring the fact that helium itself is very useful, what with it being lighter than air and having a liquid temperature of ~4K.

Also, this is far from a stalemate. You are trying to argue nuclear physics with someone who is doing physics at university, having only done physics to half an AS at best. McWill can attest to my awesome powers of physics pwn <3

@ McWill - Yeah, I think you're right there. I haven't actually studied much into the actual application of fusion, just the theory, so I'm not entirely sure. I do know they have real problems keeping it running, though. And the actual thread is about electric cars, it just got derailed onto fusion for possibly obvious reasons. I still think the link in the first post is well worth looking at, it's a really interesting concept that I think will work really well, and we finally truly bring the car into the modern age (lets face it, petrol pumps aren't really modern).

lol yeah i'll give you that xD i'm not too shabby if i do say so myself tho

i'll give the car thing a read now

Yeah, you always did well in our physics discussions, was actually really fun for me, and kept me on my toes

yeah same we need more of them lol

anyways half way through. is there anywhere that shows equations and more fuigers?
its an interesting idea. my only concern is the battery life. the 100miles will probably be max, not including air con, radio, speed etc. much better than what were using now though.


there is also a working Citroen concept for a hydrogen power. is has double the range and seemingly a more powerful engine. toping up costs less than 80p and the efficency rating is very high. cant find the science of it but there is only 1 moving part. making the car very cheap.
only problem is purifiying the hydrogen may be a problem if everyone in the world requires some everyday.

EDIT: no need to point out typo's

Erm, there aren't any equations, it doesn't really need them.

The range is fixed by "battery exchange points". Simply put, the batteries are standard and owned by the company and you're kind of renting them. What this means is you can go to an (automatic) battery replacement station and have your empty battery replaced with a full battery in 3 minutes (the empty battery is then stored and charged). Overnight and when parked stuff you leave your car to charge on your mains or special charging stations. When using the battery replacement or charging station system, I assume the car has some form of RFID chip that is tracked by the station and then automatically charged to your "subscription". With battery replacement stations less than the 100mile range apart, you will theoretically have "infinite" range. The cars could also have regenerative brakes and solar cells for extra range.

As for hydrogen cars, they are just as powerful as normal electric cars because they are both electric, just their way of storing electricity is different. Hydrogen cars use a system similar to ICE cars, with fuel pumps, however, these pumps would need to be replaced/heavily modified to work with hydrogen anyway.

I honestly think this is a fantastic idea, and the completeness of the solution is just brilliant, what with everything included in the plan - cars, charge points, replacement stations, power generation etc. It seems a much more fore thinking idea than the hydrogen cars aswell, seeing as they are basically just adapting electric cars to run like petrol cars, which isn't necessary.

WTF.

I have a chemistry exam coming up and don't understand anything, and here you guys are doing rocket science!

It's not rocket science, it's particle physics!

And Oggy, bare in mind I'm in university studying Physics, and a few people here (notably McWill) like physics and are doing it at A Level.

Physics sux ;d

BAN

See my avatar for more information...

On the topic of fusion, I just found out that this weeks Horizon was about it. Watching it now - Clicky.

i would watch it but my net is being really slow
EVE is downloading at 50kBs (and thats the fastest its been for a while) and its crashed twice after almost finishing.

I stopped watching, uni internet sucks, lagged every 15 seconds.

Haha, it works fine on my uni internet .

I can play games.

With that ping, I don't think so ^^