A Miniature Star on Earth

Originally posted by creamsoda

Originally posted by Phaethor
Any idea on what happens when this minature star finally uses all its energy collapses? Is that even a possiblity or will it simply just cease to produce energy without collapse? I admit my knowledge in this field is limited but this sounds like a plausible side effect.

Phae

My opinion is that it is a bad idea. Why ? Because it is too advanced in technology and we all know what happens to stars that run out of life and gain new life right? We get a supernova. So, this huge massive 12 story structure will more than likley kill alot. And also I think it will interfere with the earths magnetic field. Do you know how much magnetic power stars put off ?

Stars only supernova if they are supermassive. If a star that fit in a 12-story building collapsed, then more likely than not, it would just evaporate.
Remember when everyone was freaking out because there was a possibility of mini black holes being created in that new particle accelerator? Same thing. It would just evaporate, because it doesn't have enough mass to sustain itself.

Originally posted by SilentFrog
That is correct. Plasma is merely a superheated "soup" of atoms and electrons. Tokamaks thermally heat a tritrium-deuterium plamsma and contain it in a magnetic bottle.

As a quasi-random side note, were the earth to become a black hole, it would have to be reduced to a radius of... *whips out calculator* 9 e -54 meters. That is far smaller than the smallest physical length possible even with quantum mecahnics.

All black holes are compressed to singularities, are they not?

nuclear fusion isnt so ecologic as most people think, the neutron bombardment in the inner walls of the reactor (tokamak or laser-inertial confinement) create isotopes that are radioactive.

the US are investigating mainly the laser confinement (OMEGA proyect), the succes of the tokamak could turn that investigation (and heavy investments) in a waste of money and resources????

the problem of the tokamak is the mainteinance, you cant shut-down easely such millions temperature grades monster, that machine must work at such temperatures (obviusly confinated with magnetic fields) for years, because the ignition problems

the advantage of the laser confinement is the tokamak problem, is more easy to mantain and maybe cheaper to build, but the termodynamic eficiency is low, and depends on the litium fision (the energy is obtained by the neutrons-litium collision), litium is an rare and costly metal

but i think that we wont see an operative fussion reactor at least in the next 50 years, maybe we could see the fision resurection with other designs (liquid chemical core uranium circulation, or MHD generators, new designs of U238 regenerators)

could this type of power enventually be used in vehicles? or is it too risky? im just learning about fusion. i knew it existed in theory, but i had no idea we were this close.

Tahlen

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Tahlen]

could this type of power enventually be used in vehicles? or is it too risky? im just learning about fusion. i knew it existed in theory, but i had no idea we were this close.

well Tahlen, in fact we arent so close, the best fusion achieved (in tokamak) was only "gloriusly" 2 seconds, the first tokamak experiments was an soviet machine in the 60s-50s, so you can imagine that the science didnt advanced too much.

nuclear fusion on vehicles???, maybe the laser concept is better than the tokamak in small machines (planes, ships,etc),but there proyects that use fusion on space ships using magnetics mirrows (very compressed magnetic fields that reflex high temperature plasma)