Building a Homemade Nuclear Reactor In NYC 219
yukk writes "Mark Suppes, a web developer for Gucci, is working on his own personal fusion reactor. His work in a NYC warehouse using $35,000 of his own money and $4,000 raised on a website has made him the 38th independent researcher recognized as creating a working fusion reactor. How's that for a hobby?"
Wiki link to Farnsworth fusor (Score:5, Informative)
(yeah, yeah, I know...never trust anything on Wikipedia... but it's still a good reference starting point)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor [wikipedia.org]
Re:Simply a Fusor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Didn't end well for the last person who did thi (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Didn't end well for the last person who did thi (Score:3, Informative)
He tried to build a fission reactor. This is a fusion reactor.
Reactions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uh Typo (Score:5, Informative)
No, Fission involves the process of heavy (unstable, usually something like Uranium) element decaying into a lighter element and some radiation, where the radiation is used to generate electricity.
This is a proper fusion reactor, as it uses electricity to join (light, usually some form of hydrogen, be it H2 or H3) atoms together, releasing neutrons in the process from which you can generate electricity.
Problem with fusion reactors is that the input (electricity used to join the atoms) is usually bigger then the output, so it's not viable yet as a power source, but when it is figured out, you have a clean power source that uses light elements to produce slightly heavier elements with no radioactive by-products.
Re:Didn't end well for the last person who did thi (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Hahn didn't do this - He created a fission reactor. (Which, IMO, makes him deserve far more credit because fission is dangerous and far harder to get the materials for.)
Basic fusion is easy with the Farnsworth Fusor design. The problem is that it's not a useful design for anything but low-yield neutron generation for experiments - it can't generate power due to operating nowhere close to breakeven and, if I recall correctly, with quite a bit of physics saying that such a design will never be able to achieve breakeven at any scale.
Re:Uh Typo (Score:3, Informative)
look at the man's face (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/images?q=david+hahn [google.com]
what that is is kaposi's sarcoma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaposi's_sarcoma [wikipedia.org]
if you need a hobby, radioactive materials is not your best choice
No, it's a polywell (Score:3, Informative)
It's an polywell in fact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell [wikipedia.org]
Re:Uh Typo (Score:2, Informative)
That being said, being in a high neutron flux for any length of time can be harmful to a human.
Of course this is handled with shielding. And I believe in any serious fusion reactor breeder blankets (not sure which material) are put in place, which absorb neutrons to generate lithium. Lithium is required for the D-T reaction.
Since I'm no expert in fusion I'm sure someone else can give a more precise answer.
Re:Am I wrong or... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Neat (Score:2, Informative)
Here's your Ghost Busters reference at XKCD [xkcd.com].
Re:Uh Typo (Score:3, Informative)
Neutrons are best blocked with materials containing light elements like hydrogen. Sometimes a combination of lead bricks and polyethylene bricks is used around a target in a fission based neutron source. The lead bricks block gamma rays, and the neutrons scatter off the hydrogen in polyethylene, slowing them down until they can be absorbed. In Alcator C-Mod tokamak, a concrete neutron shield is used.
Lithium is mined, not generated. It is used in the breeder blanket to produce tritium by the reaction n + 6Li --> T + He.