Cold Fusion Computer ?

[dr_sepheroth]

I'm on about the process of splitting atoms at room temperature. 

 

You know like electrolysis of salt water 

[dalekphalm]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

And another issue after thinking about it... fusion produces a ton of energy through fusing atoms/nuclei or whatever, and that energy is almost always produced as heat. Good luck for cold fusion...

Well the heat only needs to be high enough to boil water into steam to spin a turbine (Since that's how almost all heat based energy reactors work). So "cold fusion" simply means we don't need to heat the reactor to millions of degrees Celsius. But I don't know how the specific mechanisms are supposed to work, not being a physicist

[TheRandomness]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Well the heat only needs to be high enough to boil water into steam to spin a turbine (Since that's how almost all heat based energy reactors work). So "cold fusion" simply means we don't need to heat the reactor to millions of degrees Celsius. But I don't know how the specific mechanisms are supposed to work, not being a physicist

That just brings up further issues aka Most people think cold of being less than 10 Celsius. I wouldn't call over 100 Celsius cold.  It would be cool to see a cold fusion reactor though. And that pun was not intended.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, dr_sepheroth said:

I'm on about the process of splitting atoms at room temperature. 

 

You know like electrolysis of salt water 

Splitting Atoms is Nuclear Fission (Think current nuclear power generators, or the original Atom Bomb from WW2).

 

The problem with Electrolysis of salt water is that it takes more energy pumping into the system (fuelling it), then you get out of it in return. You need pretty specific types of materials for Fission to be net positive energy.

[dr_sepheroth]

hell no, millions of degrees would drive a computer through a turbine, as a liquid.

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

And another issue after thinking about it... fusion produces a ton of energy through fusing atoms/nuclei or whatever, and that energy is almost always produced as heat. Good luck for cold fusion...

That's not a problem. Cold just refers to the reaction not requiring millions of degrees like in stellar fusion or traditional fusion reactors. The heat release is in fact what you want, as you can then use that heat to generate electricity or for district heating.

[dr_sepheroth]

could a perpetual motion machine provide the energy via a alternator or dynamo ?

[TheRandomness]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

That's not a problem. Cold just refers to the reaction not requiring millions of degrees like in stellar fusion or traditional fusion reactors. The heat release is in fact what you want, as you can then use that heat to generate electricity or for district heating.

Yeah I wasn't exactly thinking when I typed that. Oops. I'd rather call it warm fusion then  

1 minute ago, dr_sepheroth said:

could a perpetual motion machine provide the energy via a alternator or dynamo ?

Perpetual motion is impossible.

[Dash Lambda]

5 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

Could a perpetual motion machine provide the energy via an alternator or dynamo?

If we had a mechanism that could remain in motion without consuming energy (which is impossible with our current understanding of physics), removing energy from that system to generate electricity would do the same thing as regular friction.

[dr_sepheroth]

I don't think perpetual motion machines are impossible.

 

and there is plenty more evidence of these devices on you tube.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

That just brings up further issues aka Most people think cold of being less than 10 Celsius. I wouldn't call over 100 Celsius cold.  It would be cool to see a cold fusion reactor though. And that pun was not intended.

"Cold" in Cold Fusion basically doesn't mean regular cold. It just means you don't need super powerful electromagnetic containment fields to keep everyone from being instantly melted by Plasma at 3 Million C

[TheRandomness]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

"Cold" in Cold Fusion basically doesn't mean regular cold. It just means you don't need super powerful electromagnetic containment fields to keep everyone from being instantly melted by Plasma at 3 Million C

But you'd still need the containment field just to contain the process, no? Also, I think evaporated would be a better word to describe what would happen to someone if they were exposed to such temperatures.

[Sakkura]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Well the heat only needs to be high enough to boil water into steam to spin a turbine (Since that's how almost all heat based energy reactors work). So "cold fusion" simply means we don't need to heat the reactor to millions of degrees Celsius. But I don't know how the specific mechanisms are supposed to work, not being a physicist

The idea is that hydrogen isotopes, which are prime candidates for fusion reactions, are difficult to bring together in the usual gas or plasma phase. But if you absorb it into a solid metal, like palladium, it could be easier to achieve high densities and fusion.

 

It just... doesn't really seem to work in practice. And the absorbtion into a solid doesn't change the final physical obstacle of bringing atomic nuclei close together. It's fine that you can get atoms of deuterium or tritium up to fairly high densities in a solid palladium substrate, but you then need an extra step to get the atomic nuclei mashed together.

 

There's no obvious reason the existing cold fusion setups should help that happen.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, dr_sepheroth said:

I don't think perpetual motion machines are impossible.

 

and there is plenty more evidence of these devices on you tube.

There is plenty of "Evidence" of these devices on YouTube.

 

There's also plenty of Evidence that man has built FTL capable super carriers on YouTube as well:

 

Does that mean we've achieved interstellar space travel? Nope. YouTube videos can be faked. Perpetual motion is impossible using current known physics. There have been zero instances where anyone has been able to prove, using the scientific method, that this is possible.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

But you'd still need the containment field just to contain the process, no? Also, I think evaporated would be a better word to describe what would happen to someone if they were exposed to such temperatures.

Yes of course you still need a containment field of some description. It just doesn't need to be as strong. You can power a much weaker field, which requires less energy to run the machine itself, thus potentially giving you a higher ratio of input energy to output energy.

 

Evaporated? Yes. Or instantly disintegrated at the molecular level The reaction would happen too fast for a person to be "melted". Melting takes time

[Dash Lambda]

2 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

-snip-

None of those are real.

Thermodynamics aren't exactly a highly contested topic in physics.

[dr_sepheroth]

I guess I am not the guy to build a green computer then.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, dr_sepheroth said:

I guess I am not the guy to build a green computer then.

Sure you could - installing a decent sized Wind Turbine or Solar Panel outside your house would do it. You'd need say, 3x 250W Solar Panels minimum, plus a battery bank setup that the panels constantly charge (To allow you to draw power during the night).

 

Or, if you live on/near one, a Geothermal generator (Think, a Hot Spring, for example), could power your computer (or your whole house).

[dr_sepheroth]

that requires external equipment, I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

But you'd still need the containment field just to contain the process, no? Also, I think evaporated would be a better word to describe what would happen to someone if they were exposed to such temperatures.

Cold fusion as proposed in the 80s would work without a containment field.

 

But physics currently regards that type of fusion as impossible.

 

Traditional fusion experiments take the simple approach of squeezing atomic nuclei together very hard, and at very high temperatures, so they spontaneously get close enough to each other to fuse. Basically they need to get so close that the very short-range nuclear force can overcome the repulsive electromagnetic force that can act at greater distances.

 

We know that process works, and it's conceptually very simple.

[straight_stewie]

1 hour ago, dr_sepheroth said:

So I been thinking, could it be possible to design and invent a device that uses cold fusion to power a computer ?

55 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

What about a Bio Fusion powered computer ?

21 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

I'm on about the process of splitting atoms at room temperature. 

You know like electrolysis of salt water 

17 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

could a perpetual motion machine provide the energy via a alternator or dynamo ?

12 minutes ago, dr_sepheroth said:

I don't think perpetual motion machines are impossible.

 I hate to be "that guy" but at this point you should probably stop talking about *science* things. Some of us are actual scientists or engineers and have a pretty good understanding of the underlying reasons why these ideas only exist in science fiction. So I'll tackle these in order, even though they've mostly been tackled already.

 

Cold Fusion

Spoiler

Cold Fusion is defined as the fusion of atoms occurring at or near room temperature. The term got thrust into popularity in 1989 when Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced the results of what has come to be known as the Fleischmann-Pons experiment. The response to their findings among the scientific community was terrible: The experiments could never be reproduced and the two men became laughing stock. They moved to France to continue their research.

Long story short: Even mentioning cold fusion in the scientific community will literally get you laughed out of town. We aren't even sure whether it's theoretically possible or not yet.

Bio Fusion

Spoiler

I'll let these google results speak for themselves:  Biofusion I just don't see what any of that has to do with producing electricity, unless this stem cell cream makes you glow so bright you can power some solar panels.

Perpetual Motion

Spoiler

Physics (specifically, the laws of thermodynamics) says NOPE. But to really shorten the answer, the problem in mechanical perpetual motion machines is friction. No matter what you do there will always be some amount of friction, which means that your mechanical movements will generate some heat, which means that energy from the machine is wasted and therefore, over time, the machine will slow down.

 

[Dash Lambda]

Just now, dr_sepheroth said:

That requires external equipment, I am thinking, a computer that could generate its own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

Well, if we achieve a workable high-temperature superconducting material (which could be possible, but we're very far from it if it is), we could make extremely low power consumption computers that could run off internal battery power for an absurd amount of time.

 

The problem with a completely self-contained generator is that it would be a closed system, and it would eventually reach heat-death. That's because useful energy isn't energy in and of itself, it's a difference in the energy states of interacting entities, and when that difference is used for power, it no longer exists.

 

It is feasible that we could make computers that run off of their environment, though. If we make computers efficient enough, we could run them off of sterling engines (which can turn a flywheel from the heat off the palm of your hand), or a generator powered by shifts in barometric pressure (like Atmos clocks), or even solar panels running off of ambient light.

That would require efficiency far beyond what we can achieve now or probably will for a long time, but it is physically possible.

[Automobili3XF]

Like, this Cold Fusion?

[Clanscorpia]

1 hour ago, Lurick said:

Gotta put in enough waste to keep the fire burning and get it hot enough to turn water into steam and turn turbines large enough to provide that much power.

 

They do have Bio-Reactors already that burn trash and turn it into power. They are actually pretty awesome but people think it will generate a lot of stench so nobody wants to build them anywhere.

They actually dont, Sweden uses them and they burn it really cleanly

[Lurick]

50 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

They actually dont, Sweden uses them and they burn it really cleanly

Yah, that's the annoying part. They could do double duty but in the states people are ill-informed most of the time.