If my mind serves me correctly, fission is splitting a particle into two, and fusion is bringing those two together, and nuclear fission and fusion produce huge amounts of energy, so why couldn’t we theoretically create a reactor that alternates between those two sometime way in the future?
In: Physics
Yes, you could theoretically make a fission reactor that produced elements which were then re-fused to make fissile fuel. This wouldn’t generate an infinite energy loop because the energy from those fission and fusion reactions is coming from the conversion of a tiny amount of the fuel’s mass into energy.
In other words, each time you split an atom or fuse atoms into a heavier element a small amount of the mass involved in the reaction is lost to produce energy. As you ran your reactor the amount of mass in the fuel would slowly evaporate away until there was no fuel left.
Latest Answers