Quote:
Originally Posted by Earl of Bronze
Sparkle.... Surely the reactor only needs to maintain the 150 million degree temperature to start the fusion reaction ? Unless I picked up the info wrong ofc....
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I'm not aware of a massive drop in the temperature requirement to sustain fusion once triggered. However once fusion is occurring, the external heating energy (microwave plasma and electric arc heating) supplied is no longer required provided there remains sufficient fuel in the plasma, as it becomes self sustaining - but the minimum temperature required still remains way up in the tens of millions of deg C.
The difference between continuous (in contrast to the American pulse fusion reactor) artificial fusion and "natural" fusion as it occurs in stars is that we can't use gravity the way a star does. A star generates tremendous pressure at its core, whereas artificial fusion must occur in the center of a large vacuum chamber (to reduce reactor wall temperatures) so there is virtually no pressure, the plasma is controlled not with pressure but with magnetic fields. Partly due to the lack of pressure, the temperature must very much higher and only possible with deuterium and tritium, using pure hydrogen requires temperatures even higher still.