Physics and cool technology-future energy sources.

Energy sources of the future can be verfy different to the fossil fuel economy of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The theoretical physicist Steven Hawkins discovered that black holes aren't black, they acutally glow with radiating energy.

If we could compress a mountain of rock down to the size of a subatomic particle we would create a mini black hole that would radiate energy and be as hot as our Sun. This heat energy can be used to drive our generators and produce electrical energy.

But here is the trick. Try to compress a mountain of rock down to the dimensions of a subatomic particle. That is not an easy thing to do and we therefore rely on the development of future technologies to be able to do this.

 

 

 

 

Another theoretical physicist Roger Penrose discovered that we can extract energy from a rotating black hole. A future civilisation can, theoretically, build their world around a rotating black hole, as shown on the right, and derive energy from it by pouring their rubbish into the black hole. Theoretically, we can insert the rubbish so that part of it is absorbed and part of it comes flying out. The part that comes flying out has an enormous amount of energy that can be used. A mass of rubbish about 500g can supply a large city with all its energy for about a year.

 
Einstein proposed that mass and energy are interchangeable according to his famous equation on the right. This allowed us to explain the enormous amount of energy that comes from the Sun every second. The fusion process in the Sun is the source of this energy. It turns out that when particles fuse together a small amount of mass is turned into an enormous amount of energy.

 

Now that we know how the Sun works we can build a mini Sun right here on Earth. Sounds rediculous? Well, it has already taken place in the South of France. ITER stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and is pictured on the right. It is one of the biggest and most complex human endeavours in history. The relative size of a person is shown by the arrow.

The idea is to make a small sun in the shape of a donut and use its energy to heat water and drive our electrical generators.

Click to view this artificial sun on a smaller scale than ITER, during a test run.

 

Why is this technology a cleaner way to produce energy than our current forms of fossil fules?

Where does the Sun's energy come from?
What is the difference, in the way energy is produced, between using fossil fuel and using nuclear fusion?
Why is nuclear fusion better than our current nuclear energy source that employs nuclear fission of uranium 235.