Cheeseburger+Boogies+Group

  __Climate Change Solutions __ by: Christine Butler, Sarah Higley and Hillary Lackman

**__Table of Content__**   **I.** Fusion Power - Pros and Cons **II.** Nuclear Power from Fission Plant - How They Work - Pros and Cons - How They Work - Pros and Cons - Applications
 * III. ** Fuel Cells
 * IV.** Technological Improvements

//Fusion Power // **What is Fusion Power?** Fusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion reactions.In nuclear fusion reactions, two light atomic nuclei fuse together into one atom. This process releases energy. The most common elements that are used in fusion power are deuterium, hydrogen, and tritium. When atoms get closer to each other, they repulse each other because of an electrostatic force. But in nuclear fusion reactions, the nuclear force causes the atoms to fuse together into one atom. The mass of the newly formed atom is greater than the mass of only a single atom, but less then the mass of the sum of the two atoms before they fuse. This is because energy is released when the atoms fuse. The amount of energy that is released can be described by Einstein's equation "E=mc^2", "m" is the amount of mass the substance has lost, and "c" is the speed of light (techFAQ).



//**PROS **//
 * PROS AND CONS OF FUSION POWER **
 * **The Fusion Process is Safe**: Fusion isn't a chain reaction so the reaction will never get out of hand. The reaction only lasts a couple of seconds because only 2 grams of fuel are used at one time. There isn't a constant flow of fuel into fusion power station.
 * **No Emmission of Greenhouse Gases**: Fusion plants won't produce carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases. The only gas that a fusion reaction produces is helium. Therefore fusion power is a clean way to get energy. A single fusion power station could generate electricity for two million housesolds.
 * **Capacity for Large Scale Energy Production**: The materials that are needed for fusion power are in abundant supply and will never run out. Deterium can be extracted from sea water and tritium can be formed from a light metal in the Earth's crust. All of the fuels that are needed in a fusion reaction can be found anywhere in the world.
 * **No Harmful Waste**: Only a small amout of radioactive metal parts are produced close to the fusion plasma. The radioactive waste produced is small in volume and will decay in several decades. It may be possible to reuse the waste after 100 years. This means that future generations won't be left to deal with large amounts of radioactive waste.

//** CONS ** //
 * **No Net Energy Gain**: Scientists haven't been able to have a long enough fusion reaction to accomplish a net energy gain. As a result, countries are fasing out their research in fusion power because the advancements in it are slow.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Technological Advances Have Been Slow**: The technology used for fusion power still needs to be further developed to make sure it is reliable and economical. All of the materials that are used to build a power station need to be tested to make sure they are strong enough to handle the amount of energy that the power station will produce.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**The Amount of Time**: The development of fusion power has been slow because it is a difficult process. Although the advances have been slower than other clean energy sources, it has the potential to be one of the most efficient.

<span style="text-align: center; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; color: rgb(69, 73, 135); font-size: 150%;">** Nuclear Power - from fission plants ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Currently, about half of all nuclear power plants are located in the U.S. A nuclear power plant captures the energy inside atoms and converts it into electricity. A nuclear power plants uses nuclear fission to harness the energy and gather it for use somewhere else. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: 90%;">

//Some background info on nuclear power plants://
 * media type="youtube" key="cXvc5jQVkVI" height="344" width="425"

<span style="color: rgb(215, 29, 46); font-size: 110%;">What exactly is fission? ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"A nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus, especially a heavy nucleus such as an isotope of uranium, splits into fragments, usually two fragments of comparable mass, releasing from 100 million to several hundred million electron volts of energy." (Dictionary.com).

<span style="color: rgb(215, 29, 46);">**<span style="color: rgb(215, 29, 46); font-size: 110%;">So how do you go from fission to electricity? ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">A nuclear power plants produces energy in almost the same way that a regular power (fossil fuel) plant does. A regular power plants burns fuel to create heat. This fuel is most often coal, but sometimes oil can be used. The heat is used to raise the temperature of water, causing it to boil and produce steam. This turns into a turbine which generates the electricity. Now, a nuclear power plant does the same thing, except that the heat used to boil the water is produced by a nuclear fission reaction using uranium for fuel. A nuclear power plants uses significantly less fuel than a typical power plant. An estimate says that is takes 17,000 kilograms of coal to produce the same amount of electricity as 1 kilogram of nuclear uranium fuel. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: 120%;">

**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(143, 20, 173); font-size: 110%;">PROS AND CONS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ** **<span style="color: rgb(143, 91, 91); font-size: 110%;"> __//<span style="color: rgb(22, 26, 227); font-size: 110%;">PROS //__ **
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%;">Nuclear power plants do not depend on the burning of fossil fuels to produce energy. So, the cost of nuclear power isn't affected by fluctuations in oil and gas prices.
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%;">Coal and natural gas power plants emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Therefore, with nuclear power plants, CO2­ emissions are minimal.
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%;">A properly functioning nuclear power plant actually releases less radioactivity into the atmosphere than a coal-fired power plant

<span style="color: rgb(22, 26, 227);">**__// CONS //__**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">In the past, mining and purifying uranium for fuel in the nuclear power plants hasn't been a very clean process.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Even transporting nuclear fuel to and from plants poses a contamination risk. And once the fuel is used, you can't just throw it away because it is still radioactive and possibly deadly.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">This waste emits radiation and heat, meaning that it will eventually corrode containers and can prove lethal to nearby life forms. Nuclear power plants produce a lot of high-level and low-level radioactive waste in the form of nuclear fuel, radiated parts and equipment. Eventually, the used nuclear fuel will decay to safe radioactive levels, but it takes tens of thousands of years.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">** * ** Nuclear waste poses a large problem, not just a predicted problem, but one that has actually happened. When something goes wrong, the situation can turn catastrophic. The disaster in Chernobyl is a recent example. In 1986, a Ukrainian nuclear reactor exploded, releasing 50 tons of radioactive material into the surrounding area, contaminating millions of acres of land. The disaster forced the evacuation of at least 30,000 people, and eventually caused thousands to die from cancer and other illnesses. But Chernobyl was poorly designed and improperly operated. If a nuclear power plant is carefully supervised and controlled, another accident like this can surely be avoided.** * **



<span style="text-align: center; display: block; color: rgb(249, 1, 67); font-size: 140%;">**Fuel Cells** <span style="color: rgb(102, 190, 244);">**<span style="color: rgb(0, 188, 255); font-size: 110%;">What are fuel cells? ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Because of the constant need for energy in many aspects of today's life, more efficient energy sources are beneficial and much needed. Currently, there are several different companies that have developed fuel cells and started to put them into use. They can be used with just about anything that needs to use energy: transportation, portable power, residential areas, power plants, hospitals, public facilities and landfill/waste water treatment are many of the places where fuel cells can be used or already have been used. <span style="color: rgb(102, 190, 244);">**<span style="color: rgb(0, 188, 255); font-size: 110%;">How do they work? ** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Fuel cells are essentially batteries that provide energy by producing electrochemical reactions. A fuel cell consists of two electrodes around an electrolyte. Oxygen passes over one electrode and hydrogen over the other electrode, generating electricity, water and heat. However, fuel cells do not run out of power or need to be recharged. They will produce energy in the form of electricity and heat as long as fuel is supplied. These cells can run on hydrogen gas, water, gasoline, methane, ethanol, natural gas, diesel fuel, and other hydrocarbons. There are several different types of fuel cells, including solid oxide, alkaline, proton exchange membrane, molten carbonate, phosphoric acid and regenerative fuel cells.



PROS AND CONS OF FUEL CELLS //<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">**<span style="color: rgb(0, 255, 0); font-size: 120%;">PROS ** // <span style="color: rgb(0, 255, 0); font-size: 120%;">
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Environmentally Friendly:** The use of fuel cells will significantly reduce the amount of air pollution in a given area and are considered a type of clean energy. Also, even though noise pollution is not a common problem, fuel cells are very quiet, which allows for siting close to business or residences.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Flexible:** Fuel cells are very versatile. They can be stacked until the desired power output is reached. Larger fuel cells can be linked together to achieve megawatt outputs. They are also durable and rugged, so they can withstand any terrain or weather conditions.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Multiple Uses: Other than providing energy, the waste heat from fuel cells can be contained and then used to heat water or to provide space heating.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Transportation:** Fuel cell vehicles are the least polluting of all vehicles that consume fuel directly. Using fuel cells to power cars would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and lower usage of gasoline and/or diesel.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**More Reliable:** Fuel cells create less friction so therefore have a higher performance and need less maintenance. They range in size and can be used to power something as small as a cell phone to something as large as an industrial sized generator for an entire town. Fuel cells can also be configured to provide backup power to a grid-connected customer, should the grid fail. Properly configured fuel cells can achieve up to 99.9999% reliability, less than one minute of down time in a six year period.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Very Efficient:** Fuel cells can convert chemical energy of the fuel directly into electrical energy, in one step. Other sources of energy that use combustion methods, first need to convert the chemical energy into thermal energy. Then, this must be converted into mechanical energy and finally converted into electrical energy.
 * //CONS//**
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Expensive:** Being such a new technology means fuel cells are still very expensive, and more needs to happen in their commercial development before costs can come down.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Fuel Issues:** Although fuel cells have abundant fuel options, many of them run on hydrogen. Hydrogen is very hard to store. It's not a compact liquid unless kept cold, which wastes energy and reduces its effectiveness.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">**Competition:** The newest Lithium-ion batteries are starting to leave fuel cells behind as an energy store. These batteries are cheaper, easier to store, and the car industry is already using them more frequently.

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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Fuel cells are the current solution that is used by fusion power.

__<span style="text-align: center; display: block; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; color: rgb(135, 34, 206); font-size: 140%;">How are Fuel Cells Being Used? __ <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Fuel cells can be used in many different ways and are currently being applied to produce energy. <span style="color: rgb(221, 14, 14);">**Portable:** Fuel cells promise to be an important source of power for mobile electronic devices for several reasons. The fuels cells could potentially replace conventional batteries. The fuel cells have a longer operating time then batteries, are lighter in weight, and easier to recharge. Currently, most developments have been focused on a variation of the low temperature proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, and the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). These fuel cells are powered by methanol-water mix fed directly into the portable unit without prior reforming. DMFCs have an advantage over conventional solid batteries because to recharge them, the unit has to be refilled with the liquid fuel.
 * <span style="color: rgb(227, 36, 22);">Large Stationary: ** Large staionary applications of fuel cells can be used to produce electricity and heat. These models are very efficient and have a low amount of emissions. They have an operating temperature as low as 80 C. Large stationaries can be installed in private households or even large industrial operations.Most fuel cell manufacturers have been focusing on creating large stationaries for non-residential applications. UTC Fuel Cells have installed over 250 phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC) in schools, office blocks, and banking facilities. Currently, high temperature feul cells are being developed, like molten carbonate (MCFC) and solid oxide (SOFC). the operating temperatures are between 600- 1100 C. These high temp fuels cells will have the ability to power larger industries and use the heat generated by the station to produce electricity by driving steam turbines.
 * <span style="color: rgb(226, 58, 50);">Small Stationary: ** Small stationary units are defined as a power output below 10kW. These units could power the basic amount of energy needed in single homes, a group of households, or small businesses. Natural gas would provide the source of hydrogen fuel. In addition to residential applications, small stationary fuels cells could be used to power remote sites or as premium power supplies and again the fuel would be hydrogen.
 * <span style="color: rgb(249, 36, 36);">Military: ** The military could use fuel cells for many reasons. The fuel cells are efficient, versatile, have an extended operating time, and operate very quietly. The fuels cells could have a variety of uses in the military. The fuel cells have the potential to power the majority of military equipment, from portable handheld devices used in the field to powering land and sea transportation.
 * <span style="color: rgb(234, 52, 52);">Transportation: ** The Fuel cell technology promises to meet the strict emissions legislation. But if fuel cells are to replace the internal combustion engine, the technology must also reach operating temperature rapidly, provide competitive fuel economy, and give a responsive performance. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) seem to be the best fuel cell for the job because they have a low operating temperature of 80 C so they will be able to reach the operating temperature quickly.

<span style="text-align: center; display: block; color: rgb(243, 231, 53);"> <span style="color: rgb(251, 179, 70); font-size: 120%;">**Technological Improvements:** <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Because fusion is an environmentally safe way of limitless energy on earth, it has been a very difficult process for researchers to control and master fusion on earth within the past 65 years. Some methods have been enforced by JET (Joint European Torus), which is the largest leading fusion research facility in the world. JET decided that to master the fussion on earth, the obstacles involved are containing equal parts of tritium and deuterium while heating a large volume of dilute gas to over 100M°C (M°C=one million degrees celsius) while preventing it from being cooled. The other step that must be taken to master fusion power is to build a power station that will be taken by a global collaboration. This power station is called ITER and it will include all the technologies that are needed in a fusion power station. ITER is twice the size of JET and should be able to provide 10 times more than needed to heat the gas and prove that it is not impossible to build a fusion power station. ITER will be able to produce at the least, 500 MW of fusion power. The only disadvantage with ITER is that it will take a long period of time to prove that it will actually help and work to beneifit the earth. A lot of research and experimentations must be done before it can properly be used and it must develop the proper technology for it to work. Tokamaks, devices that were made in 1969 has been the current source that is used to help contain the hot gases. Because of Tokamaks, the devlopment and usage of ITER is not in urgent demand. It will be a better product to use, but there is no rush on it. It is predicted that the time to create ITER will be about 10 years but then the final results must be used to finalize the design of a prototype fusion power station, DEMO or Demonstator. It will take another 10 years to build DEMO and considering there is much need for funding, this whole system will take about 30 years for it to start working. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> //The design for ITER//

**__SOURCES__** "Advantages and Disadvantages." __Energy Matters__. 14 May 2009 []. []

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Brain, Marshall and Robert Lamb. "How Nuclear Power Works." 09 October 2000. HowStuffWorks.com.14 May 2009. <http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power.htm>

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"The Nuclear Fission Power Plant." __Thinkquest 98.__ 14 May 2009. <http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/fission_power/fission_power.html>

"The Online Fuel Cell Information Resource." __Fuel Cells 2000.__ 14 May 2009. <http://www.fuelcells.org/ > <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica; font-size: 80%;">