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Asked by curry to Andrew, Ben, Beth, Heather, Louisa on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
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Ben Still answered on 18 Jun 2010:
The holy grail of energy production is cold fusion. Fusion happens in the centre of the Sun, two hydrogen atoms are fused to create helium and energy is released. But it is currently difficult to sustain such a process without massive a input of energy; such as from gravitational collapse in a star (see my answer to “”). So the holy grail to do this at cold temperatures, at least with respect to the Sun!
Research is ongoing but is progressing fast. Watch this space. For now the cleanest way of producing energy efficiently id through the exact reverse of fusion; fission, where heavy atoms split into lighter ones and release energy. This is the process that happens in the heart of all nuclear power stations.
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Andrew McKinley answered on 18 Jun 2010:
If we could achieve nuclear fusion on earth – the process that makes stars shine – our energy worries would be over.
For *making* elements though, do you mean making radioactive elements that we could use for nuclear power? Unfortunately, the laws of nature are against us on that one – we can’t make a process give out more energy than is put into it, so to make a nucleus that releases energy would take more energy than the nucleus will release when it decays.
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Beth Dyson answered on 21 Jun 2010:
We can already ‘make’ certain atoms, for example, we can make polonium by bombarding atoms of lead with protons.
However, at the moment we are limited in the atoms we can make by what we already have, and the amount of energy needed to carry out the process. We can’t make atoms from nothing, only alter the atoms we already have!
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Heather McKee answered on 22 Jun 2010:
I’m afraid gonna have to go with what these guys say on this one 🙂 thanks for the education dudes!!
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Louisa Chard answered on 24 Jun 2010:
Hiya. Yes I do and people are working on it at the moment. I think one of the most realistic and important areas is in artificial photosythesis, that someone asked about earlier. We are trying to find ways of breaking down water using sunlight (just like plants do to create their energy) to create hydrogen and/or methanol which can be used as clean and sustainable sources of fuel. Will take a while yet, but I really think they’ll get there. PLants have had a bit of a headstart on us though!
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