Quote:
Originally Posted by GOURDHEAD
In the description of the sun given in [snip] the energy output is given as [snip] they describe a powerful fusion energy plant. A fusion plant of whatever size will have to have its energy harnessed by some interfacing equipment to get the power in usable form. I suggest we take the fusion plant nature has provided and work on harnessing its energy which seems more easily obtained than building a fusion device from scratch.
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I agree with your assessment.
Although without a doubt the sun is a powerful fusion plant in the sense of the size of its output in relation to any other energy output device in the near vicinity, it is also in another sense a very weak one. It will take a time period measured in billions of years to consume all of its fuel. So the conclusion is that at temperatures and pressures in the sun the probability of fusion for any given hydrogen atom is actually exceedingly low. In the case of an earth-bound fusion plant, we can't wait that long to fuse the quantity of material we will put into that plant. That is why a fusion plant on the earth has to have substantially more extreme conditions than the core of the sun, so as to achieve fusion at much higher rates than the sun. Only that way can we achieve a useful output for a small scale device.