Fusion

[DeAndre]

How much electricity would it take to create the magnetic field to contain the heat required to contain a fusion reaction for generating electricity? and I am not talking about cold fusion

[Sensei]

There is no single "fusion reaction".

There is possible thousands different combinations.

So there is no single answer to your question.

 

The most common fusion reactions are:

 

1) fusion of proton-proton

[math]p^+ + p^+ \rightarrow D^+ + e^+ + v_e + 0.42 MeV[/math]

[math]e^- + e^+ \rightarrow \gamma + \gamma + 1.022 MeV[/math]

(everywhere available Hydrogen)

 

2) fusion of proton-deuterium

[math]p^+ + D^+ \rightarrow ^3_2He + \gamma + 5.49 MeV[/math]

(hard to get fuel)

 

3) fusion of tritium-deuterium

[math]T^+ + D^+ \rightarrow ^4_2He + n^0 + 17.6 MeV[/math]

(extremely hard to get fuel Tritium produced by f.e. nuclear plants or splitting of Lithium-6 and Lithium-7)

 

Magnetic field is typically created by superconductors,superconducting electromagnets.

 

Creation of electromagnet/magnet, is not enough. There is also needed electricity to ionize fuel inside.

 

According to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnet

ITER fusion reactor use 46 kA and produce a field of 13.5 teslas.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Sensei

[studiot]

This article gives some facts and figures on the early attempts

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZETA_(fusion_reactor)

 

You should also look up

 

sceptre

tokamak

[DeAndre]

What is the most powerful fusion reaction combination?