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A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. [1] These reactors can be fueled with more-commonly available isotopes of uranium and thorium, such as uranium-238 and thorium-232, as opposed to the rare uranium-235 which is used in conventional reactors.
A fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. The condition of Q = 1, when the power being released by the fusion reactions is equal to the required heating power, is referred to as breakeven , or ...
Construction of prototypes is continuing (see fast breeder or generation IV reactors). In principle, fusion power could be produced by nuclear fusion of elements such as the deuterium isotope of hydrogen. While an ongoing rich research topic since at least the 1940s, no self-sustaining fusion reactor for any purpose has ever been built.
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Though both reactors and nuclear weapons rely on nuclear chain reactions, the rate of reactions in a reactor is much slower than in a bomb. (from Nuclear reactor ) Image 74 The now decommissioned United States' Peacekeeper missile was an ICBM developed to replace the Minuteman missile in the late 1980s.
Articles dealing specifically with using this process to produce useful power are contained in the subcategory Fusion power. Articles about nuclear processes that are speculative or poorly understood (like cold fusion ), or whose potential for power production is remote (like muon-catalyzed fusion ) are kept in the main category.
The first patent related to a fusion reactor was registered in 1946 [16] by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The inventors were Sir George Paget Thomson and Moses Blackman. This was the first detailed examination of the Z-pinch concept. Starting in 1947, two UK teams carried out experiments based on this concept. [1]