Re: Fusion energy was: SNOW JOB

----- Original Message -----
From: "Randall L Joiner" <rljoiner@mindspring.com>
>
> Dihydrogen was being made as early as the 1800's AFAIR.

Dihydrogen is the normal Hydrogen molecule (two atoms of Hydrogen bonded
chemical)
Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen - the nucleus of the atom consists
of a
proton and a neutron, instead of the usual single proton.

> Compressors, admittedly
> poor quality when compared with todays, existed then as well.
> Really, all you need is a vacuum, an electrode, and some water.

To produce hydrogen, you don't even need a vacuum. A pair of electrodes,
electricity and slightly salty water are enough (elementary chemistry).
There are other ways, but that's the best known.

> > OTH if you only fuse the deuterium isotope seperating it could be
> > a bit more difficult.  AFAIK all current research on fusion is
> > using deuterium.  Anyone know how you seperate deuterium from
> > normal hydrogen?
>
> By weight/mass.
>
> Worst way would be the same way they do oil refining, with the
separation
of the
> different hydrocarbons.  Can be done with any tech that allows
moonshine
stills
> or better.
> Nasty, brutish, noisy, clunky, inefficient...

Very much so. You can produce heavy water that way (a mix of D2O and
HDO, I
suppose), and produce the Deuterium from that.
Another options would be to make hydrogen first (by electrolysis) and
then
distill the hydrogen (rather more involved than distilling water) or use
centrifuges, or mass spectrometers (the best separation, I should think)

Greetings