• Question: Does your work include helping the environment?

    Asked by 08hathwayr to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 16 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 15 Nov 2011:

      Great question! I believe my work will eventually contribute towards helping the environment since my research has applications to fusion energy.

      Fusion energy is the worlds biggest opportunity to overcome our global dependance on fossil fuels which damage the earth and pollute our cities and lungs and it feels great to be a part of that work.

      Fusion is the process of takes two atoms and ‘fusing’ them together by pushing them so close that they merge and form a new heavier atom. Now what we find when we squash low mass atoms together is that the weight of all the squashed atoms is less that if we had weighed them all separately and added them together… so we have lost mass!

      Einstein said that Energy and mass are related by his famous equation:

      Energy is mass multiplied by speed of light squared

      Now since the speed of light is a huge number, a little bit of mass will turn into a lot of energy and therefore a little bit of fusion fuel can give us lots and lots of energy.

      What is even better is… this energy is predicted to be cheap (the fuels come from sea water), clean, and safe. With a fusion reactor you do not have the same risks as with other types of nuclear power plants.

      All we need is lot of great scientists to put their minds to the task of overcoming the technological challenges… fancy being one of them? 😀

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      It’s kind of difficult to say… hopefully I’m going to persuade you that yes is the answer…

      Running a particle accelerator requires a lot of power – the accelerator runs 24/7 and is jam packed full of electrical compoonents and electro-magnets, all requiring a lot of power.
      So in that sense, my work is probably quite bad for the environment…

      But!

      What comes out the other end of the acceleration process are protons at 84% speed of light. And when they’re smashed into a target they produce neutrons. These neutrons are then used by other scientists to discover really cool things.

      One of the most exciting things to come out of ISIS recently is high quality research into the possibility of trapping Hydrogen atoms inside carbon nanotubes and the ability to get the hydrogen out of them again. This is amazing – not only from a technology point of view – but from an environmental point of view. If these scientists can continue to prove that it’s possible to safely store and remove hydrogen from materials (possibly carbon nanotubes) then this paves the way for the likelyhood of people having hydrogen fuelled cars in the not so distant future! Imagine that – rather than filling up with nasty fuels like petrol and diesel that produce bad emissions for the atmosphere – you could fill up a car with hydrogen! This would then be used as a fuel and the only by-product of using hydrogen as a fuel in this way is water – and that’s clean!

      So indirectly, my job is contributing to helping the environment by helping aid the discovery of new tools and techniques that will be vital in combatting environmental concerns!

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Particle physics is about understanding the Universe we live in and how it works. To do this we are constantly having to develop new and cutting-edge devices and techniques, which often then find their way into everyday life.

      For example, if you go for a scan at a hospital they will be using detectors which were cutting-edge particle physics 50 years ago.

      Environmental science has also benefited from particle physics’ improvements in using computers to solve large problems, like modelling our climate.

      I also strongly believe that increasing our knowledge and understanding of how out world works is of intrinsic benefit to society as a whole and improves us as human beings.

      So although my work is not directly solving any major issues like the environment or illnesses, I do think that our work is having a positive effect on the lives of others.

Comments