this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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the implication of einsteins mass-energy equivalence formula is mind-blowing to me. one gram of mass, if perfectly converted to energy, makes 25 GWh. that means half the powerplants in my country could be replaced with this theoretical "mass converter" going through a gram of fuel an hour. that's under 10 kilograms of fuel a year.
a coal plant goes through tons of fuel a day.
energy researchers, get on it
What do you think fusion research is?
Just a fancier way to spin turbines with steam
Fancier or more efficient?
Studies into how to make a more efficient kettle.
I mean, you're not wrong.. XD
There's a possibility of using the plasma directly for inducing electrical current, actually.
But then yeah, probably steam with whatever's left.
now that would be revolutionary!
15 years away from a useful result
a fun fact: for the most efficient mass energy conversion, you need a huge spin black hole (preferably naked). Then you can get about 42% conversion. (there was a minute physics video about it i think)
No where near perfect mass conversion....
Max theoretical mass-energy conversion efficiency is under 1%
that's still waaayyyy more efficient than coal
That is a different level entirely.
The mass-energy conversion from chemical processes is extremely small compared to nuclear processes, you can't really compare the in any meaningful way
yes you can. coal costs ~32 cent per kWh, and uranium ~$0.0015 per kWh
We were talking about the mass-energy conversion, for nuclear fusion.
Not really sure how nuclear fission Vs coal cost/kWh is relevant.
Because this is a science thread I'll be a bit pedantic. Mostly because I think it's an interesting topic. It's a mass-energy equivalence (β‘) and not just an equality (=) they are the same thing.
So it's meaningless to say convert mass into energy. It's like saying I want to convert this stick from being 12 inches long to being 1 foot long.
You can convert matter (the solid form of energy) into other types of energy that are not solid. But the mass stays the same.
It's like when people say a photon is massless. It has energy and therefor mass. It just has no rest mass. So from the photons frame of reference no mass but from every other fame of reference there is mass.
thanks! love me some science pedantry.
Yep. The Higgs field interacts with matter, both holding the waves it's made up of "in place" (so it can seem macroscopically like it's not a wave), and carrying a bunch of energy.
There's also mass-energy just in the very fast and powerful internal movements and fields of the nuclei and the individual protons and neutrons (which are made of gluons and quarks). Not sure about the breakdown off the top of my head, though.
If you blew up an atomic bomb in a magically indestructible sealed container, it would stay the same weight, just with a noticeable contribution from pure electromagnetism now.
Neat. I know almost nothing about the the Higgs field.
That's most of what I understand, honestly. It also connects to the weak force somehow, and I think other fields can have the same effect in certain case.
I'm confident about the basic quantum mechanics of matter here, but I can't actually do quantum field theory, so I guess I could still be misunderstanding something. Buyer beware.
If mass can convert into energy that easily then weβre all in a lot of troubleβ¦