Science of IRON MAN: Fusion

The coolest superhero movie in years, and one particuarly dear to those who work on spacesuits is IRON MAN! A protective suit that amplifies the wearer's strength dates to Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, and has inspired anime like BUBBLEGUM CRISIS. It is as natural outgrowth of spacesuit technology, and one such application will be discussed tomorrow. Today we'll focus on Iron Man's energy supply. What is that glowing thing in his chest?

Iron Man's power supply is a small version of the display reactor at Stark Industries. A similiar display appeared at the New York World's Fair of 1964. The Tokomak is a donut-shaped magnetic bottle for containing hot plasma. Controlled fusion has long held the promise of limitless energy, but requires temperatures and pressures similiar to the Sun's interior. Despite decades of work, controlled fusion remains as it was in 1964, just around the corner. Doctor Octopus in SPIDER MAN 2 was still working on fusion. Hopefully ITER or the National Ignition Facility in Livermore will finally make it practical.

Humans presumptuously think they understand the Sun, enough to reproduce it in a lab. Containing plasma at temperatures of millions of degrees is like holding smoke with rubber bands. As readers of this blog know, our Sun works by pulling the plasma inward. The Sun was ignited by a tiny Black Hole that drew gas toward it until temperatures and pressures allowed fusion to commence. The Black Hole is still there, quite at home in the Sun's hot centre.

Tony Stark is shown carefully making a ring of palladium. This material is key to "cold fusion" experiments. Could Stark have perfected cold fusion in a cave? His chest device combines the shape of a Tokomak with palladium rings. Though the initial hype about cold fusion was discredited, determined researchers are still working on it. Since such work is considered un-mainstream, we can sympathise and wish them luck.

Though some of us are fortunate to live off the grid, the search for energy is always on the world's mind. A lecture in 1908 about the future of energy would have been about coal and oil. In 1905 someone had written down E=mc^2, though the world had as yet taken little notice. By 1945 the world had built a nuclear reactor and an atomic bomb. What surprises could someone be cooking up in the dark of a cave? The energy of a Black Hole would make even nuclear fusion look crude.

UPDATE: Stark mentions in passing that his chest device produces 3 GJ/sec, or 3000 megawatts! That's enough watts to light 3 million homes, power not just the suit but the lights of Los Angeles too. An exaggeration?