[H2-333]

Greetings all,
I'm new to any such studies. With no formal introduction in Chemistry. So if you could entertain my thoughts and give some additional education to the new guy.

My lack of formal education in this does nothing to slow my constant consumption of information. A passion of mine is Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology. Therefor, always exploring all things Hydrogen.

I've spent the last few days researching some ambiguous historical data on the discoveries of Ernest Rutherford. As you cannot depend on YouTube to be actual or factual, nor can you rely on the swamp of trash found within Google. But it has gotten me this far.

My questions revolve around 2 of Rutherford's findings:

• In what Rutherford called Fast Hydrogen; formally known as the Proton; I assume we refer to, a single loose proton, as ionized? Meaning it lacks an electron... Correct? Are individual protons readily freed through radioactive interaction? Can this free proton collect a free electron? Thus actually becoming Hydrogen>
• Then there is this: N + He = O + H
  Which I understand is not a necessarily a gross volume process. I would think the higher volume and higher energy partials would up production in conversion. I would venture to believe that with the excess of high energy partials that are stored as waste or contained high energy matter, could otherwise work for us. Therefor not waste. Keep in mind, I am here to get schooled

Truth is, I'm rather pissed that we are a minimum of 10 years behind on this technology, making serious headway. Given Wired Magazine was expressing the amazing future we faced in its 1999/2000 issue, Of what's to come by 2010.

Yes, we have come along way, in a spectrum of ways.
Yes, I agree I can not live by the foretelling's of a Rag magazine.

I also understand the resistant nature of "the powers that be". Why not squeeze out a few more billion from John Q. Public, the old fashion way. Like Tesla being shutdown for his "unmetered" ambitions.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
The New Guy

[Enthalpy]

Hi H2-333, welcome here!

[...] you cannot depend on YouTube to be actual or factual, nor can you rely on the swamp of trash found within Google[...]

You can depend on no information source. Peer-reviewed science journals, textbooks, courses too contain their fair share of mistakes, nonsense and scam. Alas, too many scientists tend to believe them without a critical mind. I like chemists because they know that all science is experimental except maths. Bad physicists tend to be very doctrinaire.

OK, some sources are more often correct than others.

In what Rutherford called Fast Hydrogen; formally known as the Proton; I assume we refer to, a single loose proton, as ionized? Meaning it lacks an electron... Correct? Are individual protons readily freed through radioactive interaction? Can this free proton collect a free electron? Thus actually becoming Hydrogen

I didn't know "fast hydrogen" and found "fast hydrogen nuclei" on the web. These are protons, yes, which form a hydrogen atom by picking an electron, and create molecules too.

Very few nuclei emit spontaneously a proton by radioactive decay. Common radioactivity emits an alpha, or an electron or a positron, or swallows an electron, and is often accompanied by a gamma emission. Spontaneous fission, emission of a proton, a neutron... are exotic.

Collisions of neutrons, protons, deuterons, alphas... on nuclei often emit protons ripped from the nucleus. Such collisions need energy from a linear accelerator, a cyclotron, or other means.

If such a collision uses a proton, it's normally obtained from hydrogen, with some spark or equivalent that rips the hydrogen molecule apart.

Then there is this: N + He = O + H
Which I understand is not a necessarily a gross volume process. I would think the higher volume and higher energy partials would up production in conversion. I would venture to believe that with the excess of high energy partials that are stored as waste or contained high energy matter, could otherwise work for us. Therefor not waste.

I don't understand "energy partials", maybe the wording is old-fashioned.

Apparently, you wrote a nuclear reaction. Its numbers of protons are balanced, fine. Usually the numbers of nucleons (=protons+neutrons) are written too, like ¹⁴N.

I there a goal in this reaction? We have enough ¹⁶O and ¹H on Earth. If you hope to produce energy by a nuclear reaction, that's badly difficult and thoroughly studied already. In short:

• Fission of ²³³U, ²³⁵U, ²³⁹Pu and ²⁴⁰Pu works. It uses impinging neutrons, and these nuclei produce further neutrons, so fission needs no energy input.
• Fusion of ²H with ³H works, but obtaining more energy from it than was invested is badly difficult and doesn't work now.
• All reactions that need an accelerator to make collisions are net energy consumers. Rubbia's energy amplifier is mainly a fission reactor.