The uncompressed radius of the fuel pellet of Sample Problem 43.05 is 20 (m. Suppose that the compressed fuel pellet "burns" with an efficiency of 10%-that is, only 10% of the deuterons and 10% of the tritons participate in the fusion reaction of Eq. 43-15.
(a) How much energy is released in each such micro explosion of a pellet?
(b) To how much TNT is each such pellet equivalent? The heat of combustion of TNT is 4.6 MJ/kg.
(c) If a fusion reactor is constructed on the basis of 100 micro explosions per second, what power would be generated? (Part of this power would be used to operate the lasers.)