While most people in the world have considered the concept of antimatter to be pure science fiction the fact is today it is a viable product that can be created and studied – albeit to a limited extent – by scientists. Most notably the research facilities at CERN located in Europe are able to produce a few atoms of hydrogen antimatter on a regular basis and store them for up to tens of minutes – still not enough for conventional energy applications, but a major leap forward in production from what was considered possible just a few decades prior.

Antimatter is, in essence, the opposite form of most matter in existence consisting of antiparticles as a base. This means that for every proton that normally has a positive charge the polarity is reversed to a negative form in antimatter while electrons with a normal negative charge are reversed to a positive standing. Because of this nature if antimatter should ever be mixed with matter the result would be the instant annihilation of both particles and the complete release of all energy stored therein, essentially making antimatter theoretically up to 100% effective as a form of energy production. To put this into perspective one kilogram of antimatter would release a much energy in an explosion as a 43 megaton bomb, compared to the largest atomic bomb ever detonated – a 50 megaton explosion – that required hundreds of kilograms of fissile plutonium/uranium to detonate.

Antimatter recently caught the public’s attention thanks in no small part to Dan Brown’s book (and subsequent movie) entitled “Angels and Demons” where antimatter played the key role in what was seen in that fictional story as a highly-destructive device that could potentially mean a new weapon in the wrong hands. Unlike that story, however, antimatter cannot currently be contained for extended periods of time beyond a few minutes and as such does not have the ability to be either be used as a weapon or an energy source. Further, at the current production level it would take roughly two billion years to produce a single gram of antimatter for use, meaning that only miniscule amounts can be used today for study. Still, advancements are being done each year into the improved production ability of antimatter that may result in a much more energy efficient production process in the coming decades, with production capabilities expected to triple by 2015 to 2020.

With such developments underway many people are beginning to consider what sort of applications antimatter could have for us and our own energy needs throughout the world. While it’s true that antimatter does have a huge energy potential and could effectively be used to create much more energy than a standard nuclear reaction could generate at the same time the energy transfer, harnessing and utilization capabilities we currently have make this a not very viable course of action. This is mostly due to the fact that when antimatter reacts with matter roughly 50% of the energy released is in the form of radiation waves rather than pure heat, meaning a large loss instantly of half of all possible energy. Further, one single particle of antimatter collected using conventional means only contains approximately one billionth of all of the energy used to create it – energy that could be better used elsewhere with our current energy demands.

Still, regardless of our current methods antimatter production capabilities are increasing greatly year after year and given technological development trends it would not be unheard of to anticipate conventional antimatter usage by the mid 21st century. Should this be the case antimatter may become the next “green” energy trend that could easily bypass all other alternative energy efforts to date at that time.

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