Lets assume for a moment that Santa Claus in the form of an angel investor drops down Eric Lerner’s chimney and leaves a blank check in his stocking. What would the Focus Fusion team wish for and how would they spend unlimited funds to accelerate the demonstration and development of a focus fusion power plant?
Lets assume for a moment that Santa Claus in the form of an angel investor drops down Eric Lerner’s chimney and leaves a blank check in his stocking. What would the Focus Fusion team wish for and how would they spend unlimited funds to accelerate the demonstration and development of a focus fusion power plant?
In keeping with the spirit of FF, let’s limit it to $5M or less, which is more than enough to represent a windfall. Since an angel investor would be looking for a quicker and surer major metric, let’s define ‘power plant’ very precisely. What type(s) and amount(s), for how long per session, interval between servicing, that sort of outline.
Let’s use the proposed $5 million dollar donation as a starting point. Would this amount be enough to build and run a 10 MW power plant - either base load or peaking?
Let’s use the proposed $5 million dollar donation as a starting point. Would this amount be enough to build and run a 10 MW power plant - either base load or peaking?
Whoa…
As FF still needs a variety of components validated first, I think such money should be split between getting LPPX-1 through its testing regime and simultaneously funding at least the following items which I’ve put in what I imagine is the descending order of difficulty/expense:
X-ray direct conversion “onion”
Electrode erosion quantification and mitigation.
Capacitor bank lifespan and life extension.
Alpha direct conversion coil design.
Helium coolant system.
All of the above need to be worked on and validated before it becomes possible to design even a prototype power plant… and I’m sure there’s other things I’ve overlooked
Let’s use the proposed $5 million dollar donation as a starting point. Would this amount be enough to build and run a 10 MW power plant - either base load or peaking?
Whoa…
As FF still needs a variety of components validated first, I think such money should be split between getting LPPX-1 through its testing regime and simultaneously funding at least the following items which I’ve put in what I imagine is the descending order of difficulty/expense:
X-ray direct conversion “onion”
Electrode erosion quantification and mitigation.
Capacitor bank lifespan and life extension.
Alpha direct conversion coil design.
Helium coolant system.
All of the above need to be worked on and validated before it becomes possible to design even a prototype power plant… and I’m sure there’s other things I’ve overlooked
Excellent list, Zap, since it covers FF-1 as well as FF-2. FF-2 could conceivably be designed and tested as a pre-production POC testbed for subsystems such as the onion and the low frequency helium cooling system. Don’t know how far $2M-3M would go in terms of helium, vacuum, and TMP pumps, not to mention a 2nd test cell, diagnostics, and additional staffing. Is the neighboring suite available for lease?
How many years would it take to satisfy the objectives listed above? Once these questions are addressed how much power would a prototype power plant produce in megawatts? Let’s assume 5 million dollars would be available for this project.
Never, if only $5 million is available. Once a process is proven in the lab, development of a working protoype takes a lot of engineering. The rule of thumb is that this takes at least 10 times as much as research. We estimate currently that at least $20-30 million over three years would be needed to build a prototype. (Think about 5 minutes worth of the US military spending) Once mass-production is begun ( which costs more initially in investment) costs per unit should drop to about $300,000 for a 5 MW generator.
Also to put solar in perspective, current goal (which is partially achieved by FirstSolar and Nanosolar) is 1$/watt,
which would put it at 5 million even without addressing capacity or availability issues.
With addressing those issues the cost would probably rise to about ~20 million,
which I think what would cost to run a gas turbine for ~10-20 years.
Still I believe FF units could be made much cheaper if their capacity factor would be reduced to about 5 kw,
by reducing the frequency and getting rid of most cooling, shielding and maybe other systems
(maybe even use a HVDC network for powering and not a capacitor bank)?
Of course then they would be less efficient and more expensive to run,
but maybe in most applications this drawback would not be an issue.
Who cares if the electricity costs 0.01 cent or 0.001 cent per kwh at home?
Only some factories/desalinization/processing/refining and other high power usage locations should care for higher efficiency due to competition.
Still I believe FF units could be made much cheaper if their capacity factor would be reduced to about 5 kw, by reducing the frequency and getting rid of most cooling, shielding…
Reduced shielding? Even if you reduce the frequency of the pulses the amount of prompt radiation from each pulse will stay the same and thus the required shielding will also be the same.
As for your basic concept… eventually you’ll get to the point where smaller doesn’t give you a cheaper power source… but where that point will turn out to be is an interesting question…
Which brings up the question of how powerful the X-ray and neutrons are- i.e.- how far underground would a FF/DPF need to be ‘buried’ to be shielded to below background radiation levels like the existing lead-covered water jacket is? In short, I doubt it would be cost-effective to eliminate the current shielding arrangement, much as I’d like to.
Reduced shielding? Even if you reduce the frequency of the pulses the amount of prompt radiation from each pulse will stay the same and thus the required shielding will also be the same.
I think radiation dose can be calculated by Dose=Time*Intensity. So if you reduce frequency, you reduce the time.
If we received $5M unexpectedly, I think it would be wise to go on a 6-month corporate retreat to an exotic island somewhere to make plans on how to use the leftover million dollars. Then, if we were like some other ne’er-to-be-mentioned corporations, we would give ourselves big bonuses with the remaining money for having acted so wisely with our windfall.
Or we could just use the whole $5M to keep plugging along.
After much thought and deliberation, and since I sunburn easily, I’m going to have to choose the latter.
Reduced shielding? Even if you reduce the frequency of the pulses the amount of prompt radiation from each pulse will stay the same and thus the required shielding will also be the same.
I think radiation dose can be calculated by Dose=Time*Intensity. So if you reduce frequency, you reduce the time.
But that changes one of the primary tenets of FF - its plug and play capability.
It moves you from the literal and metaphorical safe zone of “less than background radiation” to the slippery slope of “an acceptable dose in excess of background radiation”... and that slope, the concept of what is an “acceptable dose of radiation,” has always moved downwards as we gather more data on what a given dose of radiation actually does.
And as I’ve said before: given the reaming the American people has received from our lords and masters… and with the worst of that yet to come… now would not be a good time to rely on the rhetoric of “suck it up.”
Or we could just use the whole $5M to keep plugging along.
After much thought and deliberation, and since I sunburn easily, I’m going to have to choose the latter.
See if I’ve got the current financial upshot correct: $5 mil should enable finishing LPPX-1 and should bridge the gap and then some to the following stages, right?
@zapkitty, yes, $5M should easily get us through Phase 1 (assuming it works as hoped), and will give us a good start into Phase 2, which entails development of all those things you listed above. As far as R&D projects go, $5M is cheap, and considering how much we’ve been able to accomplish with ~$2M so far, I think we’re doing very well.
Focus Fusion Society 
