KeithPickering wrote:
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Even better, scientists at the University Arizona report a quantum engineering breakthrough that could achieve ZT’s of 50 or higher, using simple (and cheap) polymerized benzene.

Although these breakthroughs (especially the quantum one) may be very, VERY huge, the application for FF is also beneficial. Specifically, the proposed method for capturing the energy from x-rays released in the FF reaction has been photoelectric. With super efficient thermoelectric materials, it might be simpler and cheaper to simply absorb the x-rays (with lead, for example) and convert the resulting heat energy into electricity.

That’s incredible. There are heat gradients d*** near everywhere to exploit. The coating is a micron thick; it could be used directly in the FF reactor to cool the electrodes, too, BTW! This could jump the Q of the FF system by an order of magnitude (since all the recovered/converted heat would be added to the “profit” portion of the equation). It also might take the lid off the cycling speed, and allow the system to run at 10X the Hz, at 10X the power, etc.! Not only a base power of 50MW, but a huge jump of the Q on top of it?!? We could be talking 100s of MW from a FoFu here!

But efficiencies everywhere would jump. Coat a car engine with it, put it onto computer chips to cool them, etc., etc.

“This changes everything”!!