Reply To: A Big Prick in the Balloon of the Big Bang

[markrh]

Henning wrote: It’s a long and exhausting story but its general function is cited here:

Johnson’s latest JTEC prototype, which looks like a desktop model for a next-generation moonshine still, features two fuel-cell-like stacks, or chambers, filled with hydrogen gas and connected by steel tubes with round pressure gauges. Where a steam engine uses the heat generated by burning coal to create steam pressure and move mechanical elements, the JTEC uses heat (from the sun, for instance) to expand hydrogen atoms in one stack. The expanding atoms, each made up of a proton and an electron, split apart, and the freed electrons travel through an external circuit as electric current, charging a battery or performing some other useful work. Meanwhile the positively charged protons, also known as ions, squeeze through a specially designed proton-exchange membrane (one of the JTEC elements borrowed from fuel cells) and combine with the electrons on the other side, reconstituting the hydrogen, which is compressed and pumped back into the hot stack. As long as heat is supplied, the cycle continues indefinitely.

As he is just using hydrogen gas, this makes a great drop-in for the cooling circuits of the electrodes and onion. Where we’ve intended elsewhere in the forum to use helium. So the gas is not used in a steam/liquid cycle.

Maybe it’s worth contacting him with the intention of introducing him to the idea of focus fusion. An invitation to LPP’s lab? Maybe he’s curious?

I heard that the efficiency of the JTEC system is 60% + efficiency in energy extraction from heat currently. This may help in cooling and produce net gain in energy output. FF could extract more energy by utilizing the waste heat that is produced vs radiant cooling in current plans.