Reply To: Barack Obama on Energy

[FrankOlson]

I was listening to the Oxford presentation. Pardon my layman’s knowledge in plasma physics perhaps, but as I understood, when the copper electrodes were being used, up to 1/3 or so of the plasma was impure and made up of copper from the electrode. So with tungsten, the purity issue is mostly resolved. What if the electrode, or a portion of it, was electroplated with the metalloid B11? I know there are other processes to make metals adhere to each other, but know what I mean. If a plasma is to be composed of impurities and some of those impurities are metal, why not have the metal impurity be the fuel at the same time? I read that boron 10 has not so good electrical conductivity until it’s heated to certain temperatures. I assume B11 would have relatively the same properties, so that’s not so good. Plausible?