Reply To: Branson Prize: $25M for removing 1 Gigaton CO2/year

[Ferret]

I played a bit with the Lee Model simulation, just to get used to it. It complained about pressures higher than 20 Torr, so I erased the complaint from the program. Next it complained about the run time being too long compared to the discharge time. I played a bit with the parameters until the axial run time was OK. This is what I got: cathode radius 5 mm, anode radius 2 mm, anode length 2.1 mm so that current I is at its maximum at the end of the axial phase, charging potential 120 kV (not 10 kV as I wanted it), pressure 760 Torr (I squeezed it out of the anode length 🙂 ), maximum current 0.5 MA. I used L = 5 nH, C = 0.1 uF and r0 = 1/4 sqrt(L/C) = 1.77 mOhm. The fuel was Deuterium. The only products I see are Joule heat and Bremsstrahlung radiation, the last being 0. The plasma went to a temperature of 4.5E6 (Kelvins I guess).

This is just the first shot. I’ll have to play with it a bit more. At least the simulation took those parameter values (except for the pressure, I forced it into it). The voltage is far too high for what I aimed.

Next week I’ll try a few more guesses and see what I’ll get.