Reply To: Newbie pB11 Fuel Questions

[jamesr]

NoSmoke wrote:
james: If the He ions simply spiral around in the plasmoid until they loose their excess energy, how then would then generate net energy when finally expelled from the plasmoid by the magnetic field collapse? It would seem the energy imparted to those ions would only then be obtained from the collapse of the magnetic field which in turn was created by the input energy (which it seems to me would result in no net gain).

I believe some of the He energy end up in the magnetic field, indirectly via interactions balancing the gas pressure pushing out as it heats up and magnetic pressure inwards. But the way I think of it is that them beam energy is mostly just recycling the energy put into the system by the capacitors. So if you have a relatively cold DPF device (ie not hot enough to expend a significant amount of its energy in radiation losses) with a coil collecting energy from the beam(s) then you try and get as much out as you can back into the capacitors. The difference with fusion in there is that the pinch could be maintained at 100’s keV for 10’s ns radiating all the rest of the energy in X-rays. So by collecting the X-ray energy you not only overcome the less than 100% efficiency of gathering back of the input energy but also gather some of the gain from the fusion. Hopefully ending up with a nett gain overall.

You will never get nett gain from the beam alone.