Reply To: Global Warming

[asymmetric_implosion]

James: FF will only burn a tiny amount of fuel per shot. My guess is it will be on the same order as an optimized NIF. NIF may not be perfect and it will not be a viable fusion reactor but physics breakeven is likely. Engineering gain is another story…

Brian H: MAGLIF does not require a complex B-field. The magnetic field is the same as FoFu field (solenoid-like field). The difference is the magnitude. FF uses very weak fields while MAGLIF uses an ~1 T field. Both systems use flux compression on some level. The key difference in the SNL experiment is the B-field due to flux compression is strong enough to limit electron thermal conductivity to allow the plasma to stay hot. Flux compression is a proven method to increase B-field and gain some of the benefits described by Lerner’s theory without the formation of a plasmoid. The conversion of MAGLIF to MHD conversion is do-able. Of course people will use the neutrons to extract heat and that is less efficient theoretically than MHD conversion but MHD conversion has not been implemented on the large scale (to my knowledge). MHD pumps move liquid metals but that is a far cry from what is being proposed on FoFu-1. A simple rogowski coil may be enough to extract the beam energy which is efficient but the rest relies on photovoltaic-type technology (low efficiency) and probably thermal cycle (same old same old). I don’t think anyone can claim to know the exact ratios of these three outputs until it is tested.

Time will tell who gets there first but if I’m betting NIF is first. FoFu may beat Sandia but I could see SNL getting their next for one reason: resources. MAGLIF could produce an intense neutron source that NNSA (folks funding NIF as well) would like to have.