Reply To: Repowering the electric utility industry

[Joeviocoe]

Hey Dave… have you read LLP’s writings on how the Quantum Magnetic Field effect is supposed to mitigate the losses to Brem? The X-rays are pretty significant with fusing just isotopes of hydrogen, but when you start trying to fuse Boron, things get really difficult. Boron has 5 times the charge of hydrogen and about 25 times the effect of braking the electrons (bremmstralung) which cools the plasma. But the QMF should kick in if the field strength gets high enough.

A lot of the objections you’ve noted don’t quite apply to pulsed power devices like Focus Fusion. Certainly to a tokamak, and somewhat still in a polywell. But LLP’s approach has the benefit of being only a couple dozen nano seconds long. Which can avoid many of the causes of plasma cooling. Also, since the energy is going to be extracted as direct electricity and captured x-rays… it is not so much a question of the temperature gradient.

Every fusion approach has it’s problems. With MCF, the science is proven, but the engineering may make it impractical for economic reasons. But I would not ever say the word, “impossible”. Just that Materials Science and other adjacent technology needs a lot of catching up first.

I really like how transparent Focus Fusion has been compared to the other innovative confinement concepts. Polywell has to be mostly hush because of the Navy funding though, so maybe they are making better progress than we know. But it seems like Lerner has been making great progress. The biggest challenges so far have been engineering problems. But what I like best is that they will know whether pB11 fusion using a Focus Fusion pinch is feasible within a year. If it is proven to be feasible, and they demonstrate some level of fusion using pB11… then the eyes, and pockets, of the world would be opened for them. 🙂