Reply To: Stay out of politics

[belbear42]

Brian H wrote:

A FF engine generates electricity through particle beam & x-ray recovery rather than heat extraction. This is why the construction cost is so dramatically lower.

A decelerator, as opposed to a particle accelerator, is put in the line of the tight pulsed beam of charged alpha particles (He nuclei) that is the result of the pB11 fusion. More electricity is generated by passing the x-rays through a shell of thin metallic foils, with the electrons captured on wires held at negative voltages.

https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/35/#el
https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/simulation_results/

An artists’ rendition of the FF engine is on the right side of the header on the LPP site.

Yes, I’m quite aware of how FF power is generated, but the point of the thread is that there is lost heat, waste heat, that might be expoited. If efficient direct conversion of heat to electricity was possible, that might add to overall efficiency. Some have suggested Peltier thermoelectrics, and the sonic tech is a new approach to the same idea.

Actually, the very concept of a FF power plant allows many direct uses of “waste heat” that are beyond the possibility of a large fossil fuel, fission or tokamak fusion plant. Given its small size and high safety, the FF power plant can be placed very near the power consumers. And practically everyone who needs electricity also needs heat.

For instance, a large hospital can have its own fusion power plant that generates half as much thermal power as electricity (assuming a 66% overall efficiency). This heat is then used for heating the buildings, laundry, sanitary hot water, sterilizing equipment etc… The same can be true for a community, a factory or a ship. In many cases the waste heat will not even be sufficient for the thermal demand and additional electric heating may be necessary.

Much depends on the “grade” of generated waste heat. Temperatures above 100�C can generate steam, (and thus drive turbines) which is considered “high grade”, while below boiling point it’s rather “low grade” heat that still can be useful for household use.
A FF power plant will generate both: high-grade heat from the reactor itself (vessel wall, electrode cooling, residual beam energy) while waste heat from the various electrical components (switches, capacitor banks, inverters, transformers..) will be very low-grade. In present-day power equipment this kind of heat is not used at all, rather vented through air-cooling.