Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Tasmodevil44]

You are indeed correct, jeg3. The LFTR is specifically designed for the use of thorium. I can see where BOTH focus fusion and thorium reactors can have their special niche they fit into best. Just as solid-stste transistors did not make all applications of the vacuum tube obsolete overnight. Focus fusion may eventually beat the LFTR in economics of electric generation, but the LFTR may be better suited to destruction of long-lived transuranic actinides that remain highly radio-toxic for so long.

But I have abandoned the idea of any fission / fusion hybrid in which heavy atom fission might aid pB11 in the DPF. There would be too much X-ray losses caused by such heavy atoms. Not to mention the difficulty in getting them to fission in the first place. Belbear is definitely correct about the difficulty in applying this approach. Plutonium fission might trigger an H – Bomb, but employing fission to trigger fusion in the DPF is far more problematic. Plus the same costly radioactive problems reactors have now.

Although skeptics like Jimmy T argue against the idea of lithium…… that pB11 is still the so – called ” Holy Grail ” of fusion…… I still think that lithium may still have the best potential chance for a ” kick – starter ” to help get pB11 going. It has only three neutrons, which means less X – ray energy loss. It also has a lower ignition temperature. Which means it may ignite first before the boron does, dumping more energy into the plasma to pre – heat it more than the power supply alone can. And it might even help to extend the reaction time window beyond only 6 picoseconds so that more reaction events can occur. Forget large atom fission. I still think lithium has the best possibilities.

Hydroboranes like decaborane and pentaborane have only two chemical elements: boron and hydrogen. But there’s another class, or family, of chemical compounds which contain all three: hydrogen, lithium and boron. I wonder…… has Lerner thought about these as possible fuel candidates yet ?