Reply To: would nuclear energy really be accessible to all?

[nemmart]

psupine wrote: I’m still trying to understand some of the subtleties too (I bet we all are!), so please excuse me if this question is so bad that it isn’t even wrong …

Doesn’t conservation of momentum require a significant e-beam to balance the ion-beam from which we hope to extract significant energy? So if optimality has the e-beam energy reduced as much as possible, I’d have thought that the ion-beam is similarly down to nothing or else the plasmoid shoots sideways (or rather in FuFu, up).

I’m sure someone can set me straight. I hope to get there eventually.
Thanks

Lerner wrote: It is very difficult for the electrons to balance the momentum of the ions which are thousands of times heavier. Two things can absorb the momentum of the ion beam–the motion of the plasmoid, or the magnetic field that the plasmoid is tied to. It is probably mostly the latter, since otherwise the plasmoid would smash into the anode before the pulse ended.

I think this is a really interesting question. I don’t understand why one should expect the alpha particles to all go in the right direction, down the axis of the anode. When the excited C12 fissions, I would expect the alpha particles to go shooting out in random directions, with piles of energy. More energy than is in the plasma. Is there a good reason to believe the plasma can capture this energy as opposed to the alpha particle punching through it?

When you run a DPF with deutrium what what percentage of the fusion energy gets captured by the plasma? Does the amount of neutron radiation change with direction?