Energy output calculations?

[ptrubey]

Can anyone point me to a paper or post that discusses the expected net energy output of a reactor based on this technology taking into account energy input, X-ray cooling losses, conversion losses, etc. I read many of the papers here a while ago but don’t remember seeing such an analysis.

[ptrubey]

It looks like this note (http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/fusion_technical.htm ) answers my question well enough. It assumes that some energy recapture must come from the x-rays that are produced.

How does one go about capturing energy from x-rays? Is it via heat (and then turbines, etc.)?

[Frenetic]

I am obliged to chime in with this same question. It’s my understanding that nearly every fusion scheme is plagued by these “braking” losses as they can run as high as fifteen percent of the total energy produced. I once opined that X-Ray/gamma energy should be something that could be converted directly to electricity because you usually get at least three chances to “milk” an x-ray of energy before it drops into the infrared. I was immediately chastised by a number of physicists and told to go sit in a corner. I stilll think that they are wrong and that I was right. I suspect a properly doped substance like lead titanate might well do the job. For that matter, properly doped copper might do it. As far as I know, no one has done any research in this area.

But there is another question I’d like to have answered, mostly because I have read similar claims by Dr. Robert Bussard. How exactly to you go about getting electricity out of energetic alpha particles? Do you declerate them in some way that generates a current prior to allowing them to come in contact with a negatively charged grid? Then how do you go about getting the helium out of the system while maintaining control over the very then flow necessary for sustaining a plasma? The methods we use for this in the petro-chem business simply won’t work.

Oh, and I have to think that the device that slows the alpha particles must be surrounded by material that absorbs x-rays and converts them into electrical current. Any other method would be wasteful.

[Brian H]

Frenetic wrote: …
Do you declerate them in some way that generates a current prior to allowing them to come in contact with a negatively charged grid? Then how do you go about getting the helium out of the system while maintaining control over the very then flow necessary for sustaining a plasma?
…

As I guess you have found out by now, the patented technology is to surround the chamber with a shell of thousands of metal foils, which “step down” the X-rays’ energy, bleeding off a little each layer, and feed off the electrons kicked loose with a grid — I’d assume positively charged, tho’.

And the helium exits in a magnetically focussed beam through the solenoid, inducing current.

[ptrubey]

Is there a link to that x-ray energy capture technology? Has such a device been created and tested or is still just a theoretical concept?

[Brian H]

ptrubey wrote: Is there a link to that x-ray energy capture technology? Has such a device been created and tested or is still just a theoretical concept?

Patent applied for, AFAIK. The lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com site has more specifics, I believe.

[Aeronaut]

The patent is posted on the homepage’s right column. You’ll have to look for it, but all of the details are in there, since it is an awarded patent.

[KeithPickering]

ptrubey wrote: Can anyone point me to a paper or post that discusses the expected net energy output of a reactor based on this technology taking into account energy input, X-ray cooling losses, conversion losses, etc. I read many of the papers here a while ago but don’t remember seeing such an analysis.

Since the posted reply contains a no-longer active link, try this one instead: http://www.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0710/0710.3149.pdf

It’s EL’s zero-dimensional simulation. Should contain most of the answers you’re looking for.

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