Regulations on Independant Experimentation with Focus Fusion and Sonofusion type Reactors

[Mstry4u]

Are there regulations that prohibit individuals from experimenting on these types of devices? I know that the Global Neutrino flux detectors can get high resolution and can be used to target potential nuclear terrorist threats along with many other radiographic tools. How does an experimenter keep from being labelled as a terrorist? Does one need a liscense from the NRC or do you have to work at a private/university lab?

[JimmyT]

What? High resolution neutrino flux detectors? 1. We can barely get these detectors to work at all!
2. They are certainly not directional. 3. Terrorist devices wouldn’t generate neutrinos unless a nuclear device was detonated.

Explain please.

[Mstry4u]

There are neutrino detectors in the northern and southern hemisphere including water Cerenkov detectors and liquid scintillator tanks, one called ANTERES (May 2008) and the other Ice Cube (largest in the world 2005-06) that detect neutrinos through an interaction with the ice in Antarctica, it’s half complete and will be finished by 2011. Also Los Alamos uses VLAND detectors. I think the sensitivity is ~.5 eV flux of neutrino flux background. They mention being able to detect the difference in neutrino production of a nuclear reactor such that if a quantity of plutonium is removed the reactor will give a weaker signature. Fusion devices based on cavitation have temperatures of the sun. If you are harnessing the energy of the sun or stars in a bottle, they are also going to be a significant source of neutrinos, and because neutrinos go right through the planet there is little to keep a detector on even the other side of the planet from detecting these little bits. I would love it if somebody could tell me that the signature from a sonofusion type device was not detectable, but I’m not sure and would want to make sure that any experimentation was well thought out. I think that you must have a license to play with nuclear device’s, but bubble fusion is low energy, non radioactive, clean, still experimental, and contested in the mainstream scientific community, although mathematically possible and they are starting to come around.

http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/he/np/homeland/CombatTerrorismFinal110602.pdf

These are security measures that were discussed with the Nuclear Research Community to address counter nuclear terrorism issues. I’m just not sure and would love any insight that this community might have.

Does a Focus Fusion device create a significant source of neutrinos (I’m pretty sure does), perhaps cavitation in bubble fusion produces more because of it’s design?

Either way I would love to know what regulations are around these devices and if I’m allowed to be a mad scientist in my basement without getting in trouble. Do others experiment with these freely outside of private/university lab without concern?

Thoughts Ideas? Thanks

[Mstry4u]

I understand that these detectors find few neutrinos, but compared to how many bombard the earth at any given moment “few” is relative:

“Current estimates predict the detection of about one thousand such events per day in the fully constructed IceCube detector….Most of the remaining (up-going) neutrinos will come from cosmic rays hitting the far side of the Earth, but some unknown fraction may come from astronomical sources. To distinguish these two sources statistically, the direction and energy of the incoming neutrino is estimated from its collision by-products. Unexpected excesses in energy or from a given spatial direction indicate an extraterrestrial source.”

“Although IceCube is expected to detect very few neutrinos, it should have very high resolution with the ones that it does find. Over several years of operation, it could produce a flux map of the northern hemisphere similar to existing maps like that of the cosmic microwave background. Likewise, KM3NeT could complete the map for the southern hemisphere.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Detector

Maybe it’s not as big of a concern as I think it is, but even one or two neutrinos from a fusion device in a residential area being classified as an extraterrestrial source is more press than I’d like.

[JimmyT]

Focus fusion only produces neutrinos via a relatively infrequent side reaction. (The side reaction involving nitrogen and a neutron and antineutrino release. )

But if they truely achieve the sensitivity you are suggesting I guess anything is possible.

[Lerner]

Whether you need a safety inspection to use a DPF depends on fuels and neutrons, not neutrinos. If you are experimenting with helium, which does not react, I would doubt that you need a safety permit, although you can kill yourself with the high voltage. But if you are using deuterium, you will produce neutrons. Anyone with a geiger counter will detect you if you are not sufficiently shielding, and they should, because neutrons are damaging. Any such facility does need an OSHA or state inspection. Even with pB11 we know there are neutrons from secondary reactions and shielding is required.

Neutrinos are irrelevent. They are not dangerous and are extremely hard to detect because they can pass through anything. Only a tiny fraction of neutrinos interact with other matter.

If you are trying to do sonofusion, where the number of neutrons produced is so tiny that it is hard to tell from background, don’t worry about detection by others. Your problem is detecting the reactions yourself. As I recall, the best that was reported was around 10,000 neutrons. At our last experiment at Texas A & M with the DPF, we produced almost 100 billion neutrons. So with sonfusion shielding is not a concern, nor is radiation safety.

[Mstry4u]

Wonderful answer, that helps a lot. So what I’m getting here is that if I plan to generate neutrons or used controlled fuel I should get a permit. Otherwise aside from electrocuting myself, have fun.

My only concern with neutrinos was detection, everything else can be shielded I know. As the future of technology progresses such as fusion research, neutrino detection from fusion sources is going to play an important role in nuclear security and accountability don’t you think? I cannot think of any reason why they would detect a neutrino signature coming from a place other than a medical facility, private research facility or university lab. If KamLAND started picking up a neutrino signature from my closet (rare), would it be a big deal? No detectable radiation, neutrons, gamma/X rays but a definite neutrino signature in my closet.

Anyhow I have a date at my local particle accelerator next week to discuss neutrinos, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

[Brian H]

Mstry4u wrote: Wonderful answer, that helps a lot. So what I’m getting here is that if I plan to generate neutrons or used controlled fuel I should get a permit. Otherwise aside from electrocuting myself, have fun.

My only concern with neutrinos was detection, everything else can be shielded I know. As the future of technology progresses such as fusion research, neutrino detection from fusion sources is going to play an important role in nuclear security and accountability don’t you think? I cannot think of any reason why they would detect a neutrino signature coming from a place other than a medical facility, private research facility or university lab. If KamLAND started picking up a neutrino signature from my closet (rare), would it be a big deal? No detectable radiation, neutrons, gamma/X rays but a definite neutrino signature in my closet.

Anyhow I have a date at my local particle accelerator next week to discuss neutrinos, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

I think people are trying to be polite here, by not saying outright that you’re dreaming in Technicolor. The existing detectors are huge multi-billion dollar buried caverns, lined with thousands of detector tubes. They use the whole planet to slow down a few enough to detect. The volume and mass are required because neutrinos pass through light-years of solid lead with relative ease.

Your home detector is a fantasy.

[Mstry4u]

Thanks for setting that straight, I much preffer the high res version. I wasn’t trying to build a home detector, but an experimental device. At KamLAND through ~180km of rock they detect about 2 neutrinos a day from the 53 nuclear reactors in Japan. Neutrinos need to be over 1.8MeV to be detected by KamLAND. So I kind of found the answer I was looking for, it’s just that I like details and none of the info I was getting here was high res. although the DPF regulation for controlled fuel and neutrons was good info.

It came to my attention that this experimental device was somehow detectable and I was trying to figure out how it was done, I discovered that it’s NOT neutrinos, but another way.

Thanks for the clarification it helps to simply be real with what you know. I’ve had too many run in’s with blanket orthodox assumptions without good reasoning to buy anything at face value these days, so I tend to delve seeking in depth answers and examples.

[Mstry4u]

So do you think that a barrier consisting of BEC Bose Einstein Condensate which has had dimensional reduction would still allow a neutrino to pass in the restricted dimention of energy transfer? Imagine a Faraday Cage of such material? Maybe sandwiched between Boron bucky paper? Perhaps I’m still dreaming…?

[JimmyT]

Interesting stuff, Bose Einstein condensate.

I don’t pretend to understand the physics completely but I believe this is supposed to be a possible pathway to gravity control. A much bigger fish than neutrino detection. Bad news for the space elevator enthusiast’s if successful.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

[Brian H]

JimmyT wrote: Interesting stuff, Bose Einstein condensate.

I don’t pretend to understand the physics completely but I believe this is supposed to be a possible pathway to gravity control. A much bigger fish than neutrino detection. Bad news for the space elevator enthusiast’s if successful.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

Considering that the stuff occurs in small blobs at fractions of a degree K, I doubt it will be used as a construction or propulsion material any time soon.

[Mstry4u]

Actually it was discovered that Han Purple an ancient barium pigment used in China could be used to coat surfaces and attained a BEC state. http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Raiders_Of_The_Lost_Dimension.html Although the low temperature limits it’s use, the intense magnetic fields produced inside a focus fusion type reactor may be enough (?) maybe not…

[Brian H]

Mstry4u wrote: Actually it was discovered that Han Purple an ancient barium pigment used in China could be used to coat surfaces and attained a BEC state. http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Raiders_Of_The_Lost_Dimension.html Although the low temperature limits it’s use, the intense magnetic fields produced inside a focus fusion type reactor may be enough (?) maybe not…

“limits its use” is quite an understatement. The temperature range is liquid helium territory; quite dicey and pricey to use in large amounts.

Grammar Nazi interjection:
He’s, she’s, it’s;
His, hers, its.

[Mstry4u]

As you like, it still facinates me that although we can’t seem to comprehend using this high tech nano material in construction that they managed to do it over 5,000 years ago. It is also interesting to note that an emporer of the time burned all the books on alchemy because they had discovered how to turn lead into gold and were concerned about it’s disruption to the financial stability. Now we all know that lead into gold is a fairy tale, but in modern physics it is possible to turn mercury into gold with a neutron source through noble metal transmutation, regardless of how picky about spelling you are I still find this amazing don’t you?

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