scaleablity of a reactor?

[Aeronaut]

HermannH wrote:

Scalability of a reactor?

What about the pulse rate?
If 330 Hz produces 5 MW could the pulse rate be dialed up to 660 Hz with output at 10 MW?
How about 3.2 GHz with output at 48 TW? 😛

Nice try, but the maximum rate is largely determined by the ability to cool the system. Just like computer chips.

Sounds like an interesting cost/benefit chart for pressurized helium vs super-cooled helium cooling. The questions would be where it becomes cost-effective, and how much electric output is THE limit?

Let’s not forget that the ion converter coils have to be made of tubing to cool what may be a kilo amp output, even at 5MW.

[msmith]

OK – No high pulse rates.
So enlarge the “Onion” slightly and have 3 focus devices clustered together inside aimed at a single drift tube and fire serially.
Individual pulse rate 330 Hz.
Combined pulse rate – 990 Hz.
Combined output – 15 MW.
Drift tube made of unobtainium and pixie dust.
Promote using Squirrel Marketing (borrowed term) small, agile and nuts. 😛

[Aeronaut]

msmith wrote: OK – No high pulse rates.
So enlarge the “Onion” slightly and have 3 focus devices clustered together inside aimed at a single drift tube and fire serially.
Individual pulse rate 330 Hz.
Combined pulse rate – 990 Hz.
Combined output – 15 MW.
Drift tube made of unobtainium and pixie dust.
Promote using Squirrel Marketing (borrowed term) small, agile and nuts. 😛

It’s a whole lot quicker and cheaper to drop 5MWe +/- 8MW thermal wherever it’s needed in a factory or ore processing facility. One of the finer selling points would be how it simplifies the facility’s energy distribution systems.

[belbear]

This is also my idea of scalability: Using “multicore” vacuum vessels. (why stop with three? Why not 10 or more electrode sets in a single vessel?)
Even if every core needs its own drift tube, the X-ray converter and the capacitors can be shared. A failed electrode set is simply skipped in the firing sequence until repair can be done.

Multiple, complete units side by side can even be made “hot pluggable”, so power generation does not need to be interrupted when one unit fails. All the other ones can simply increase their pulse rate if normal operation has sufficient headroom.

Additional control over power output can be done by simply varying the pulse rate to match power demand. This VPR (Variable Pulse Rate) system will be very handy for FF reactors hooked up to a very small power grid. A ship for instance, where the power demand varies greatly from “all stop” standby power to “full speed ahead”.

Who says a 330Hz reactor cannot operate at 10Hz “standby power”? If it’s so small and cheap this can even be cost effective to increase overall reliability of a FF cluster power plant.

[Rematog]

Just “Food” for thought…..

I just attended a seminar on biofuels….

Switchgrass is one of the leading contenders for biofuel crops (as opposed to wood waste from logging).

To generate the 5 MW that a FF module would, you would need, roughly, 2,900 acres of switchgrass growing. At the very least, an alternate use for this land would be grazing and forage…. so it will reduce potential food production.

This assumes a reasonably efficient boilers/turbines (10,250 Btu/kw heat rate) and…. very high crop yield (no crop failures, storm damage, etc) and low spoilage of the switchgrass crop.. remember, very large quanties (small mountains) of “dead grass” would have to be stored between harvests to fuel a boiler running 365 days a year.

Something to chew on….

[belbear]

Rematog wrote: Just “Food” for thought…..

I just attended a seminar on biofuels….

Switchgrass is one of the leading contenders for biofuel crops (as opposed to wood waste from logging).

To generate the 5 MW that a FF module would, you would need, roughly, 2,900 acres of switchgrass growing. At the very least, an alternate use for this land would be grazing and forage…. so it will reduce potential food production.

This assumes a reasonably efficient boilers/turbines (10,250 Btu/kw heat rate) and…. very high crop yield (no crop failures, storm damage, etc) and low spoilage of the switchgrass crop.. remember, very large quanties (small mountains) of “dead grass” would have to be stored between harvests to fuel a boiler running 365 days a year.

Something to chew on….

This scheme, as any biofuel scheme, assumes you have lots and lots of otherwise useless land available to grow this grass on. I live in a country where every acre of land already has a use. So we have to import all our biofuels from countries like Brazil, where they have lots of useless rainforest to make room for biofuel farms… :-/

[Rematog]

Yes, many of the loudest proponents of Biofuels are those that consider the Midwestern United States “Flyover Country”… i.e. they fly over it in their jets going from New York and Washington to Los Angles and San Fransisco. Because the can’t see very much that’s man-made from 40,000 ft, they assume it’s empty.

[belbear]

Rematog wrote: Yes, many of the loudest proponents of Biofuels are those that consider the Midwestern United States “Flyover Country”… i.e. they fly over it in their jets going from New York and Washington to Los Angles and San Fransisco. Because the can’t see very much that’s man-made from 40,000 ft, they assume it’s empty.

Not to mention the “water crisis”, which for the Midwest may well replace the oil crisis everyone fears so much.
Another Dustbowl, anyone?

[Rematog]

Hmmm…. In Louisiana a water crisis is when the levee breaks……..

[belbear42]

Rematog wrote: Hmmm…. In Louisiana a water crisis is when the levee breaks……..

I was actually referring to the “Ogalalla Aquifer” getting depleted because of excessive irrigation. Once saw a docu about that on National Geographic.

Talking about levees in Louisiana, I’ve read that New Orleans could better be abandoned entirely as sea level continues to rise and a new Katrina is probably only years, not decades, away..

But we can stop it! We (almost) have the technology! Focus Fusion can reduce CO2 emissions to pre-20th century levels.
Go, FoFu, Go!

[Rezwan]

Hi Rematog,
I’m going to start a new thread with that comment. Just posting here to let you know before it switches.

[Henning]

You actually don’t need a multiplicator of 60Hz (or for sensible areas of the world 50Hz) of shot frequency to get AC. So a shot frequency of anything like 512Hz and 435Hz the next minute works. Energy is stored in capacitors and can be drained in a controlled fashion. You’ll probably need to double the number of output capacitors to get it running smoothly, switching between the banks at each shot. But that gives you the advantage that you’re utilizing the generator only for the amount of energy required.

[Aeronaut]

Henning wrote: You actually don’t need a multiplicator of 60Hz (or for sensible areas of the world 50Hz) of shot frequency to get AC. So a shot frequency of anything like 512Hz and 435Hz the next minute works. Energy is stored in capacitors and can be drained in a controlled fashion. You’ll probably need to double the number of output capacitors to get it running smoothly, switching between the banks at each shot. But that gives you the advantage that you’re utilizing the generator only for the amount of energy required.

No, a stable frequency, particularly a multiple of the powerline frequencies of 100hz or 120hz (full wave) is not required. But it does reduce design complexity and production cost by using the FF output pulses directly into AC. The alternative is to run it through an extremely high powered rectifier.

[Rematog]

But, if you can increase the power output, the cost of the rectifier MAY be justified, requires a cost-benefit analysis.

[Henning]

I believe you’re thinking of inverters (DC->AC), not of rectifiers (AC->DC). That’s actually the beauty of FF, because you already get a inverter for free. Output capacitors are already required, otherwise you’re getting only impulses of a few milliseconds.

Or are you’re thinking of eliminating those output capacitors? And replacing them with what? Inductors of the same size? Not much gained (but might be cheaper).

I’m thinking of computerized control circuit which switches the several capacitors onto the grid depending on demand and circuit phase. You still need an inductor for leveling out the edges, but you need them anyway. So it’s an computerized inverter. I think the modern ones are computerized anyway.

You can compare this to modern automobiles with their computerized ignition systems compared to primitive distributors in cars twenty and more years ago.

Or if it’s of Rematog’s big-scale utility (200 FF generators), you might orchestrate them to output something that looks like a sine wave. You then don’t even have something with a stable frequency, it’ll look much more like you’re Windows Task Manager with two processor cores running on 50% speed (because the process running is only built for one processor). The load jitters between them two.

[Author]

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