[Aeronaut]

I think “colonies” is the right word. While fascinating experiments, I doubt they would go mainstream due to how people think about home ownership, neighborhoods, etc. Logically, we should live in underground houses nowhere near a flood plain or the end of a runway.

[Aeronaut]

I like that idea of putting the incinerator on a trailer. Solves a lot of problems at once.

[Aeronaut]

Barry Kirk wrote: Aha,

So, in that case, by the time the last core has fired, the first core is ready to fire again. Cool. The power rarely needs to touch the cap.

Now all you need is about $1G and the political will to build it with no history. We really do have to solve the problem of how to store the energy for the next pulse without using a capacitor. I’m halfway wondering about a very long coil like ancient guitar reverbs used…

[Aeronaut]

Yes, they can be daisy chained to help fire the next one. That’s what I’m looking at as a workaround for utility scale installations with nearly 1,000 cores so that 1 cap pulse only has to return to the cap bank if the whole array were to shut down for some reason. The reason for this is that this type of cap (at least on the General Atomics site) has a lousy design life of less than a million charge/ discharge cycles.

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote:

AFAIK, all the X-rays are captured as part of the photoelectric current generation. And the water/boron shells catch the soft neutrons from side-reactions.

I am not an expert in radiation management, but I think that shielding is a function of radioactivity. And until I see some number I think that radioactive isotopes will probably accumulate in a running FF module until it is turned off and “cools” down.

Eric stated in the Google Talks video that the core cools down to background radiation levels in 13 hours, citing a half-life of something like 20 minutes. He compares the starting radiation level to a room full of school kids- not much compared to fission plants

[Aeronaut]

Can several FF cores share the same shielding envelope? I believe this is the 5th time I’ve asked.

[Aeronaut]

But multiple cores can share the same shielding envelope, no? Say 4 cores in a container slightly larger than a single core’s shield. Remember, this is going to preferably be placed near the wing root’s center to help with trim while decreasing length of cable runs.

[Aeronaut]

dennisp wrote: Hmph. Ok maybe I should retract my “too bulky” comment.

How would the jet work? Propeller plane is easy, just electric motors, but we’ve got no burning fuel to inject into a jet engine.

Airliners and air freighters like 747s could substitute a 16 ton electric motor for the jet turbine. The fan is essentially a propeller, so it won’t go anywhere near mach speed. Not having to buy, store and lift ~220 tons of fuel can lead to some real pricing advantages. but I’d expect it to really catch on in new designs rather than retro-fits.

[Aeronaut]

vansig wrote:
Bravo. Feels just like an infomercial. 😉

It’s a copy writing exercise no matter which form or media it’s aimed at. 😆 And it’s going to be online forever if we do it in such a way as to embarrass ourselves in the longer sweeps of history- say a year or ten, when the spill’s memory in the public’s collective memory is about the same as the Exxon Valdez incident. That’s why I oppose direct attack when we’re developing the clear solution to problems that seem unsolvable at the moment.

To paraphrase, “Let he who is willing to live without at least plastics and asphalt lead the offensive”

[Aeronaut]

NIF makes sense to develop leading-edge laser technology, and ITER’s real justification is to develop materials that can withstand the temperatures and neutron fluxes of a D-T fusion reaction. Now, why these materials really need to be developed only makes sense to me as a way to keep people who know better gainfully employed protecting the status quo by presenting the illusion that fusion is too difficult and expensive for private companies to achieve.

[Aeronaut]

Tulse wrote:

At $50 million per 25MW electric output, it is only 20-40X as expensive as FF.

It’s also arguably far farther along to a commercial product, and the technological issues are not as fundamental. It’s pricing is also less speculative than for FF. Don’t get me wrong, I have every hope that LPP succeeds, and that it has a product soon. But in the competitive space, Hyperion is a similarly-sized solution, and will be to market much more quickly. Of course, if FF actually proves itself, the competitive space will change very rapidly — it is hard to imagine any other technology being able to compete if LPP (and/or some of the other aneutronic fusion companies) produce a working fusion generator.

Think nuclear waste proliferation, and contrast that with all the groups who allegedly performed (and charged for) doing due diligence to fund Hyperion development. There sure are going to be a lot of embarrassed “experts” & “leaders” if FF delivers as promised.

[Aeronaut]

Henning wrote: Or maybe Deuterium and Bor-10? With higher Deuterium contents? So first D-D reacts to T + p and He-3 + n, providing initial boost for D + B-10 reactions? Possibly the energy for the neutrons is wasted, though.

How would the shielding requirements change with this hybrid reaction? Also, what would happen to projected size, purchase price, and maintenance requirements?

[Aeronaut]

dennisp wrote: “So this is basically a fusor? Not even a polywell?”

Why do you say this? IEC sounds like polywell to me.

Following in Dr. B’s footsteps? That doesn’t sound like the budget for a set of 7 meter magnets and that many physicists.

[Aeronaut]

I agree, Emmetb. We could also add pix of improved sanitation improving health. http://fiverr.com has plenty of folks who will do all sorts of short gigs like this for $5 a gig.

[Aeronaut]

From the comments section: “This helps explain why it is often so difficult to explain that being skeptical and being open minded are not contradictory.”

[Author]

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