[Aeronaut]

JimmyT wrote: I thought about the diode solution. But I was afraid it would get blown. I can’t calculate the voltage involved, but I think that It may be considerable.

I hate expensive parts, even cheap extra parts, but the friendly folks who build the cap bank controller may have a solution. I believe peak voltage is calculated around 4 to 5x input voltage, as the pinch occurs. Best case might be a multi-bank controller that would let us define the new coil as a cap bank. This could get us down to current vs voltage phasing.

[Aeronaut]

As Brian mentioned in the Policy Integration thread,

Brian H wrote:
I believe Eric’s estimate is that it would take about 9 hrs. for the external housing/maintenance space to return to background levels after shut-off. So it would take about a day to turn around each annual or semi-annual servicing.

This design may be heating what would be known as the “hot side” of a fission plant’s heat exchanger. Not good. A search for Most Effective Neutron Shielding Materials produced this website: http://wardray-premise.com/structural/neutron.html which makes neutron and X-ray shielding products. Their Premadex product can be poured into molds at 95 to 100 degrees C, which could make it a candidate for the vacuum chamber’s material or the sleeve that the core would slide into in my design. In non-boiler applications, this would immensely reduce the mass and material requirements. I’m assuming that being non-ferrous, it would have no RF shielding abilities.

Elemental Composition

Element Percentage by Weight Concentration (Atoms cm-3)
Hydrogen 11.4 6.81 x 1022
Lithium[1] 1.3 0.11 x 1022
Oxygen 39.9 1.51 x 1022
Carbon 47.4 2.38 x 1022

So my questions are how thick this would have to be for a 1khz pulse rate (attenuating to background level), and will it absorb most of the X-rays heading in those directions in the process?

[Aeronaut]

JimmyT wrote: Aeronaut,

I’ts already been mentioned (though not in these forums) that as the gigagaus magnetic field decays, it will generate an electromagnetic pulse in the “Blake coil” surrounding the main electrode. This will have to be taken into account in the circuit design, least they be fried. It has also been mentioned that one possible antidote to this problem would be to design the circuit somewhat like an RF circuit. Although this circuit would have to be tunable to the pulse frequency unless that were to remain a constant.

We would have to introduce significant additional inductance for this to work, and I’m not sure that would be desirable.

Jimmy,

Blake Coil has a ring to it. The PLC controller can switch it out of the circuit after around 750 nS, since its low voltage and current. A quick but expensive way to drop in a lot of inductance would be to introduce a Be Trow Coil –> diode –> cap bank and see if we can get more than breakeven before the X-ray conversion.

Tilting the cathodes a few degrees can eliminate the need for the Blake Coil, but will take several experimental base plates to get the angle anywhere near optimum for any particular application.

[Aeronaut]

Rematog also laid out a long list of regulatory bodies that commercial power plants must satisfy. Here’s a sketch of my configuration designed with total compliance in mind. Note that even without the X-ray boiler, this may be the most elegant way to shield the FF reactor using 1 meter of water and a few cm of boron. Nothing matters in the mind of a regulator or prospect if it doesn’t look like it was designed to be at home and inspire confidence in an industrial setting, so the structure borrows very heavily from transformer and heavy equipment mezzanines raised platforms) that I’ve worked around and under.

In real life, there would be 2 or 3 times as many vertical beams, I haven’t shown any dotted lines suggesting the deck beams, and the entire structure would most likely be metal-sheathed, like many large industrial stamping presses.

http://global–village.com/Aquarius.jpg

If anybody wants to properly illustrate it (I’m no Photoshop wizard), all structure and hand rails are bright International Safety Yellow, and cabinets are a little darker and muddier than Putty. I’ll ink and re-post this sketch later this afternoon.

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan,

http://nrc.gov covers the federal —> state regulations for the u.s. Haven’t checked the international atomic energy commission yet. As Rematog pointed out, the X-ray generator nature is what really exposes us to regulation. Some experience with the higher powered test rig will get us solid data on how long it takes to get a core back to background level radiation, our 2nd “exposure as I see it. Have you looked into IAEC and/or UN regulatory bodies?

[Aeronaut]

willit wrote: desalinated water could be harvested with minimal treatment by drawing off of rivers and replenishing by piping to areas of greatest use. at least for the interim slowing the consumption from ogalala. we just need the horsepower to pump water to these areas. if focus fusion takes off this could be a very inexpensive approach.

Yep, that’s probably the easiest political solution. Wonder how long after that before a longer term “solution” like pumping Gulf and ocean water are implemented?

T. Boone Pickens wanted to build a 600 some odd mile long pipeline from his ranch in the Texas Panhandle to pump Ogalla water to the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. I imagine a better way to make money off of water would be for him to double the length and slightly increase the diameter so it reaches the Gulf north of Houston, and bill his neighbors to put the rest into the aquifier. On that scale, he’d probably just bill Austin periodically for being such a “Good Texan”.

[Aeronaut]

The Ogalla acquifier had no problems to speak of until after WW2, when electric pumps made irrigation take off. As a former sailor, I’ll guarantee you don’t want to drink where ships and barges have been. (No holding tanks). Here in West Michigan, we already have enough problems with Lake Michigan going down. Also, I agree with Brian about the Law(s) of Unintended Consequences.

Seems to me that the best way overall to replenish the Ogalla is to pipe in desalinized water so the farmers don’t have to change their crop rotations or learn not to plow just before winter. That change alone is worth ~1″ of rainfall a year in retained moisture and snow retention.

[Aeronaut]

In theory, carbon taxes are going to wean the alleged bad guys off CO2 emissions over decades. We’ll see more when the bill emerges from Congress. ‘Bama wants a California-grade bill that he can use to lead the hold-outs by example. Maybe we’ll have an indication by the end of 2010….

Liquid fueled rockets use liquid fuels like hydrogen or kerosene (by any other name) mixed with cryogenic oxygen. Pure oxygen, as Brian mentioned, is not flammable. For that matter, neither is pure hydrogen, although you could suffocate in a room full of it. A mixture of 96% hydrogen + 4% oxygen is explosive.

The oxygen is used in both cases to make it possible to burn the fuel. Burning cryogenic hydrogen + oxygen = water vapor and a bunch of heat energy. Kerosene has some relatively small advantages, but it pollutes as a rocket or jet fuel.

Do a site-wide search, though, because FF has some potential applications as a single stage to orbit energy and/or propulsion source. Guaranteed to make you swear off of chemical rocketry, lol.

[Aeronaut]

Assuming a plasma torch of sufficient power, why would we need to pull out a plug? Why not just set it to maybe a few cm depth per pass and use the PLC (computer) to “paint” inside the circle? By eliminating the gigantic metal cutters and the torque required to drive them, the machinery size, cost, and complexity goes way down, along with maintenance scheduling. I’m sure that how far a machine could “bore” through solid rock in a day would shoot through the roof.

[Aeronaut]

Brian-

I confess to taking a few steps in faith. Since the early experiments will be using Deuterium fuel, it may be the end of the year before we know if this machine will actually burn pB-11 or just point us farther down that road. Rematog ran the numbers in the General Discussion->Heat to Electricity thread (forum page 2, topic page 2)

Rematog wrote: Heat is a GOOD thing.

Actually, I can see valuable uses for the heat energy of the X-rays�..as process heat.

Many industries require thermal energy, heat, as part of their process. Obviously some, kilns, etc. are too high temperature for Focus Fusion to be of use directly. But many use low level heat, hot water or low pressure (100 psig or less) steam.

I did a little math, If FF gets 0.98 of input power out in the ion beam and 0.57 of input power out as X-rays and can generate 5 MW net with 90% ion beam to electric and 80% X-ray to electric, I back calculate the input power to be 14.79 MW and the X-rays to be 8.43 MW(gross).

Assuming a �Thermal Generator� is built using the same fusion reactor with the ion beam still being used to make electrical power the reactor input, the outside make-up electrical power load would be 1.75 MW. Therefore X-rays could, at 95% conversion efficiency, be used to produce roughly 8 MW of thermal power.

So a Focus Fusion block, with an �X-ray boiler� in place of the X-ray electrical converter, could be used to generate heat at 460% efficiency from input electrical power.

A major question I�d have for the physics types (I�m a mechanical engineer, X-rays are not something I�ve ever dealt with) is would cooling water or steam become radioactive if heated directly or indirectly (a target heated by x-rays which is cooled by the fluid) by the X-ray output of a Focus Fusion reactor?

Rematog wrote: I’ve thought a little more about the use of a Focus Fusion Power Block as a process steam boiler.

If the X-ray energy converter could be designed to have a partial electrical conversion, just enough to make the unit self generate the electrical power needed for it’s own operation, then from my previous post, the 8,010 net (95% conversion) of the X-ray portion of the output would need to have 1,745 kw of electrical output before the “boiler” portion.

This would leave 6,265 kw of useful thermal energy(at 95% of total X-ray energy captured). This is 21.4 MBtu/hr, (roughtly 21k lb/hr of steam, depending on feedwater and steam conditions) which if provided by coal at 90% boiler eff. would require burning 1 ton of good coal per hour (12,000 Btu/lb, a good grade of bituminous, more is western coal (PRB) is burned), or about 25k scf of natural gas per hour.

This is not large by industrial standards. I think that the total CURRENT (at today’s energy prices) US demand for Focus Fusion power blocks would easily be double, likely triple, the 200,000 units previously mentioned to meet current electric demand. This is before added increase demand due to lower prices and the increase due to new uses (desalination, etc).

So I would be un-surprised to see a demand of almost 1 million Focus fusion units (if 5MW size) within 10 year (in the US alone!!!). This makes me wonder if labor to operate and maintain these units is available. This would certainly be a growth industry, lol.

JimmyT wrote: Exposure to electromagnetic radiation does not make things radioactive. Only exposure to particulate radiation (mostly neutrons) will do that. Otherwise when we “nuke” popcorn in the microwave oven we would have real problems.
Seriously though, this is true regardless of the wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation, from radio-waves all the way up to gamma rays. (Yeah, I know about Hafnium. There is always an exception isn’t there?)

Concerning waste heat: Don’t forget the conversion efficiency of the input pulse to the plasmoid. I think Uber Lerner is using an efficiency for this step of 50%. This is a figure he has garnered from other research groups which have achieved this comparatively high efficiency; and not merely a number he pulled out of his, er.. I mean …. the air. Thus far though LPP has only achieved 0.01% efficiency in this step, (this in his Texas experiment). Lets hope for conversion efficiencys of 70% plus in this step as well; once our complete bag of tricks is applied.

These 3 posts are the gist of what I’ve been pestering y’all with in this thread. My apologies for not hunting that thread down earlier and saving us all a LOT of time and effort.

While I agree with Rematog’s output numbers, I haven’t been able to reconcile his input power requirements- initial or makeup. I’m going from Eric’s G Talk pB-11 fusion requirements, listing pk cap bank energy as 43kJ, and loosened the time to pinch from 1.6 to 2 microseconds; Inner and outer busswork are the assumed target values of 12 nH.

I’m seeing a minimalist system schematic like an RF tuner’s tank circuit, where FF is the cap and the drift coil is the coil. The major differences are that we’re emitting X-rays as well as releasing energy that used to bind nuclei. Thus we get an energy gain instead of “ringing” as the voltage succumbs to system losses.

[Aeronaut]

Here’s the direct link, Rezwan. http://www.legion.org/magazine/2529/power-power-domestic-dilemma . Only problem is that it’s a tease to get subscribers. Here’s the Google search results for Jay Stuller, the author. We can learn a lot from him and maybe get mentioned in the reprint of the book he wrote the article to promote. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=jay+stuller&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=jay+stuller&fp=Li-R6mbKWrc

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote: Hi Aeronaut – I tried to find the article you referred to. Found another one, but it didn’t have your quote. Seems to be part of a series. Do you have the direct link? Also, that pdf was for the Virginia Water Resources center, seemed to be a brochure about the institute, nothing definitive about water issues.

Jimmy, the article I quoted (not one of it’s sources, who likely does have an agenda), also states that agriculture, industry, and the electric industry are the US’s largest water users in that order. This is a VERY long, multi-faceted article that makes the point that no single industry or resource can be singled out by policy. Rather, water, air, energy, transportation, (just for openers) should be planned in an integrated manner.

Anyway, we’re starting fresh here. Brand new topic thread.

I scanned though the article again yesterday, thinking maybe I’d take a chance with copyright laws and scan it to an attachment, but the sheer number of pages would make it a huge download. I’ll see if they have an online version of the mag that I can link to. Best I could do yesterday was find the link to the organization and person directing the study, including contact information and an idea how they think they see the world.

“Facts” are a lot easier to find online than Facts. All that’s needed is an existing opinion to bolster and a quick search or few. Hence the flat world that most people operate in. Assuming that the heat exchanger will dump the heat to process heating water (for utility), or to air (convenient), we’ve likely covered >90% of the angles we need to address. My first question is what other heat disposal media would be attractive, and why? This can be expanded to a list of companies already building heat recovery add-ons that we have no intention of competing against. FF is a growth industry for LOTS of companies

We’ll also need to be on the lookout for unassailable authority-grade reports such as EIA provides, especially the ones whose context and facts take many aspects of modern society into account. As Eric said in the Google Talks, the aluminum and glass industries are unlikely to scale to global energy demand, at least cost-effectively. Attempting to do so would grossly distort global energy demand numbers. That may be one of our foundation stones.

[Aeronaut]

JimmyT wrote:

In depth thread.

In light of this website post, can we come up with a chart comparing the heat and thermal pollution footprint for different energy production processes?

Given that

Almost half of all water withdrawn in the United States each year is for cooling electric power plants.

It would be nice to add a quantification/estimate of how much less thermal pollution will be generated by FF plants. That seems to be one area where we are still polluting.

Perhaps this should be a separate thread.

Whoever originated that statement about cooling water use clearly has some sort of agenda other than stating the simple truth. (And I know you’re just quoting someone, Rezwan) It is so misleading and carefully crafted as to force me to that conclusion.

The truth:
Almost half of all water withdrawn in the United States each year is for cooling electric power plants. And the vast majority of that water is simply raised a couple of degrees and returned to the river or lake whence it originated. There have been environmental impact studies ad-nauseum which show that very little if any harm is done to the ecology in the process.

Notice that the statement is not untrue. You can’t say that about it. But it sure misrepresents reality.

Jimmy, the article I quoted (not one of it’s sources, who likely does have an agenda), also states that agriculture, industry, and the electric industry are the US’s largest water users in that order. This is a VERY long, multi-faceted article that makes the point that no single industry or resource can be singled out by policy. Rather, water, air, energy, transportation, (just for openers) should be planned in an integrated manner.

The FF Society has already demonstrated more due diligence than a “flat-worlder” envirocrises monger will ever show. I agree, we need a thread to explore how to minimize our exposure to them, without painting the last 110 years as bad. Hey, they did what they could with what they had.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:
But if FF isn’t doing p-B fusion, I’m not sure what it IS doing, and where all this heat is going to come from. It MUST be above break-even to be a heat engine of any value, so what, exactly, Sir Aeronaut, do you envisage is happening in a non-electricity-producing over-break-even p-B FF generator used as a heat engine? 😉 :cheese: I find it hard to imagine what could be going on. If you want to use D-T fuel as a fallback or alternative, then you have to deal with the neutron flux: not just stopping it in the water shielding, but periodically replacing the internal hardware because the previous set has been degraded and rendered very “hot” by transmutation of component elements into unfriendly isotopes.

Thanks for the promotion, Brian.

I envisage the current state of FF as a pB11 reactor that currently transfers maybe 50% of its magnetic energy to the plasmoid and has 42% thermodynamic efficiency. (These are both optimistic numbers until the 2.6MA machine begins producing solid numbers). IOW, we pay through the nose in electricity converted to heat before we can even begin to think about energy break-even, let alone an energy profit. Therefore, FF’s most readily available markets don’t require energy break-even, just more BTU gain than could be achieved by burning fossil fuels. As ion beam recovery ramps up to the 90% range, operating cost steadily decreases, ignoring little details like control, monitoring, and maintenance labor.

I pasted all but the first and last page of the entire https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/139/P15/ thread into my word processor last night. Now its time for me to see what Rematog and Eric had to say on the last page. While I’m at it, I’ll be sure to add Maihem’s rebuke from about the same timeframe.

[Aeronaut]

Here’s a partial view from (American) Legion Magazine’s cover story “The Power of Power” a few months back. Producing 1MW from hydro-electric dams takes 20 gallons; from fossil fuels, 1,100 gallons; from nuclear, 2,400 gallons/MW. Their take was that water and electric policies can’t be treated separately due to falling levels of groundwater in places like the Ogalla acqifier, which supplies most of the MidWest’s drinking and irrigation water.

We have the inherent advantages of air cooling and no steam cycle, so our thoroughbred version shouldn’t contribute to heating surface water. As Eric said, dissipating this heat in the air is such a tiny percentage of insolation that it will have no real impact, except to reduce the CO2 levels.

Edit to add citations: Virginia Tech Water Resources Research Center. Study directed by Dr. Tamim Younos. http://wrri.nmsu.edu/niwr/program03/VA.pdf has contact information.

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