[Elling]

AaronB,

please stick to the xrays. Eric has claimed before that xray recycling is not a problem. That’s reassuring and bold at the same time inasmuch as there should robust technology to back up such a claim. I can’t see why you would want to black out the technical details on this since the patent is all about the general application and not the specific implementation, I hope. We have enough of unadressed issues on an openended timeline already. I think you can be more open with the details, that will add cred and patience among potential investors.

Bussard was very generous with details on his IEC. Nobody’s gonna be able to cannibalise the IEC or the FF reactor anyway.
There’s a LPP projection but it hasn’t been updated. More sceduled mile stones are needed.

[Elling]

Fusion is about overcoming the coloumb repulsion.
A magnetic force deviates the repulsive force. It does not produce a force to counter or overcome the repulsive action.
So, either being a tokamak or a magnetic dipole will only produce an indirect confinement not a true potential well with a central action.
The principal movements of the ions will organise in a collective flow, that only occasionally will produce action perpendicular to this principal direction.
And once these perpendicular velocities become relatively high, and even high enough to produce fusion, it’s not all clear that they will be confined to anything.
That’s why the ITER is like nailing jelly to the ceiling.

Only if the magnetic field becomes huge, can magnetic confinement work. Like in the plasmoid.

[Elling]

Still, if the reactor produces 5MW per 4MW input, it’s not instaneously obvious that it’s commercially attractive.
4MW is a big chunk of power that can’t be sunk everywhere without a sufficient grid.
The reactor would be just anotherbid in the continuing “competition” between other energy sources.
The power conditioning around the site is trivial allright but expensive and bulky.
I think a Q = 5 or 10 is necessary to revolutionize the buisness.

[Elling]

http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/fusion_technical.htm
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/magnetic_effect.htm

Maybe these texts should be more accessible from the home page

[Elling]

Read up on several pieces of the puzzle instead before attempting a synthesis.
Tom van Flandern wants both a sea of gravtions and a medium of elysons that carry lightwaves.
Even if there is much plasma stuff out there, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all things must be electrical.
NASA and Max Planck Institut claim to snapshot black holes nowadays, but Oliver Manuel thinks nuclear and neutron star matter are the same ultimate incompressible. Too many neutrons in one place create a supernova and it all starts over. http://www.omatumr.com/index.html
Life cycle of galaxies and stars seem to be a recycling of matter thru the periodic table.
Google William Mitchell for that one.

[Elling]

Read what Tom van Flandern thinks of this year’s physics prize.

http://metaresearch.org/publications/bulletin/2006issues/0915/Mrb06cp8.asp#T1

[Elling]

Eric dismisses colliding plasmoids, but EPS type colliding plasmoids. I still wonder if a smooth union of plasmoids is possible if the parameters are set right. After all, the injected angular momentum in the ongoing Chile experiment would result in plasmoids merging. At least, the momentum should not be big enough for two plasmoids to desintegrate upon encounter from differential centrifugal forces in the toroid.

[Elling]

The EPS claims are plenty and bold. They don’t present a theory backed up by hard evidence to make their wonderful predictions believable.
This is sad, because colliding and/or counterrotating thoroids might be the ultimate trick needed to get pB11 going.

[Elling]

What is a proliferation risk really ?
In your above scenario, the bad guy needs to get his hands on natural uranium or yellowcake in the first place. This is probably not too difficult given the ongoing uranium mining boom.
Weapons grade material (Highly Enriched Uranium HEU and synthetic Plutonium Pu239) are still state secrets and the books are kept down to the last gram.
Our bad guy could get fast neutrons in a number of ways from other hitech restricted areas, not just from a DPF. Fast neutronics are still a highly sophisticated science requiring huge machinery and megabuck investment.
To make weapons grade materials, he stills needs all the centrifuges.

Getting Deuterium in purified gas form for injection into the DPF might be achievable for our bad guy.
Transforming a pB11 DPF device into a D-D reactor might also be achievable. But how do you collect your neutrons bursting out of your vacuum ?
He risks killing himself handling neutrons. Even suicide bombers would hesitate to get killed before the deed.

All things considered, DPF devices does not add to the present proliferation risk.

[Elling]

Kirk Sorensen at thoriumenergy.blogspot.com and his Oak Ridge groupies may be a little bit nostalgic, not that there’s anything wrong with that…
But the original MSR design didn’t foresee the replacement of the grahite moderators.
These “tar babies” dripping with radioactive salts…

However the French, the Russians and the Japanese seem to think that MSRs can be run on fast neutrons instead of thermal without graphite moderators.
MSR remains an excellent design but it takes experts and tens of millions at least to build them. There are proposals for small scale MSRs but it seems that radioactive handling still should be strictly regulated among the smallest number of players possible. This means big scale reactors.
GW reactors means big corp and Wall Street finance with your fair share of inertia and ripoff.

Beat this :
http://home.earthlink.net/~bhoglund/multiMissionMSR.html

[Elling]

In fact, Rubbias ADS has several reliability and longevity issues that need to be fully understood. Also, it swallows 30MW for the proton accelerator that might be used for other purposes. Basically it’s probably too complex.
However, there’s the abandoned molten salt reactor MSR that can run not only on Thorium but on all the fertile materials.
MSR is the ultimate fission reactor all things considered.
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/

Thorium is infact a significant improvement over Uranium in mining cost and proliferation risk.
A liquid core has several very significant advantages over the current light water reactor running on MOX rods : fuel preparation cost, continous reprocessing much cheaper, no high pressures, passive inherent safety.

The original MSR runs on thermal spectra neutrons and needs graphite moderator rods. These “tar babys” need to be replaced. However there are MSR designs that use fast neutrons and eliminate the deadful graphite disposal.

[Elling]

We all just adore the sarcastic uninformed bickering of the best among us, yeah
They are afraid of one single Bequerel but can’t see the problems coming from radioactivity and particles from coal.
Technocrats unite..

I don’t think it’s the startup costs that is currently stopping the Thorium reactor. It might be just the other way around : spectacular projects should have a high price tag for credibility.
Rubbia does not want to transfer accelerator designs outside Europe, for research monopoly or patriotric reasons.
Work to improve the synchrotron for sufficient reliability is ongoing. Possibly the RF powering and the proton injector are the failing parts. The fuel cycle needs to be fully worked out. I’m not competent to say whether an attempt on a full scale commercial reactor is justified now but necessary preparations would certainly accelerate (hmm) if the money was on the table. Simulations and nuclear expertise are now so mature that new reactors can be expected to perform right out of the box.
The more conservative Thorium approach was done to get rid of the Russian Plutonium stock. WER-100 reactors are currently operating.
http://www.thoriumpower.com/

Maybe FF will need more money than announced. The semiconductors for downconverting and recycle xrays, are they readily available ? Could there be a need for extra stuff to excite the critical amount of plasmoids like microwave heating, lasers, magnets ? Could the engineering phase be sped up by spending money lavishly in a parallell crash developement effort ?

[Elling]

Rezwan,
even if FF is in fact a competitor to all other energy sources, of course it should be presented as a renewable to Branson. In practice abundance of borax is infinite, it’s clean an harmless. So no bad feelings if we have to compare it to solar, geothermal and wind. All these also need some basic manufacturing out of common materials like alu and steel anyway. The N-word (nucculear) should be avoided. Fusion is still a good word especially as an attentiongrabber for explaining how much cleaner FF is than ITER. Don’t mention the toxicity of Be and decaboran if not directly prompted by an informed expert. Then just lay out all the details hands down and the expert will be even more satisfied.

[Elling]

The presidential hope for the future from us outside the US is probably Condi. I’m afraid she’s too busy with diplomatic courtesies and geopolitical schemes to see the oil problem up front. And she’s been on the boards, creating doubt about her independance in economic policy. Maybe Giuliani has the zeal to carry the message. McCain being an eccentric maverick, I can’t see any Dem up to the challenge.

[Elling]

Great postings !
Yes there’s no excuse for not getting started no matter how cynical your world view is. Humanity records wonderful accomplishments paired with the worst destructive atrocities.

Spectacular use of FF could provide the critical momentum for universal recognition, like a couple of orange plantations in Alaska or a Kalahari water plant. The skiing slope in Dubai of all places gained notority.

I’ll tell you why Norway doesn’t make cars. German producer Opel looked for a suitable plant location around Oslo in the 70s. Everything was ready until some treasury bureaucrat dug out some dusty legislation simply banning car production whole sale in the country! Also, we have a never-ending story about prototyping a LNG electricity plant. Straightforward as it would seem for a small concensus country with too much money and too little industry, governments have fallen over whether this plant should be profitable under the current floppy energy prices or if it should be zero in C02 emission. Dubya is so dug in with big oil that movies like The Genesis Code and Syriana feel more like reality than fiction.

I would think that FF inherently promotes a libertarian political agenda. Libertarian in the good ole 40 acres and a mule sense.. The GOP would not favour FF because it shorts out big corp. And just utter the word nuclear to your average German or Swedish green liberal..Scandinavians are early adopters of new mobile phone gadgets. Traditionally purists or luddites when it comes to energy, however ripoff oil and electricity prices have forced upon us a better acceptance of the nuclear industry.
I guess Eric is right when he predicts that serious political change must preceed the adoption of FF.

[Author]

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