[JimmyT]

Why is it that every time that someone prefaces their question with “this is going to be a stupid question”; they always follow by asking an excellent question?

As to the pressure Eric envisions using. Well below 1 atmosphere. I can’t remember exactly. 1/10th or maybe 1/100?

[JimmyT]

Sure thing. The problem is you are looking at elemental boron, not decaborane. Which will be the fuel used. Try Wiki again using that.

[JimmyT]

Before the age of solid state ignition systems, those of us who are old enough, remember ignition coils. These worked via a pinch, although I never heard it called that. Input voltage 12 volts. Output voltage ~10,000 volts. I know that it’s dependent on the relative number of turns in the primary and secondary. But, I don’t think you can use any 4x or 5x the input voltage rule of thumb.

The plasma focus sort-of works as a step-up transformer in that sense. Concentrating magnetic forces.

I know that two of the factors that go into the induced voltage spike are: magnetic field strength and speed of field decay.
Beyond that: proximity of the field, geometry of the objects involved, and of course materials they are made of.

Anything more elaborate than that gets a little above my pay grade.

[JimmyT]

Aeronaut wrote:

With regard to the scalability question:
It would probably be farsighted to try to fit one of these power units into a containerized cargo unit right at the beginning of the design phase. They might need outriggers to contain shielding water (mainly for neutrons.) I’ve seen many references in the forums to these units being “about the size of semi trailers”. Well, maybe we should endevor to make them exactly the size of those modular trailers. They would sure be easy to transport that way.

That standardized form factor would be a huge plus for shipping FF around the world. But a meter of water in all directions is a lot of mass, volume, and steel that isn’t absolutely required, as thinner, lighter shielding materials might give us a torpedo-like form factor.

This in turn could possibly fit 4 or more reactors into the container, along with the control room.
There is no intention of shipping the reactor with the water! :bug: 😆

It is unnecessary until the unit is “switched on”, in any case. Nothing in the FF generator is inherently radioactive. It would only be necessary for transport situations if it was being used as the power source.

Brian, you’re absolutely right- as long as you restrict the choice of primary shielding material to water. I don’t. Assuming a 1 foot FF core diameter, a meter of water shielding in all directions requires a diameter of just under 8 feet, which does not leave much clearance in a semi trailer. It may very likely be overweight, too, except for specially licensed oilfield trailers that can carry 40 tons. Sooooo, once you ship it halfway across the Sahara, how do you plan to fill it? :bug: 😆

But you just keep thinking inside the box, my friend, and my Delta-Vee conscious designs will eat your lunch by every metric.

Yeah Brian,

The very idea that you could come up with lots of water in a desert envroment, much less than you would need to… say put out an oil well fire. Oh, wait a minute. We did that right?

[JimmyT]

With regard to the scalability question:
It would probably be farsighted to try to fit one of these power units into a containerized cargo unit right at the beginning of the design phase. They might need outriggers to contain shielding water (mainly for neutrons.) I’ve seen many references in the forums to these units being “about the size of semi trailers”. Well, maybe we should endevor to make them exactly the size of those modular trailers. They would sure be easy to transport that way.

[JimmyT]

This whole discussion provides a very clear illustration of low entropy energy (electricty) being downgraded and in the process producing more enthalpy. It’s really implicit in Carnot’s law if you look at it right.

[JimmyT]

How can we be sure, with our current data, that the earth’s magnetic field will be optimal with any tilt of the electrodes? Maybe a somewhat stronger field is necessary. In which case —> Blake coil.

[JimmyT]

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.

[JimmyT]

Aeronaut,

It’s 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 electrodes. 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.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan 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.

[JimmyT]

Rematog wrote: Brian,

FF would, for larger remote areas, would be possible. For the smaller ones, the cost of the FF generator ($1 million or so installed) would be large compared to the cost of say a 500 hp diesel gen-set. And the service needs would be difficult to supply to a remote area. So, I’d guess these small remote places wouldn’t be in the first round of adapters. But small cities would be. Another example would be islands. In both cases, you still have to keep an electrical distribution system working as well.

Wouldn’t the cost and logistical considerations of continual fuel supply to your diesel gen-set go a long way toward changing that metric? About 20 gallons/hour should be about right for a 500 hp diesel, depending on load.

That works out to some 175,000 gallons/year.

With such a small load a fusion device could be pulsed much more slowly. This should result in infrequent required maintaince.

I understand that there is a lower limit of power usage below which deployment of one of these devices doesn’t make sense. But I think that limit may be even lower than the one you are suggesting.

But you’re just saying that they won’t be the first in line. Not that they won’t eventually get one. Right?

[JimmyT]

The hope is to shave a little time off that engineering time. There is no reason that some work on the energy capture portions of the prototype couldn’t be done concurrent with the fusion device.

[JimmyT]

Aero,

The PC’s! Excellent analogy. I hadn’t thought of that one.

[JimmyT]

Here’s what we are up against, and how I see my role and the role of this forum in this project:

There are quite a few special interest groups who will be opposed to this technology once they come to the realization that it is actually going to work. These groups include: the coal industry, the oil industry, the solar and wind power industry, probably the nuclear (fission) industry, and last but not least much of the global warming crowd (the fraction of it who really just want power and money).

Most of the special interests who have much to gain from the introduction of this technology don’t exist yet. Because the industries that they represent do not exist yet.

The single group who probably has the most to gain from this technology, and does exist, is the energy consuming public. And it’s our job to counter the lies and distortions and misrepresentations which the opposition groups (mentioned in paragraph 2 above) are sure to come up with. If we can convince enough people (using honest arguments) how truly benign and beneficial this technology is. The opponents won’t stand a chance.

[JimmyT]

JimmyT wrote: I think one of the earliest prototypes must have a hollow core electrode. We really need to measure that electron beam. Both to figure out if its worth capturing and figuring how much it adds to the cooling load. It also would give us an additional in-site into what is happening in that plasmoid.

This also suggests that a concentric shell design might be the way to go.

What does the butt end of that base plate look like? Is there room for a small passage? The innermost tube or two could be something other than beryllium too. Since we will be unable to collect those x-rays headed directly downward anyway. Introducing the “cool” helium via the innermost cooling tube to exit and head downward close to the tip would have the added advantage of maximizing the cooling at the tip where cooling is the biggest problem.

If you are only going to do 1 pulse every 10 minutes or so on the experimental device you might not have to worry about cooling at that stage of the project at all. Is that true? In which case the electron beam capturing/measuring device could be built right into the electrode base since coolant disruption wouldn’t be a factor.

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