[JimmyT]

Me,
Sorry to break the news to you but the answer is no. We have yet to build a single working, energy generating reactor. That is what this entire project is about.

The first one built will probably end up costing about 25 million dollars by the time it is finished. Once the design is established, duplicates can be constructed for around $300,000. Any design or materials shortcuts will likely end up not with a poorly working reactor. But rather with one that doesn’t work at all!

But look at the bright side! What power you do purchase will be greatly reduced in price due to this project.

You sound as if you may be young, in which case you have even more to benefit from this technology. You may inherent a greatly improved world due to what we are doing here!

Why don’t you join us instead of trying to build one on your own? You could be part of this! Start out by trying to understand this process as best you can. Just about anyone can learn this stuff with a little effort. Watch Eric’s video several times. Read the forums. Get other people interested! I think this is one of the most promising peaces of news that the world has to offer.

[JimmyT]

Tasmo,
Eric says similar things to what Rezwan quoted, in his book. I hope you’ve read it. He claims (believebly) that intelectuals ,such as economicists, have much to gain by claiming that things are so very complex. And can only be understood by the very few. The anointed, as it were. So you see we simple folk should really just turn the entire government and economy over to them.

Eric’s version has a ring of truth to it. Don’t you think?

[JimmyT]

The red river certainly could have spared a few billion gallons of fresh water about a month ago.

[JimmyT]

There is a dimple in the end of the center electrode. The optimal shape of it remains to be determined. It has to be there in order for the plasma filaments to fountain together. The plasmoid actually forms slightly below the end of the electrode down in this dimple.

This is why x-ray transparency is so important for this electrode. The the x-ray absorption of elements gets large really quick as you work your way up the periodic table.

[JimmyT]

Tasmo’

Look up the term “Aneutronic Fusion” in Wikipedia. Very close to the beginning is a section called “Candidate Aneutronic Reactions” where it discusses all the pluses and minuses of the various aneutronic reactions.

It seems to me to be a very through and concice summary. It also reaches much the same conclusions as Mr Lerner. That
P-B11 is indeed the Holy Grail of fusion.

[JimmyT]

Having given this a little thought. If I were a petroleum exporter here is where I would want to be:

There is a group of chemicals, derived from petroleum but precursors of virtually all finished products. And the good part is that they are relatively few in number. Perhaps 20-30 chemicals total. I’d make and export them.

[JimmyT]

Rezwan,
This reply really requires an encyclopedia, not a paragraph. But here’s the gist of it.

Currently here in The United States about 20% of the petroleum we use is used for chemical feedstock, not fuel.

Plastics are the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind, but the complete list would fill volumes. Everything from paints to pharmaceuticals to pesticides start their life as petroleum.

And if you wanted to know how this is done…..Well that’s many many more volumes. And certainly no one individual knows all of it.

Assuming that the deployment of focus fusion causes a general increase in the standard of living worldwide; We expect that the demand for petroleum as a chemical feedstock will increase, even as its use as a fuel decreases.

Hope this helps a little.

[JimmyT]

How did you come up with 43% efficiency?

An article on the Focus Fusion site states 80% efficiency is expected.

LPP Team Starts Looking at Ion-Beam Energy Extraction
by Admin on Mar 31, 2007 at 08:27 AM

Energy from the plasma focus will be delivered in two forms a burst of x-rays and an intense beam of ions. Extracting the energy from the x-ray burst by photoelectric means has been outlined in our patent application and it seems that a high efficiency, around 80%, will be achievable. We have now started to look at the questions related to extracting energy from the ion beam.

Since the ion beam is a pulse of current, the best way to extract energy from it is inductively, by essentially the same process that makes a transformer work. The changing magnetic fields produced by the rapidly varying currents generate electric fields that can move electrons in a coil. The energy in the current can then be captured in a capacitor. As the beam exits the coil, rapid-acting diamond switches can open the circuit to prevent the energy from leaving the capacitors.

However, the challenge in this process is that the electrons in the gas that the ion beam passes through are also capable of carrying the return current by moving in the same direction as the ions. If the electrons within the beam itself carry this current, it will short out the coil and no energy will be derived from the beam.

A preliminary analysis of this problem is now being carried out by Eric Lerner in cooperation with Dr. Roberts Terry of Naval Research Lab and Dr. John Guillory of George Mason University. We are just beginning this work, but a review of studies in the literature has come up with some initial encouragement. First studies performed at Sandia Laboratory in the 1990�s showed that when the density of the gas and the density of the beams are close, the beam can propagate in a self-pinched mode that preserves the ion current and prevents most of the electrons from catching up with the beam. This is because it is more difficult for electrons to move across magnetic field lines than along them. Other studies showed that if a coil or other conductor is placed close enough to a self-pinched beam, the return current will flow preferentially through the coil rather than the plasma.

We will continue to study this issue in greater depth. As our experiments develop they will also shed light on the ion beams, whose current is measured with a Rogowski coil.

https://focusfusion.pmhclients.com/index.php/site/article/lpp_team_starts_looking_at_ion_beam_energy_extraction/

Roger,

You are only examining the last step of the pulse. Examine too, the first shake or two of each pulse.

Start at the beginning of the process where the capacitor’s discharge form an arc to the central electrode and end up forming a plasmoid . How efficient is this first step? In the Texas A&M;experiment the answer was 0.01%. That’s 0.0001 of the input energy. The extra energy ends up heating the central electrode. Which is why the issue of heat buildup is so critical.

The necessary minimum efficiency of this step for the overall process to work (to achieve actual break even) is around 53%. I’m not sure what efficiency Eric used in his computer simulations. I Believe the efficiency he assumed is 60%. Just from playing around with the numbers.

The overall thermodynamic efficiency is then calculated as:

_______electricity generated ______________
electricity generated + waste heat (From all steps)

Higher efficiencies in the first step will result in dramatically higher overall efficiencies, greater output per each unit, less waste heat, and lower costs per unit of energy generated..

Let’s pray Eric and his team gets the 60% he is seeking, or greater.

[JimmyT]

My chief worry right now is not that this technology will not work. It is assuming that it does work that the government will seize it using some lame eminent domain argument. They would probably screw up the prototype research, then the deployment would be totally politicized with the government, not the people reaping all the benefits.

[JimmyT]

1. The navy did fund Dr Bussard’s research for a while. But the government has stopped funding all fusion projects except tokamaks.

2. This technology does have waste heat. We believe that its overall efficiency will be on the order of 43%. That’s less waste heat than most heat engines, but still significant.

3. The first molten salt reactor (still my favorite design) fission reactor was designed and built with the aim of powering an aircraft.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge proponent of this technology. But you should know that some of these avenues have been explored. And exhausted.

[JimmyT]

Tasmo’ keep in mind too, that every time you generate a high energy neutron. Say a 14 Mev one. It represents more than just a radation hazzard. From the standpoint of this system it is a waste of energy. The momentum that it carries away cannot be harvested by either the x-ray or reverse particle accelerator. And it means that there will be alpha particles generated with that much less energy.

[JimmyT]

Brian, your above comment seems more poignant every day. I only wish it were not so. This whole project, and the bail out fiasco, is a clear demonstration of how poorly the government allocates funding.

[JimmyT]

That is assuming that any of these other approaches can be made to work at all.

I’m doubtful that any of the other approaches (at least the ones I’m familiar with) will work no matter how much money is spent on them. This fusion thing has proven to be a rather tough nut to crack.

Eric doesn’t believe that black holes exist. But I know of at least one. It’s the Tokamak research program. It can suck in an infinite amount of money and nothing ever comes out.

[JimmyT]

Sigma wrote: Most of the companies above have been stalled due to lack of funds. If there were to be a renewed interest in fusion, with say the Fusion X-prize, these companies may get the funding they need to complete their technologies. Personally I hope all the fusion technologies make it on the market, I’m sure they will each fill a niche.

I think once one approach is successful, other approaches will have a lot of problems getting funding. Particularly if they are inherently more expensive to begin with. So the first technology to cross the finish line will have exclusivity for a long time.

[JimmyT]

Brian H wrote:

…

To shoot an object into the sun you need not only to overcome the escape velocity of the Earth, but also the much larger orbital velocity of the earth around the sun. If you launch at the roughly 11.5km/s Earth escape velocity your object will have an orbit roughly equal to Earths, risking a re-entry many years later.

To launch into the sun you need to add another 29.8km/s on top of Earth’s escape velocity, to stop the object “dead into the earth’s orbit” so it starts the long drop straight into the sun. Any other velocity is undesirable since your waste will orbit the sun rather than plummet into it.
And then there is the risk of the Sun catapulting vaporized nuclear waste back to earth in a coronal mass ejection.

Actually it takes much less velocity to shoot the waste into a solar escape orbit to disappear forever into deep space, about 20km/s, like they did with the New Horizons spacecraft toward Pluto. This is much less than the velocity needed to launch an object directly into the sun, since the 30 km/s earth orbital velocity can be used as an advantage.

Why take it beyond the moon? Just pick a particular crater, and crash your n-waste loads into it. With no atmosphere, any “splash” will fall back down quickly. That crater could be used by any any and all nations. It would never be a problem until the moon is terraformed and given a dome or atmosphere, by which time the tech to manage a few tons of isotopes would be readily available. 😉

Or if you really want it gone with no return, drop it into Jupiter. It’ll never notice.

Ya’ know, Brian. I bet you could work that Jupiter thing into a decent science fiction story:

Spacetugs (powered by focus fusion devices, of course) around the mining colonies in the asteroid belts start disappearing near Jupiter. This happens soon after we start disposing of our nuclear waste there. Turns out Jupiter is inhabitated by gasesous thingys, and they think we are at war with them.

Throw in some gory reports of the damage. A love story or two. Maybe a Judus, either gaseous or human.

know any writers?

[Author]

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