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I think fusion can get out of the problems of uranium enrichment and plutonium production (which could be used to make bombs) since fusion reactors are very different from fission reactors. A P+B11 fusion reactor uses extremely plentiful fuel elements which have no viable use as nuclear material in a bomb, and the P+B11 reactor would produce (theoritically) no nuclear waste or radioactivity, nor could it “melt down”. A D+D or D+T fusion reactors on the other hand needs rare fuels and produce huge amounts of high energy neutrons which would render the reactor highly radioactive for decades and could be used to breed plutonium.

Solar, wind and hydro have very poor energy densities and (solar and wind) are intermittent source of energy. To achieve a true renewable energy economy would require huge amounts of cheap solar cells (cheap is possible, scaleable production is questionable) and also a massive battery system to store all the electrical energy (hydrogen, batteries, compression, etc), biofuels would need to be made from energy crops, agricultural waste and municipal waste. This is the future we are most likely headed for (say in 60 years when we have even depleted coal, oil and NG will have been long gone) but it will produce an economy were energy is much more expensive then today which will likely have very detrimental social side-effects (the end of the middle class, basic necessity like heat and food will be expensive). Ideas like grossly cheap p+b11 fusion present the possibility of truly cheap energy with virtually no environmental effects and billions of years of fuel reservoirs, the social effects would likely only be second to a utopia!

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I’ve always worried about peak oil, more so then global warming. Global warming is a SLOWLY growing problem, in theory dealing with it by adapation alone is possible, peak oil is diffrent: if global warming is like being chewed on by rats, peak oil is like a sudden blow to the skull with an axe! Peak oil could crash civilization as we know it and its likely to happen sooner (within a decade or even now) rather then later. For some reason peak oil does not get the attention it needs.

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I’m still baffled on how 80% photovoltaic conversion efficiency of X-rays to electricity is possible? Could you at least give a brief explanation on how such a X-ray photovoltaic device works (what materials it made of, its structural shape, etc).

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If you want really inaccurate (badly drawn as well) porn: 4chan is that way –>

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Wiki is not a very good source of knowledge, unless you don’t care about accuracy or bias. See http://www.wikitruth.info.

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Well it would be nice if there was a place were we could get into a intellectual orgy of somekind on a regular bases, but such a place is rare.

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Perhaps for the electrodes and such, but the rare metals would not be lost to the fusion reaction, they would just end up sputtering on to the decelerator, and would need to be clean off and recycled once in a while. Fusion reactions other then p+B11 use rare elements (rare on earth) like deuterium (which is not to rare just expensive to purify) tritium, and He3.

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Well there is some mental jacking off here Duke Leto, but here is an example of hydrogenated pyrolysis production (like I have been saying), actually its hydrogenated gasification but the inputs and outputs are the same.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/03/researchers_pro.html#more
So its is in fact being looked at, the only problem is the need for energy to make hydrogen, in this case its assumed solar or nuclear power providesthe energy, and I would put my bets on solar as it is now.

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Duke Leto,

I think I read that its going to be in the hundreds of KeV range x-rays from Bremsstrahlung or Cyclotron radiation. These are still technically called x-rays because of the nature of the source (electron collision, particles changing velocity by magnetic field interactions), there will be some gamma rays from the fusing particles directly but they won

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No, there has not, which bothers me greatly because new technologies (or at least untested ones) are likely to fail or have added complications. Added to the fact that DPF fusion is a untested technology, the need for efficient x-ray photovoltaics adds another level of improbability to the whole concept.

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Answer me this: is net useful energy possible without converting the x-rays? Can the decelerator alone produce enough energy to run the reactor and produce electricity? I have never heard of high efficiency x-ray photovoltaic.

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I’ve known of them for years, but have yet to see them make a significant product. Its just electron tunneling that overcomes the problem with normal thermalcouplers of heat conductivity: make a nanometer gap where electron can jump but heat can

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Yes you could make photovoltaic systems that convert x-rays but there efficiency and lifespan would be very questionable. It seems that Focus fusion relies and not one but two major breakthroughs: Focus fusion and high efficiency x-ray photovoltaic. Either that or you going to need both heat engine cooling and a decelerator just to break even which would make a DPF fusion reactor much more costly. Although even if DPF does end up needing a steam engine and cooling towers it would still be economically competitive with coal and even nuclear power, just not by as much.

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The simulation showed that the ratio of fusion yield/gross input energy rose from 0.067% at 0.75MA to 5% at 1MA to 24% at 1.5MA. The optimum case studied is for a current of 2.0 MA, cathode radius 3.3 cm, and final magnetic field 12 GG. This simulation case produced a beam that carried 97% of input energy and x-rays that carry 57% of input energy. In practical terms this means that if the beam energy recovery efficiency is 90%, which is reasonable, net energy production occurs with x-ray energy recovery rates above 22%, which is easily achievable. Another practical energy-producing combination simulated used an 80% beam recovery and 80% x-ray recovery for an overall efficiency of 43%. In this example, the net electric energy production is 3.1 kJ per pulse or 3.1 MW for a 1 kHz pulse rate.

This is rather grave, if I

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Only 21 sign it! that horrible!!! We need to spread this around, get the word out!

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