[belbear42]

Brian H wrote:

Believe me: DPF’s and fission are compatible. It’s a fusion device and fusion is done with light elements. And DPF’s are all about an attempt to “make watts, not rads”

I think you meant “incompatible”. DPFs are vastly more efficient than any possible fission rig.

Indeed I did. Typo….

[belbear42]

Tasmodevil44 wrote:

has a whopping 90 positive charges to overcome, boron has only 5.

And also:

No energetic device like the DPF is needed for that.

That’s all the more reason why I thought that an energetic device like the DPF might make thorium undergo transmutation into something else that would fission instead of having to use neutrons. I also mentioned that other things like deutrium or an alpha particle of helium absorbed might also work. I’m very open-minded about possibilities most people would not be open-minded enough to consider.

Well, I think it’s all about energy balance. In this case definitely a negative energy balance: Shooting a proton into a Thorium will cost a LOT more energy than fission of the resulting uranium will ever deliver, especially since you cannot turn neutrons directly into electricity. It needs a thermodynamic circle.

Thorium transmutation using neutrons costs no energy at all, even better: you are using a reactor that already produces energy. A DPF powerful enough to transmute thorium would be an energy guzzling device. After all, any fission stuff is done in solid state, not in plasma state. Turning highly radioactive elements into plasma state is EXTREMELY hazardous, while keeping them in solid state is much more controllable.

And last but not least you will make your entire DPF machine so radioactive that it can only be maintained using hot-cell robotics and any parts you take out will be high-level radioactive waste.

Believe me: DPF’s and fission are compatible. It’s a fusion device and fusion is done with light elements. And DPF’s are all about an attempt to “make watts, not rads”

[belbear42]

Thorium fission is done with neutrons, not protons.
All you need is exposing thorium to a thermal neutron source (by simply placing it into a fission reactor)

No energetic device like a DPF is needed for that.

And I don’t think it’s even possible to use a DPF to fuse protons with thorium, which has a whopping 90 positive charges to overcome, boron has only 5.
One needs a full-blown particle accelerator for that, while using neutrons is so much easier.

Thorium itself is not even fissionable, but it can be used to start a fuel cycle, leading to uranium 233 which is fissionable.
The “breeding” of Thorium 232 into uranium 233 however is as dangerous as breeding uranium 238 into plutonium 239. (also for making nuclear weapons)
And it’s a very expensive process to extract the uranium 233 because of the high radioactivity of some byproducts such as uranium 232

Norway considered using Thorium in 2007, because they have abundant thorium ores and no uranium, but they backed out before large investments were done.

But p-B11 focus fusion is of course a FAR better alternative to any fission scheme, so once we have focus fusion, nobody will ever want to mess with heavy nuclei for power production again. (although some evil-minded may still want to mess with them to make nuclear weapons)

[belbear42]

What about this one:

Focus Fusion: Make Watts, not Rads

[belbear42]

Thanks for bringing back the focusfusion site and forum. The path to a bright future of clean and cheap energy is open again 🙂

One remark however:
My old stored link https://focusfusion.org/log/index.php returns a 404 since yesterday.

I tried https://focusfusion.org and this brings up the new home page https://focusfusion.org/index.php
The /log/ seems to have disappeared.
I think it might be important to add some way to redirect all links with /log/ in them to the correct page as well, so all stored links reconnect again.

Countless focusfusion links in all those other websites, wiki’s, google’s and forums (including this one) will now appear to be broken, and most surfers will not bother to retype the domain name.

The /log/ may once have been some sort of a mistake but backward compatibility is a very important issue. Please lift the 404 smokescreen!

Chris

[belbear42]

Rematog wrote: James,

I’ve had the please to travel to Britain twice in my life, and greatly enjoyed it and the wonderful underground system in London.

But, as I posted, this type of system only exists in the great metropolises. It may be possible to reduce car usage, and I’m sure that practical electric vehicles are possible in the near term.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that Europeans are, for the most part, lacking a “gut feel” for the size of the United States, esp. the western half. They can understand it when they look up a distance and make calculations, but their “feel” for the world is just smaller then the reality of the western US.

Rematog

For every problem there can be a suitable solution, as long as we dare to leave the paved roads of thinking about transportation AND there is the political will to build it. We have the technology for maglev trains, that can transport passengers long-distance at half the speed of an airliner. We have computers that could drive cars fully automatic on suitable roads and people who love the freedom that comes with individual transport. But why think only of maglev as public transport?

Why not combine the two and design a car-like vehicle that can both use existing roads, new auto-drive roads and even maglev tracks. The latter would also solve that battery problem for long distance travel since the car is essentially powered by the maglev track and can charge up its battery in the meanwhile. On-track your car will be driven automatically, by the same central control that also drives the big trains and smaller buses you share the track with.

Think of the idea of sitting in your very own car, driving itself at over 400 km/h while you can read a book or surf the web instead of doing such a boring but dangerous activity as hand-driving. You get off the track near your destination and drive your car the last mile or so over existing roads. It would be a real challenge to do this but hey, if we could get a man on the moon using only 1960’s technology, we can build this using only 2000’s technology and make it affordable for anyone who can now afford a brand-new big SUV.

Chris

[belbear42]

Lerner wrote: When the p and B11 nuclei merge, the C12 nucleus has too much excess energy to stay together. Think of two drops of water merging at high speed–they stay to gether only breifly, but the merged drop vibrates so violently it breaks apart–into the three helium nuclei. An isomer is an excited state of a given nucleus.

I see. Thanks for the explanation.

[belbear42]

Lerner wrote: We’ve discussed this before on the forum (I don’t remember exactly where.) Key point is that with FF, no one needs uranium for anything. Uranium supplies can be tightly controlled, and the fission reactor industry shut down, ending any proliferation of nuclear weapons. In my opinion this should be linked to eliminating nuclear weapons inthe countries that have them, but that’s another matter.

I agree that the fission industry can be shut down if cheap fusion is available, but even in that case a lot of in that case useless uranium will be lingering around (including “depleted” U238). And controlling uranium supplies is tricky business, especially with so much natural uranium deposits available in countries with questionable regimes (that tend to deal with each other, disregarding proliferation laws).
And after all, laws and regulations are there to be broken. The only laws we cannot break are the laws of physics.

I just wanted to know how if FF reactor abuse for plutonium breeding is physically possible for someone really determined to do this, or is the answer something like “okay, MAYBE in a 10000 year run you would have enough plutonium for a bomb”. In that case we may discard this threat as very unlikely.

For the fight against proliferation, it’s useless to ban the current hard-to-get technology for making plutonium, only to replace it with a new easy-to-get tool to achieve the same goal.

[belbear42]

Lerner wrote: Actually, preliminary calculations indicate the background plasma, the plasma in the whole vacuum chamber, will cool to something like 2,000 to 3,000 C between pulses. It just has to be hot enough to the boron will not precipitate out, which is a very complicated question of chemistry and dynamics. The electrodes propbaly have to be kept below 800 C to prevent rapid erosion.

That looks pretty hot in there. Cooling the vessel wall seems very obvious but how are you gonna protect those flimsy thin X-ray capturing sheets of metal from melting in that kind of environment? Running coolant tubes through them seems to defeat their very purpose.
And what kind of temperature will the X-ray transparent inner electrode get, which does not only gets the heat burden from the plasma sheets but also has to receive the emitted high-energy electron beam?

Maybe one can build that electrode with coolant channels through it, like Rocketdyne does with those rocket engine combustion chambers and exhaust nozzles.

Chris

[belbear42]

Lerner wrote: Investment in Focus Fusion is possible through Lawreneceville Plasma Physics, Inc.

You can get more information at http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com

I read this investment information and I definitely agree that you will not collect money from private investors until it is certain that your phase 1 experiment can actually be funded.
I also found the conditions to become an “accredited investor” in this april 23 news article. Unfortunately I fall short of the mentioned $1M asset or $200K income limit by an order of magnitude, so I fear it’s a no-go for me. And in any case, none of these assets are located in the USA

My $10K investment would be about a sixth of my current financial assets (was more before the stock markets plummeting down, but not including the house I own).
I would consider this investment as a sort of poker chips, a high-risk bet on the future of clean and cheap energy that I CAN afford to lose. (unfortunately, our world cannot)

Regards,

Chris Van den Bossche

[belbear42]

This thread seems to be dead, so probably I will not receive an answer but here are my 5 cents…

I’d also like to invest some of my personal savings into a promising future technology. Just like “breakable” mentioned, i’m thinking of about $10K. Especially given the appalling stock market evolutions and equally appalling interest rates nowadays, I don’t consider it a bad investment for a 10 year or longer timespan. And if this machine really works it could be a goldmine as well.

I read about an emission of $100 LPP shares, is that still going on?

Can I get some of these shares, given the fact that I am a private person, not a company, and I don’t live in the US of A?

[belbear42]

Brian H wrote:

A FF engine generates electricity through particle beam & x-ray recovery rather than heat extraction. This is why the construction cost is so dramatically lower.

A decelerator, as opposed to a particle accelerator, is put in the line of the tight pulsed beam of charged alpha particles (He nuclei) that is the result of the pB11 fusion. More electricity is generated by passing the x-rays through a shell of thin metallic foils, with the electrons captured on wires held at negative voltages.

https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/35/#el
https://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/simulation_results/

An artists’ rendition of the FF engine is on the right side of the header on the LPP site.

Yes, I’m quite aware of how FF power is generated, but the point of the thread is that there is lost heat, waste heat, that might be expoited. If efficient direct conversion of heat to electricity was possible, that might add to overall efficiency. Some have suggested Peltier thermoelectrics, and the sonic tech is a new approach to the same idea.

Actually, the very concept of a FF power plant allows many direct uses of “waste heat” that are beyond the possibility of a large fossil fuel, fission or tokamak fusion plant. Given its small size and high safety, the FF power plant can be placed very near the power consumers. And practically everyone who needs electricity also needs heat.

For instance, a large hospital can have its own fusion power plant that generates half as much thermal power as electricity (assuming a 66% overall efficiency). This heat is then used for heating the buildings, laundry, sanitary hot water, sterilizing equipment etc… The same can be true for a community, a factory or a ship. In many cases the waste heat will not even be sufficient for the thermal demand and additional electric heating may be necessary.

Much depends on the “grade” of generated waste heat. Temperatures above 100�C can generate steam, (and thus drive turbines) which is considered “high grade”, while below boiling point it’s rather “low grade” heat that still can be useful for household use.
A FF power plant will generate both: high-grade heat from the reactor itself (vessel wall, electrode cooling, residual beam energy) while waste heat from the various electrical components (switches, capacitor banks, inverters, transformers..) will be very low-grade. In present-day power equipment this kind of heat is not used at all, rather vented through air-cooling.

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