[vansig]

abrasion of the surface, especially at the ends, could be a problem, but may possibly be mitigated by small, regular rotation; once you go around full-circle, it may be necessary to switch them out for polishing.

i can just see it now,
“sorry, honey; I cant leave work yet, i have to polish my cathodes”

[vansig]

Governments can control inflation (and deflation) by manipulating the money supply. To prevent deflation, they can always just print more money.

[vansig]

Archeologists have begun cleaning carbon deposits off of old paintings, with pulses from a laser. could the same work for the hydrocarbon deposits?
it would seem to be optimal: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022311510004241

Also, copper dissolves in hot concentrated sulfuric acid, which shouldn’t harm glass, but definitely will harm steel (my stainless steel sink was stained, that way).
Can the glass be removed from the supporting steel, for cleaning?

[vansig]

Tulse wrote:

FF is transformative almost beyond conceiving.

Just how much cheaper are you expecting FF to be compared to conventional power generation? More than an order of magnitude? I’ve never seen a good breakdown of the anticipated costs of an FF plant compared to the costs of, say, a conventional coal plant, so I’m unsure of claims of huge cost reductions.

I saw an estimate from Eric awhile back, that a 10 MW reactor would be about $250,000 installed. that would be 2.5 cents per watt, beating solar (presently $1/watt) by a factor of forty.

but, now that you mention it, an updated estimate of costs, including installation and maintenance should be done. please feel free to fill in your own estimates…

parts list
———-
physical plant: each small building may house 1 or more reactors. the library i’m sitting in right now could easily fit ten.
reactor core: vacuum chamber, anode, cathodes
capacitors: 100 .. 250 uF at 50 .. 75 kV
switches:
transformer: converting exit beam at >90% efficiency
onion: spherical, ~1m radius, perhaps 22% efficiency
cooling system: primary=helium and maybe secondary=steam; if steam is involved, there is the possibility to run turbines
heat exchangers: something must be done with waste heat. co-generation was discussed in these forums
radiation shield: 1 m water jacket, plus boron, plus lead
misc parts: monitoring equipment, attachments to the power grid, security
max size: 5 metre diameter each, should include enough space to walk between them

attendee: 4 persons (in shifts) for 24×7 monitoring and control
monthly maintenance: inspect/adjust parts that wear (eg: cathodes, anode)
regulatory compliance: unknown

so, ongoing expenses will depend on operational life of the various parts. each part has a mean-time before failure, and may cause service interruption during maintenance/replacement. costing should be in terms of whole life-cycle cost, (a.k.a. cradle to cradle, assuming full recycling of materials). as with other power generation facilities, there is the possibility of building spare units, to bring them online rapidly in the event of a failure, since “if a generator costs $1 M and takes a year to build, how many spares do you need?”

[vansig]

cathodes are likely a few dollars each (as opposed to a few thousand), so i’m not worried

[vansig]

something like a vacuum arc centrifuge could quickly separate desired elements (even to isotopic purity), from whatever junk you throw in. it just needs a lot of cheap energy. so this increases feasibility of recycling to 100%.

[vansig]

zapkitty wrote:

I find your lack of imagination disturbing. Believe me we will be able to colonize EVERYTHING once we have fusion power.

Sure! Even in the Antarctic ice!

… as long as the cities are flexible enough and mobile enough 🙂

it’s not about whether we are able.

Antarctica is off limits by international treaty.
Fusion will not change that, and i dont want to change that.

I’d rather be mining minerals on asteroids

[vansig]

cathodes are metal rods, that could be made longer than they need to be, and pushed into the chamber as they wear.
adjustments could be done in micrometers; and may include turning, if needed. so servicing them is a matter of whether
the fine adjustments may be made without taking the reactor offline.

[vansig]

risks appear to be, short-term and long-term. among short-term risks, there are: radiation burns, radiation sickness; among long-term, there is mutation, and cancer. safety is judged in terms of both acute and chronic exposure.

if the probability of increased risk due to exposure is below what we can measure, statistically, then government bureaucrats know that you will never be able to prove your cancer or birth defects were caused by chronic exposure. so they call it safe.

[vansig]

i doubt overall efficiency of this highly endothermic process is anywhere near as high as 25%.
there are several steps, and it generates quite a lot of unwanted byproducts, so, yields will be low.

i’m guessing 6% is more realistic. (compare photosynthesis, which is ~3% overall).

even so, any alternative energy that produces lots of waste heat may make this feasible.

[vansig]

Seems to me, that the only way to make all the alphas exit in the thrust direction is to have extremely strong magnetic fields. As far as i know, only DPF does this.

[vansig]

markus7 wrote:
Are you joking? If not, please explain how such a wonderous “nozzle” might work.

not joking, no; but neither have i thought it through, entirely.
these are all charged particles, all moving away from the focal point of the reaction.

so, some sort of magnetic field should do?

[vansig]

Lerner wrote: Just about ALL financial assets are vastly overvalued

wouldn’t this actually be an indicator that the currency is worth less than what people expect?

Fusion will not cause a financial crisis, because any alternative energy takes time (decades?) to roll out.

[vansig]

markus7 wrote:
This does not look like a detail to be worked out, but as an obvious, irrecoverable fatal flaw.

hardly a problem, at all. that’s what nozzles are for

[vansig]

do you have a multimeter?
those can measure potential, resistance, and current.. and cost like $20

when you get to high voltages, one way to measure voltage might be to see at what distance it arcs, when you bring two spheres together, in dry air.
at from 5V to a few hundred, however, you’ll be better off measuring with the meter.

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