[zapkitty]

dennisp wrote: I’m working on a simple explanation of focus fusion. I’d like to give the reader an idea of how common the fuel is.

To that end: if we got our boron from boxes of Borax from the drugstore, how much would we need to run a 5 MW reactor for a year?

Got my head in purgespace right now but these numbers can give an approximation….

Lerner – 05 November 2006 06:48 PM
A 5 MW reactor takes about 5 kg of fuel per year.

The default FF fuel is currently decaborane which is 88.45% boron and 11.55% hydrogen. I believe the boron in the fuel is supposed to be already “enriched” i.e. boron-11.

20 Mule Team Borax is supposed to be almost (99.5%) pure borax and pure borax is about 11% boron.

And naturally occurring boron is about 80% boron-11 and 20% boron-10.

[zapkitty]

Hmmm… apparently the question-and-answer captcha is leaking….
not nearly as badly as the default picture captcha it replaces but
leaking nonetheless…

Hi, Ignas! The members2 group is something you’re working with?

[zapkitty]

vansig wrote: and with lots of extra room

Updated it a bit. Now we have a set of three different types of ~500 Mw aneutronic fusion arrays [em]and[/em] an additional 1 GWe FF array…

… all sitting on the ground floor inside the main ITER building complex 🙂

[zapkitty]

Forum registrations have been reactivated.

New question and answer setup for regs. We’ll try that for a while.

[zapkitty]

Tulse wrote:
So sized appropriately for use in ships, and maybe even trains, but not planes or cars. Perhaps shipping-container-sized?

Large subsonic transports, which comprise the bulk of current-day commercial aircraft operations, could be designed to work with FF units… if the carbon-11 issue could be dealt with in case of a crash.

And yep… a turnkey FF installation should fit into a 40′ TEU shipping container.

Tulse wrote: It looks like FF would be ideal for an electric Navy.

As would any aneutronic fusion system… that’s why they funded polywell research.

[zapkitty]

Trees.

Solar-powered and they turn the CO2 into a usable resource that is self-storing until needed.

[zapkitty]

rashidas wrote: Can a focus fusion reactor be designed to fix carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

It could provide electricity and process heat for such a reaction but someone would still have to develop a cost-effective method of atmospheric CO2 sequestration in the gigatons-per-year range … and [em]that’s[/em] the sticking point.

Barring such a breakthrough it would be much simpler and much, much cheaper to just use Focus Fusion units to replace fossil-fuel power plants while humans begin working to reverse deforestation and begin planting trees.

And the increase in the availability of easily distributed carbon-free power enabled by FF units will greatly aid humanity in coping with the Century of Storms.

[zapkitty]

Lerner wrote: Looking back at old calculations, I think that a person at 1 meter from a generator at the time of a catastrophic break in shielding, leading to a complete release of radioactive methane, would get a lethal radiation dose in only about 6 seconds.

And note that this extreme situation could only take place because of a catastrophic [em]external[/em] force applied to a generator housing. I don’t think the FF unit could supply the required energy in and of itself.

So we’re speaking of some outside force great enough to smash through the outer shell of the housing and then through a meter of lead, boron-10 and water shielding and [em]then[/em] through perhaps half a meter of the “onion” -which itself is composed of many thousands of layers of metal foil- and then through the vacuum chamber itself… and that’s the [em]shortest[/em] path to the core.

Other routes would add obstacles such as massive capacitor banks, the hybrid helium/air or helium/water cooling system and the Rogowski coils for the ion beam energy recovery system.

[zapkitty]

ikanreed wrote: Wasn’t focus fusion a byproduct of a NASA fusion rocket research grant, or have I misremembered my history?

NASA was researching the Dense Plasma Focus concept as a high-efficiency fusion drive when the Halliburton administration took power in 2001 and purged any NASA fusion research that might inconvenience the grip the elites have on power sources.

A truly clean fusion space drive would be just too easy to adapt to use Earthside…

[zapkitty]

andrewmdodson wrote: heck, The actual PDF I wanted to post is over 5 MB… forum limitations!!

Was it this one?
http://www.rbsp.info/rbs/RbS/PDF/aiaa05.pdf

[zapkitty]

andrewmdodson wrote: This is the basis of what we will need to get around the solar system in a reasonable time frame. Good stuff!

In a nutshell, you accelerate the ions which are the product of fissioning of nuclear fuels. The nuclear fuel is maintained in a confined dusty plasma while it reacts.

Nope 🙂

… the document you attached is a actually a basic history of the old solid-core fission rockets.

No dusty plasma fission and no fusion.

[zapkitty]

vansig wrote: Let’s imagine you accidentally ingested 11 grams of the stuff; that would be 6.022×10^23 atoms; all of this would be gone in 79 half-lives = 1606 minutes or about 1.11 days.

… er… that number is pretty meaningless without the dose rate and, while I’ve not done the calculations for an FF unit either, I [em]do[/em] know that carbon-11 is [em]hot[/em] while it lasts.

So it’s a good thing that the 100% conversion of fusion product to 11C that you speculate on is simply impossible 🙂

Very small amounts of 11C are safely used in PET scans but anything like the “11 grams” you mentioned would be near-instantly fatal inside a human.

[zapkitty]

Patientman wrote: I was going research to see who the “money” backers were. Zapkitty, do you know?

No idea. There’s some mention of a “Breakthrough Institute”… the entire published output of which seems to either be in praise of fission power plants or bashing green energy programs or both at the same time.

[zapkitty]

Patientman wrote: The following is a link to a Documentary Film in the process of being released(started June 21, 2013). It is a negative discussion of Nuclear Power and its impact on the environment…

?

Actually, it’s a pro-fission nuke film and in a lot of reviews it gets slammed pretty hard in the fact-checking department.

[zapkitty]

Chuctanunda wrote: Thank you, Zapkitty:-) I
realize this is uncharted territory they’re venturing into. Scientific
feasibility is the goal at this stage. I was also looking for the long
term potential. Once scientifically feasible, LPP will be competing
with existing technology, as well as new concepts like the thorium
reactor. Is it possible be gage the likelihood of success at this later
stage of development?

I can say without reservation that, if it works, aneutronic (pB11)
fusion trumps all other power sources under current consideration.

Start off with the simple fact that fusion power generators can never
go critical or melt down. Ever.

And fusion has an extreme advantage over fission insofar as the net
energy from each gram of fuel is concerned… and boron is both cheap
and plentiful.

[em]Aneutronic[/em] fusion then ups the ante with zero radioactive
waste and no debilitating neutron damage to the generator structure.

This will lower total reactor operating costs by a few orders of
magnitude 🙂

And aneutronic fusion enables direct conversion of the fusion energy
output to electricity at high efficiency… no steam, no turbines and
no massive plumbing arrays. This alone would be a game-changer in and
of itself because those turbines are actually the major part of the
cost of a coal or gas-fired plant. So aneutronic fusion will give
extensive savings in this department as well.

And then there’s the Dense Plasma Focus approach to aneutronic fusion:
“Focus Fusion”

Unlike other candidates for aneutronic power such as EMC2’s Polywell or
Tri-Alpha’s CBFR (Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor) the DPF does not
require expensive adjuncts such as superconducting magnets or neutral
particle beam injectors.

Put very simply it’s basically an artfully crafted spark plug and, yet
again, that should lead to [em]substantial[/em] savings in manufacture
and maintenance over competing designs.

Add it all together and you have an energy source that beats out
everything but another aneutronic generator… and even in that arena
the Focus Fusion concept has its own advantages.

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