An energy producing Fusor
Re: An energy producing Fusor
Thanks for the reply -- I have asked the NRC about their introductory course for research and test reactor licensing -- besides EPA, what other govt. agencies do you think that I will need to deal with? My local university has a test reactor and a Technology Assistance Program, so I am writing a proposal for them in order to avoid creating a separate site license.
Re: An energy producing Fusor
Friends, I have to apologize. I have now read the previous traffic on fusion-fission hybrids on this board and understand that this idea is not as new and exciting as I had thought. I will set about the business of learning more about the subject and actually building something before I spout off again.
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HighVoltageFox
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Re: An energy producing Fusor
I was thinking of a way to produce energy in one step from fusors, basic straight to energy approch. If a chamber was built around a fusor and filled with a medium to slow neutrons, and a second outer chamber built around the first and sealed; you could fill the 2nd chamber with He3 or BF3 and when struck with neutrons you get energy. Not effient or practical but still a way to collect energy from a fusor.
Andrew
Andrew
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Brian McDermott
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Re: An energy producing Fusor
There is no getting around the fact that there is not a whole lot you can do with the extra 0.00000001 watts you are getting from fusion reactions, let alone extract it at 100%, 75%, 50% or even 30% efficiency.
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Richard Hull
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Re: An energy producing Fusor
Brian is fully awake and telling it like it is. The sadness of fusion is that we are like caged animals in a zoo. We see the outside universe powered totally by fusion, much as if we were the animals viewing visitors with bags of candy and food stroll by our cage. A rich bounty lay outside, to be sure.... Inside, however, we can only lust after what we view as a universe of pure energy outpourings. The best we can do, inside, is pickup the odd piece of popcorn or sandwich leftovers thrown at us.
Yes, we are allowed to drool and long for that which is out of our reach and hope to break out of the cage and live where the going appears so smooth.
Fusion takes a lot of energy to start (beating the coulomb barrier) and a whole lot more to keep going (containment). Still, we know it is a net gainer and struggle to see the gains offset our input effort.
If we need a few micro watt minutes of fusion we have the fusor and other accelerator based toys. If we need a single mega-terawatt second of fusion energy, we have H bombs. There is a vast no man's land in between with no clue on how to obtain and use megawatt hours of fusion energy.
Gravity is the key. It is the potential energy that drives the universe. We know all about fusion; how it is done, what makes it happen and even how to use, capture and measure it.
Our limitation is not one of fusion knowledge, but of scale. If gravity is ever unlocked for ready use by man where it can be anulled, amplified and focused, we will finally be more than masters of this planet. We will have joined the universal community with near limitless powers.
It amazes me, in that we have millions of devices and mechanisms that utilize the electron. We have gained full dominion over electrostatic potential energies for they are all short range forces and are locked with significant energies in materials all around us. We have even unlocked, use and control the vast potential energies contained within the atom via fission of the most heavy of elements.
Yet, so far as the knowledge of physics and the precise source and font of all the CHARGE energy, we remain absolutely ignorant. Our technology races leagues ahead of our understanding. We are fortunate donkeys and expert developers. Give us a ball and we WILL run with it. We are the chimps who get the ants via tool use. (Poking a stick into the anthill.) We are unable to fathom core issues, yet, we seem to pride ourselves in our understanding of things. We don't know beans. We DO understand and master tech stuff, however.
Gravity is a large scale force as observed by us. It is unusable except as a slingshot for spacecraft or to force flowing water to turn a paddlewheel as it falls from high ground to low ground.
Alas, the water is always lifted to the high ground via fusion energy supplied due to the good offices of a nearby star.
The star doesn't run off fusion, it runs off the potential energy turned over to matter by gravity.
We have tried to use, what we perceive as a mime of gravity, inertia, as a rosetta stone to fusion, but it fails miserably as it is a mere transitory mime and turns out to only be a muse, a siren's song, that has left us bereft of success and dashed upon the rocks of fusion's shore.
We haven't a clue, of course how to actually utilize gravity the way we, daily, utilize charge. We are not of a scale where we can use it. Still, we are clever tool makers and maybe one day..............but not real soon now.........
Richard Hull
Yes, we are allowed to drool and long for that which is out of our reach and hope to break out of the cage and live where the going appears so smooth.
Fusion takes a lot of energy to start (beating the coulomb barrier) and a whole lot more to keep going (containment). Still, we know it is a net gainer and struggle to see the gains offset our input effort.
If we need a few micro watt minutes of fusion we have the fusor and other accelerator based toys. If we need a single mega-terawatt second of fusion energy, we have H bombs. There is a vast no man's land in between with no clue on how to obtain and use megawatt hours of fusion energy.
Gravity is the key. It is the potential energy that drives the universe. We know all about fusion; how it is done, what makes it happen and even how to use, capture and measure it.
Our limitation is not one of fusion knowledge, but of scale. If gravity is ever unlocked for ready use by man where it can be anulled, amplified and focused, we will finally be more than masters of this planet. We will have joined the universal community with near limitless powers.
It amazes me, in that we have millions of devices and mechanisms that utilize the electron. We have gained full dominion over electrostatic potential energies for they are all short range forces and are locked with significant energies in materials all around us. We have even unlocked, use and control the vast potential energies contained within the atom via fission of the most heavy of elements.
Yet, so far as the knowledge of physics and the precise source and font of all the CHARGE energy, we remain absolutely ignorant. Our technology races leagues ahead of our understanding. We are fortunate donkeys and expert developers. Give us a ball and we WILL run with it. We are the chimps who get the ants via tool use. (Poking a stick into the anthill.) We are unable to fathom core issues, yet, we seem to pride ourselves in our understanding of things. We don't know beans. We DO understand and master tech stuff, however.
Gravity is a large scale force as observed by us. It is unusable except as a slingshot for spacecraft or to force flowing water to turn a paddlewheel as it falls from high ground to low ground.
Alas, the water is always lifted to the high ground via fusion energy supplied due to the good offices of a nearby star.
The star doesn't run off fusion, it runs off the potential energy turned over to matter by gravity.
We have tried to use, what we perceive as a mime of gravity, inertia, as a rosetta stone to fusion, but it fails miserably as it is a mere transitory mime and turns out to only be a muse, a siren's song, that has left us bereft of success and dashed upon the rocks of fusion's shore.
We haven't a clue, of course how to actually utilize gravity the way we, daily, utilize charge. We are not of a scale where we can use it. Still, we are clever tool makers and maybe one day..............but not real soon now.........
Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Re: An energy producing Fusor
Wanted to pursue one thought, Richard brought up, involving containment - microwatt minutes.
I have been noodling on this for some time, and am wondering if a better approach, would be to aim for a higher fusion yield on a Per Event basis. Higher batting average, not more times at bat.
On a straight statistical basis... I think this is the correct way to view the Lawson Criteria, you need to obtain a containment - density product of so much in order for "fusion" to happen.
It seems that our fusor approach goes a different way. The plasma is there for minutes, or hours.. at a more or less constant number density of particles. The particle energy can be varied with voltage, and number fraction of particles (ions to ions plus neutrals ratio) can be varied with current. And the neutron yield (neutrons./sec) varies accordingly.
It seems that a practical fusion power source, must have a deterministic operating characteristic - more like classical thermodynamics than like isolated particle quantum mechanics.
Are we really running head-on into the significance of the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation? We may have the energy to fuse, but our aiming accuracy has a spatial limitation, so that we are forever restricted to some limiting number of fusions per try?
In other words, we cannot exceed a certain batting average. And, if that number is too low, then we can never achieve a practical energy return for the input energy investment.
I am still convinced that well focussed colliding ion beams... microns in crossection extent, at mA ion current should have a far larger fusion yield than the simple unfocussed fusor.
I apologize for sounding like either a "broken record" or an "endless DO LOOP" on this. But unless there is a very low energy back door into the fusion proximity of a nucleus, possibly mediated by other material.... and there may be.... this is what we have to work with.
Dave Cooper
I have been noodling on this for some time, and am wondering if a better approach, would be to aim for a higher fusion yield on a Per Event basis. Higher batting average, not more times at bat.
On a straight statistical basis... I think this is the correct way to view the Lawson Criteria, you need to obtain a containment - density product of so much in order for "fusion" to happen.
It seems that our fusor approach goes a different way. The plasma is there for minutes, or hours.. at a more or less constant number density of particles. The particle energy can be varied with voltage, and number fraction of particles (ions to ions plus neutrals ratio) can be varied with current. And the neutron yield (neutrons./sec) varies accordingly.
It seems that a practical fusion power source, must have a deterministic operating characteristic - more like classical thermodynamics than like isolated particle quantum mechanics.
Are we really running head-on into the significance of the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation? We may have the energy to fuse, but our aiming accuracy has a spatial limitation, so that we are forever restricted to some limiting number of fusions per try?
In other words, we cannot exceed a certain batting average. And, if that number is too low, then we can never achieve a practical energy return for the input energy investment.
I am still convinced that well focussed colliding ion beams... microns in crossection extent, at mA ion current should have a far larger fusion yield than the simple unfocussed fusor.
I apologize for sounding like either a "broken record" or an "endless DO LOOP" on this. But unless there is a very low energy back door into the fusion proximity of a nucleus, possibly mediated by other material.... and there may be.... this is what we have to work with.
Dave Cooper
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Richard Hull
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Re: An energy producing Fusor
Dave said
"Are we really running head-on into the significance of the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation? We may have the energy to fuse, but our aiming accuracy has a spatial limitation, so that we are forever restricted to some limiting number of fusions per try?"
This is the crux of it.... why we can't do it and stars can.
Stars have a massive surface or volumetric range, they do fusion at a micro rate per unit volume/surface, just like we do, (probably a lot worse). Stars have stable, yet rotten confinement. They have this confinement over a time period of billions of years They have low to marginal fusion temperatures over billions of years....., and, ......an almost limitless, omnipresent, supply of fuel throughout this less than ideal but fusion probablistic volume. There are no true controls on a star's fusion fuel burn rate or output beyond where it lies on the main sequence which is pretty much a function of its mass.
From here it is sort of doomed to auto-run for billions of years with the occassional burp or two, perhaps. Gravity powers all stars, not fusion. Fusion is the resultant nuclear conversion release of gravitational energy. (This statement begs further discussion, perhaps.... prehaps in another thread on Fusion theory - off the rails a bit here)
I still see no viable path for power producing fusion.
The suggested time rate of fusion being slowed with the energy per fusion going up is a form of fuel pellet IEC or laser fusion. A slower rate and a massive burst of energy to be converted is not where material science shines just now. Putt-putt boat fusion sounds intriguing until it come to taking the strong putts and efficiently converting them to slower release energy forms.
Still, we dabble at it.
Richard Hull
"Are we really running head-on into the significance of the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation? We may have the energy to fuse, but our aiming accuracy has a spatial limitation, so that we are forever restricted to some limiting number of fusions per try?"
This is the crux of it.... why we can't do it and stars can.
Stars have a massive surface or volumetric range, they do fusion at a micro rate per unit volume/surface, just like we do, (probably a lot worse). Stars have stable, yet rotten confinement. They have this confinement over a time period of billions of years They have low to marginal fusion temperatures over billions of years....., and, ......an almost limitless, omnipresent, supply of fuel throughout this less than ideal but fusion probablistic volume. There are no true controls on a star's fusion fuel burn rate or output beyond where it lies on the main sequence which is pretty much a function of its mass.
From here it is sort of doomed to auto-run for billions of years with the occassional burp or two, perhaps. Gravity powers all stars, not fusion. Fusion is the resultant nuclear conversion release of gravitational energy. (This statement begs further discussion, perhaps.... prehaps in another thread on Fusion theory - off the rails a bit here)
I still see no viable path for power producing fusion.
The suggested time rate of fusion being slowed with the energy per fusion going up is a form of fuel pellet IEC or laser fusion. A slower rate and a massive burst of energy to be converted is not where material science shines just now. Putt-putt boat fusion sounds intriguing until it come to taking the strong putts and efficiently converting them to slower release energy forms.
Still, we dabble at it.
Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Re: An energy producing Fusor
Has a process been created to extract energy from a system for direct use without spinning a dynamo.
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Todd Massure
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Re: An energy producing Fusor
Plenty of ideas....none that have been demonstrated to work well or at all in practice. You'll find some chatter on this topic on these forums if you search for stuff like: direct energy conversion, etc.
I think many here including myself think it's a worthwhile topic of discussion, but it always boils down to asking why waste time figuring out how to produce electric power from the process when we can't even do the process to any degree of net power?
Todd
I think many here including myself think it's a worthwhile topic of discussion, but it always boils down to asking why waste time figuring out how to produce electric power from the process when we can't even do the process to any degree of net power?
Todd