Clean energy - a device with the power of the Sun?

a reply to: Quantum12

Conceptual ideation is a very fun process, it leads to all sorts of creativity... so the more of an information sponge someone is? Knowledge becomes that power to combine all those seeming unconnected processes and effects into something else, or pull them apart to work with something else.

The proper names of who and what and the when have no importance to me... its the chain of events in total for whatever effect occurs from that cause... then looking at every single link in that chain or combination as to its effect on the next link from beginning to end.

I figured Id drop my process so you too can harness such that you were kind enough to admire... obvious youve interest, Im an encourager not an egoist so of course Im going to go heres your fisson pole without any fussn' about it, so you can do exactly the same... of course in such give and take without any agrandizment of a self people teach each other and learning never ceases towards growth.

Hope you and others keep landing them that have a passion for such things... methodology on the table does help set it for more people.

Ive got to go mend nets cause knowledge always wiggles out once stuck... the conceptual doesnt like to be trapped as it has a life of its own being so variable, I like questioning the constants that cause the persistence of varibles to remain memory for a constant when its just a statistical highly likely possibility given certian variables to produce desired effect... desired effect likes to skew that thing called progress sometimes in a witness leading the witness reaching for an answer or desired outcome controlling as much as possible to push for that outcome. Its the journey is my answer to that, in such a way one can notice all these neat little curiosities that fit other pictures, over full steam ahead details are in the way straight line...

Guess thats why theres tunnels, bridges, and wormholes... life is too short for life.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Yes life is too short, your a humble person! Thank your for you teachings! I appreciate you!

a reply to: Quantum12

hey... likewise, thanks for yours. Everyone that has ever lived is responsible for right now occuring whether judged bad or good has little to do with right now just what arises everyone drags forward, I prefer to drag appreciation forward as I sit here sliding sideways with the solar system and round and round on the planet through space part of the entire universe doing the same in various vectors... that part of a larger whole many think is just being lazy sitting here, but are also doing the same thing just unaware of it.

Some times ima rock and sometimes ima tree, separate or different from humanity is simply appearances of judgement that doesnt really change anything...

originally posted by: swanne

Unless, as Larson suggests, you smash the to-be-fused particles into one another. You don't need heat - the energy of the acceleration does the job instead. So in a way, you could achieve "cold" fusion using a small particle accelerator instead of an impossibly hot furnace.

It is sort of like a really bad Farnsworth fusor. A fusor uses a central charge to constantly accelerate protons back and forth through a central focus, sort of like a swinging pendulum. They smash together in the center.

However, a non-polywell fusor can't achieve breakeven because of electron loss and recombination, and this has that issue and more. Plus, a fusor has a much higher circulating 'current' than this is likely to have.

originally posted by: swanne
You mean, more like 14 minutes? Neutrons really don't last long, they usually decay into proton+electron. Which is pretty harmless.

What generally happens is that the neutron hits some structural element in the reactor and activates it. You can arrange for them to hit a lithium blanket and make some tritium for you, but even then some of them will make it through the blanket and hit the wall. Neutron bombardment also causes embrittlement when it doesn't cause other problems.

I wonder if placing thermopiles around the fusion event could convert heat more directly into electricity?

Thermopiles are even less efficient. Some fusion reactions that produce high energy alpha particles - p-B11 is one - can directly produce electricity with no conversion and are the most efficient of all.

Just looking at the diagram, I see a number of issues:

1) It's going to take energy to emit, accelerate, and collect the electrons. That won't be trivial.
2) The U bends at the end are an issue. You are not going to be able to bend the ions and the electrons around the same radius. Not only are they different masses, they're likely going to be going different speeds just looking at it. One or the other is going into the wall. And that's a big energy loss.
3) The U bends, part 2, will radiate synchrotron radiation both from the electrons and ions. Another energy drain.
4) You'll lose ions to recombination with your electrons. More as the speeds differ.
5) At the focus, you will not be able to keep the deuterium on one loop and the tritium on the other. They're going to mix and come out randomly. If they mix, you could have issues on the u bends again as the deuterium and tritium will bend differently, it's a little mass spectrometer.
6) you get the current up, you're going to have trouble GETTING a focus - the particles are going to want to unbunch due to mutual repulsion.

a reply to: Bedlam

I finally figured out what LM is doing! The nextbigfuture article helped me envision it. The main, direct center line is the focus of not one, not two, but three magnetic field lines. The first is the two torus which does focus the plasma towards the center but also pushes it out. That is where it encounters a cylinder magnetic field which then forces the plasma parallel to the main center line towards the two ends. That is where the plasma hits a stronger magnetic field mirror that pushes it back down the center line of the reactor and between the two torus superconducting magnets. Truly a genius design! I just wonder why they did not explain this concept to begin with? Well, it was truly fun to figure it out on my own!

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

They are called "scrapers" but they are magnetic plates that pull helium towards them to take it out of the reactor. While doing so any other impurity is blown out. The reactors cores are in a vacuum to ensure no stray particles enter the created plasma. The vacuum is equal to that of deep space (that in and of itself blows my mind!). So, they probably have a less vacuumized chamber to catch particles/helium.

Bedlam explains the lithium limiter/blanket further in this thread. It is a pretty smart idea. You vaporize liquid lithium which is repelled by the magnetic fields and is smooshed against the reactor's walls. There, neutrinos hit the lithium and either make more Tritium or pass their heat into it. The nice thing about lithium is that it does not create instability in the plasma but actually smooths it out! The lithium then pools back down where it can be vaporized again.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

I received a really nice compliment the other day. I play guitar and ran into my old buddy (we live in different towns) who plays drums. I haven't seen him in 20 years! So we are just talking about making music and he says, "I hate playing with prima donna guitarists. There are few out there like you that don't have an ego". And I thought that was the nicest thing I have heard in a while: egoless guitar player! Well, that is how I feel about many things including this topic (nuclear fusion). I have no problem sharing information, giving swanne links/my research (love you swanne!), having Q12 (and everybody else) lurking. This is cool stuff to think about. Getting the "ducks in a row" and creating links between subjects is how this (waves hands in the air indicating ATS) all started for me. October 2014, when Lockheed said they could make a fusion reactor (or in other words, they already have one) I sat on a picnic table at my local tavern and thought what that means. My world changed that day. I also saw what else is needed for such a device. Being here on ATS is a direct result: I am showing everybody else what I have "seen" with respect to fusion energy. This will be world changing in so many ways but mainly for humanity it means one thing, we are heading to the stars.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thermopiles are even less efficient. Some fusion reactions that produce high energy alpha particles - p-B11 is one - can directly produce electricity with no conversion and are the most efficient of all.

I like that idea. Expanding on this idea, I wonder if we could bypass the whole fusion thing and use substances that undergo beta+ decay. Now normal beta decay gives proton+electron, but this is of poor use since the two will recombine into an hydrogen atom. But beta+ decay gives a positron+neutrino... The stream of positron would directly create a positive electrical potential. As a bonus, annihilation against a target containing electrons would provide 100% conversion of the mass into energy. No, wait, 200% - by using one positron you'd get two photons of 0.511 MeV each, since the annihilation would involve an electron from the target without you having to do anything. As yet another bonus, the target would become a positive ion, causing it to become yet another source of electric potential difference.

It so happens that there are substances capable of undergoing beta+ decay, such as magnesium-23.

The U bends at the end are an issue.

I agree, but I don't think that the real life model is planned to have an U bend. It would be too stupid, I think the author of the picture just drew the accelerators flat for the sake of saving space in the picture, just like I sometimes draw two "//" lines in electrical diagrams to indicate I am saving space.

originally posted by: swanne

Unless, as Larson suggests, you smash the to-be-fused particles into one another. You don't need heat - the energy of the acceleration does the job instead. So in a way, you could achieve "cold" fusion using a small particle accelerator instead of an impossibly hot furnace.

Thanks to swanne for posting this. I had an ECOFusion thread here on ATS, but it got shut down by a moderator after about five hours. (It was my first thread.) The thread embedded a video of mine and linked to my ECOFusion website, which I guess was a no-no. It is too bad, because those sources are where a lot of work went in and they cover my ECOFusion design quite well. I will try not to hit any moderator trip wires in my comments here.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: swanne

Nuclear fusion will happen if two things happen first. One, power storage since these devices will be operational 24x7x365 because they are difficult to start up/shut down. Two, there is an efficient energy transmission line created (either room temperature superconductor or bundled carbon nanotubes). When these two items become news, fusion will be "announced".

In a colliding beam approach, such as ECOFusion, you can turn the system on and off, so it does not have the problem mentioned.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

Big accelerators take a lot of energy. Small accelerators maybe less, but then they get less acceleration and I think you need a fair amount for fusion. The vast majority of protons in the LHC experiments don't collide, they miss. So I think you have potentially one of the same problems that you have with Tokomak, you might put more energy in than you get out.

Also I'm not sure accelerated particles are "cold", if there's any validity to this explanation of temperature:

The collisions in the LHC can reach trillions of degrees, temperatures hotter than a supernova. They would be less for a smaller accelerator but I don't think it can be called "cold".

ECOFusion uses electrostatic acceleration for the deuterons (240 keV) and tritons (160 keV); this is very efficient. The magnets are all foreseen to be permanent magnets - no power input needed for that. Most particles will indeed miss, they then keep circling around the device, except for close encounter single scattering events which are lost. By overlapping an electron beam on the ions, trajectory errors caused during the other near-misses can be corrected. (This is called electron cooling.) I would not call this cold either - the beams have a center of mass energy of 400 keV.

originally posted by: swanne
The two tubes are only put in contact where the fusion must occur. I am inclined to think that miss particles won't go wasted - they'll simply return in the loop and make another round. The miss particles are given multiple chances to collide.

Hehe, you misunderstood (sorry, my bad!) By "cold" I meant not the beam or the collision event, but actually the fact that fusion could be achieved without you having to physically heat up particles so to induce thermonuclear fusion.

Yes, you are right about recirculating things around. Note that the drawing you have grabbed does not show the dipoles and other magnets at the ends of the system, and just shows some big u-turns. It is actually a bit more complicated than that, although not too much.

And you are also right that ECOFusion does not use heat to get the particles to the desired energy for fusion. This is beneficial in that the energy can be put in by electrostatic acceleration which is quite efficient, and also that all of the particles can have a proper velocity for fusion to occur, rather than relying on a statistical distribution to get just some of them there.

It is a pleasant surprise of seeing you here! Thank you for taking the time to join us, it so happens I had a few questions about your idea!

reply to: delbertlarson

The magnets are all foreseen to be permanent magnets

I like that idea. Permanent magnets would require no electricity to power, this would be a major improvement over electromagnets.

Acceleration of particles still require a time-varying magnetic field, though? Would the magnet physically move so to achieve time variation? If so, how much energy would it take to move the magnets?

originally posted by: Bedlam
Just looking at the diagram, I see a number of issues:

1) It's going to take energy to emit, accelerate, and collect the electrons. That won't be trivial.
2) The U bends at the end are an issue. You are not going to be able to bend the ions and the electrons around the same radius. Not only are they different masses, they're likely going to be going different speeds just looking at it. One or the other is going into the wall. And that's a big energy loss.
3) The U bends, part 2, will radiate synchrotron radiation both from the electrons and ions. Another energy drain.
4) You'll lose ions to recombination with your electrons. More as the speeds differ.
5) At the focus, you will not be able to keep the deuterium on one loop and the tritium on the other. They're going to mix and come out randomly. If they mix, you could have issues on the u bends again as the deuterium and tritium will bend differently, it's a little mass spectrometer.
6) you get the current up, you're going to have trouble GETTING a focus - the particles are going to want to unbunch due to mutual repulsion.

1) The electrons are accelerated and decelerated electrostatically. Most of the energy is recaptured during the collection. This energy recapture was done in my thesis experiment and in free electron lasers, as well as in electron coolers around the world.
2) The electrons enter and leave the overlap regions via torroids. They don't bend along with the ions (of course).
3) The energy here is far too low for synchrotron radiation to be a concern.
4) There will be recombination, but it is typically extremely small in electron cooling experiments.
5) The deuterium and tritium are going in opposite directions. When they reach the dipoles they will separate.
6) Neutralization by trapped electrons is a very important part of the design.

originally posted by: swanne

Acceleration of particles still require a time-varying magnetic field, though? Would the magnet physically move so to achieve time variation? If so, how much energy would it take to move the magnets?

Everything in ECOFusion is electrostatically accelerated. Both the ions and the electrons. Elecrostatic acceleration is quite efficient at the energies needed for the design.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness

Yes, it'd probably be like a self-sustaining reactor. The energy of the fusion would give the device power to fuse the reactants, an analogy would be a fire: as long as it has access to the correct reactants it'll keep on working.

a reply to: delbertlarson

You mean, like in a Van de Graaff accelerator? Electrodes move the charged ions or particles from one end to another - except that in your project, the two ends meet so to form a loop.

I was so caught up with oscillating fields accelerators, I had completely forgotten about electrostatic accelerators. That's actually quite genius of an idea, the device would be much less power-hungry indeed.

To get hydrogen isotope ions, I assume you're thinking about electrolysing water?

a reply to: swanne

My understanding is whats holding back our development of Fusion reactors is the problem of containing the energy/heat inside the magnetic field/bubble. Once we are able to produce stronger/more precision managed magnetic fields Fusion reactors of the Tokamak variety will become common place essentially paving the way to humanity becoming a stage 1 civilization. Or at least meeting our energy demands for the next few 100 years.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

The lithium and byproduct process sounds like it could benefit from the flow battery concept... a lithium suspension to stabilize and the scraper to get the byproduct as it flows and gets filtered out of the lithium to avoid a homogenization of the particulate and lithium to keep it all in stability for a good while.

Not to mention the byproduct is a rare earth material... value of it would likely start falling with some much production if it hit the consumer field, so it would be wise to branch an industry for that of somesort and hide in the hedge for when a profit margin would hit from the consumer sell off making the new line using the byproduct viable to commericalize on.

I suppose this is why gov and research colleges get the tech first... seems like feet dragging a lot of times, but staying ahead of the consumer market in production does keep competing industries at bay... part of the issue with capitalism must buy out all competitors or converging tech sectors before they become a force that could leave you high and dry in a dying field.

Oh I know how the drummer feels... I was asked by a fellow bouncer friend I was one for a bit at the same time I just didnt have it as my local, mixing business with leisure is not in my bag like coworkers always stay coworkers no hanging in the private sector sort of thing. But he was like yeah so im forming a band just making some noise whatever... I was like sure Ill wrestle out my guitar since wanting to do the bass singing side... I go over and this other fellow was going to try the drums out and hey fun making noise right? Wrong dude was all oh btw I have a music degree so this will all be perfectly master minded... I look at drummer and say youre here to jam right? His eyes and expression were priceless... so anyway fellow bouncer guy throws a bass line kinda cure style with 6 and 8s no chords so I slap a lead one octave from it and hes like no no no leads and same thing... so im ok toss it the rythmn and copy his... and hes like your 1/16th out of timing. So I say ok then slow it a tad then hes like I tink your e or a is just a hair out of tune... and drummer is like im going to get a beer, I said Ill join you.

So we all crawl out of the under unit garage and get a beer thankfully the roomate grabs the guy and drummer and I vacate back to the garage and hes like man quite a jam right? I said yeah I dont know when hell bring you into this but way to warm that stool...

So yeah after about another 40 minutes of that business... I said well I gotta go, good luck fellas finding a 3rd. In other words know all too well what your friend was discussing about humble players maybe next time you guys can have a conversation about lets just jam perfectionists. All the times ive heard lets just jam before and since is was jam catch a groove and see what comes out of it, either they syncopate and something comes out of it or not... knowing how true jazz is formed really helps being able to play with anyone. Not my secret so not for me to share, as it was passed in confidence for my use only, bummer but if it were mine I would... ive a few recipes the same way.