[ RadSafe ] Fusion Energy etc.

[Joseph Preisig]

Radsafe,

     I see there is a new Fusion research effort in California.  They are
doing protons colliding with nuclei heavier than deuterium and/or tritium.
They claim the reaction is aneutronic.  Good Luck.  They seem to be doing
conventional hot fusion with particle beams hitting the plasma in the
center of the fusion cell.  They are discussing Lawson's Criterion --- the
plasma need to be dense enough, the plasma needs to be hot enough and the
plasma needs to be kept hot and dense for some magical time interval.
Perhaps, hot fusion can do better soon???

     How about hot fusion with the usual set of magnets (see ITER, NSTX
etc.) and then add an additional set of magnets around the plasma which
periodically are turned on, and increase the magnetic field around the
plasma drastically --- some kind of compression scenario???  Yes, some of
the plasma will leak out from the central area.  Funny, when you try to
keep a plasma at a high temperature for some amount of time, the plasma
wants to become less dense and spread out in volume.  Oh well.

     In my recent post on Fusor fusion, I discussed putting cooled tritium
or deuterium in the central collision region before sending particles in to
collide with the central plasma.  Maybe this cooled D or T could be D2 or
T2, or perhaps even frozen D2O or T2O....  Maybe pellets of D2O or D2O
could be suspended in the central collision region via a flow of D2 or T2
gas from below.  Then the frozen pellets would be bombarded by D, T or
whatever.  Heck, at various schools in the USA, they levitate single atoms
in the air, for physics studies (scattering etc.).

     Have a good weekend...

     Joe Preisig