U232 can be a bridge to aneutronic fusion power

[MSimon]

This is a solid state device with high redundancy and no moving parts. You can get high reliability and availability out of that type of approach.
It is a nuclear battery. You don’t repair a battery, you buy a new one.

You don't need to be concerned with proliferation, that might be worth something.

You will not be able to get such a device to market without considerable operational experience. I don't care how solid state it is. Murphy is a son of a bitch and doesn't care how fool proof your design. Murphy is continually sending out better fools. Genetically improved.

Think about it: 167 curies for 2W. 2 KW = 167,000 curies. A rather high radiation environment. 200 KW (a neighborhood generator) = 16,700,000 curies. For 20 or 100 years. Well OK in 100 years you might reduce that by a factor of 10 or 100. Along with reduced power out.

Please run by me the solid state energy producer that could last 10 years in such an environment.

It might work for Lerner because he can shut down his source and replace the collectors as needed.

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So Axil,

Please introduce yourself. What kinds of systems have you designed?

I have operated nuke reactors for the Navy and designed aircraft systems for a large aerospace company. Along with lots of commercial and military experience along the way.

Are you hardware? Or software? What level of reliability have you had to meet? What do you know about radiation induced lattice defects? Training in radiation resistant metallurgy? etc.

[Axil]

You make a good point. The concept is premature, let along commercial. The concept needs tools that don’t yet exist. First, we need to get some sort of small fusion to work, then next some sort of small fusion/fission hybrid just to set the stage. First things first. I will depend on you guys for the small fusion start to this process.

You will not be able to get such a device to market without considerable operational experience. I don't care how solid state it is. Murphy is a son of a bitch and doesn't care how fool proof your design. Murphy is continually sending out better fools. Genetically improved.

This truth applies to all of us.

I have operated nuke reactors for the Navy and designed aircraft systems for a large aerospace company. Along with lots of commercial and military experience along the way.

I realize this and it is a rare privilege and honor to enter into such stimulating and far ranging discussions with you, this among others. Such depth of experience is truly uncommon these days. Thanks for your attention and feedback.

[ladajo]

Axil wrote: "I realize this and it is a rare privilege and honor to enter into such stimulating and far ranging discussions with you, this among others. Such depth of experience is truly uncommon these days. Thanks for your attention and feedback."

He said NUNYA...
...None of your business!

[olivier]

I still do not understand where the Th230 will come from, as blaisepascal already asked. It can be obtained from the alpha decay of U234 or Pu238.
You will find some from LWR spent fuel but this is going to take a lot of time.

[blaisepascal]

I still do not understand where the Th230 will come from, as blaisepascal already asked. It can be obtained from the alpha decay of U234 or Pu238.
You will find some from LWR spent fuel but this is going to take a lot of time.

It appears that he is planning on breeding the Th230 from Th232 by irradiating it with neutrons (and beta decay) to go from Th232 to U234, then alpha decay to Th230.

This seems exceedingly complicated for a solid-state device. It involves a complex mix of nucleotides and neutron producers, hard gamma emitters, etc. There is a long chain of alpha emitters with decently long lifetimes (weeks to years), during which these nucleotides will be exposed to the same neutron flow which is breeding Th230 from Th232. What happens when they capture neutrons and are kicked off the nice alpha-decay chain?

[blaisepascal]

I still do not understand where the Th230 will come from, as blaisepascal already asked. It can be obtained from the alpha decay of U234 or Pu238.
You will find some from LWR spent fuel but this is going to take a lot of time.

Th230 can be found naturally, originally called Ionium. Wikipedially easy.

Th230 exists as a decay product of U234, which itself is a decay product of U238. Because U234's half-life is roughly 3.3 times as long as Th230, the ratio of U234 to Th230 will be roughly 10:1.

Meanwhile, the half-life of U238 is 18000 times longer than that of U234, so U234 makes up only about 55ppm of natural uranium.

So I suppose that if you thought that approximately 5g of Th230 per tonne of naturally occurring Uranium was a viable source, you could say that solves the "where do you get the Th230 from" issue, but I wouldn't go for it.

[Axil]

The following can be used in a U232 power battery

Code: Select all

United States Patent Application	20100061503 
Kind Code 	A1 
Popa-Simil; Liviu 	March 11, 2010 

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... 0100061503


The U232 nuclear battery would be an ideal platform for the application of this sort of direct power conversion.