Are there any shortcuts to fusion power to be made with a D-D polywell running steam turbines? Perhabs huge coils with water cooling could do in that case? If the superconductivity could be omitted from the coils it would greatly simply things.
If the p-B11 reaction for some reason doesnt work and it has to be run on some other fuel: How will this affect security and waste issues? There will of course be more activity produced but even so the amounts will not be comparable to those produced by fission reactors.
May there be enough secondary radioactivity to make an emergency cooling mandatory?
Possible simplifications by running D-D and steamcycle?
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Munchausen
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Re: Possible simplifications by running D-D and steamcycle?
Water cooling the magnets is a Huge energy cost. It is the reason why superconductors are preferred.Munchausen wrote:Are there any shortcuts to fusion power to be made with a D-D polywell running steam turbines? Perhabs huge coils with water cooling could do in that case? If the superconductivity could be omitted from the coils it would greatly simply things.
If the p-B11 reaction for some reason doesnt work and it has to be run on some other fuel: How will this affect security and waste issues? There will of course be more activity produced but even so the amounts will not be comparable to those produced by fission reactors.
May there be enough secondary radioactivity to make an emergency cooling mandatory?
D-D makes a lot of high energy neutrons. Put a blanked of U-235 around such a reactor and you have a plutonium breeder.
As to induced radioactivity - you have to choose construction materials carefully. A lot of that has already been worked out for fission nukes.
The difficulty with a water jacketed D-D reactor is that you lose 2/3s of your energy output to Carnot.
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Munchausen
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p-B11 with direct conversion is of course the preferred option. Unfortunately we live in an imperfect world and we need a better energy source yesterday.
If this thing could hasten the departure of fossile fuels running D-D with 10 meter coppercoils in waterjackets and steamturbines some losses due to the resistance in the coils is acceptable.
The Carnot Cycle loss is exactly why I asked about the security issues. If it is possible to place the reactors near cities the waste energy can be put to good use in the district heating. It could also be dumped into green houses. The green house industry is really a terrible dumping place for all sorts of illegal waste oils. Polywell tomatoes are much better than oil ones. Even if they are D-D bred!
If someone is so resourceful that he can build a reprocessing plant and design a plutonium bomb he is most certainly clever enough to build himself a polywell to.
By the way: If our hypothetic polywell power plant owner is in possession of some high purity U-235 he could really mind himself with the bomb design directly.
If this thing could hasten the departure of fossile fuels running D-D with 10 meter coppercoils in waterjackets and steamturbines some losses due to the resistance in the coils is acceptable.
The Carnot Cycle loss is exactly why I asked about the security issues. If it is possible to place the reactors near cities the waste energy can be put to good use in the district heating. It could also be dumped into green houses. The green house industry is really a terrible dumping place for all sorts of illegal waste oils. Polywell tomatoes are much better than oil ones. Even if they are D-D bred!
If someone is so resourceful that he can build a reprocessing plant and design a plutonium bomb he is most certainly clever enough to build himself a polywell to.
By the way: If our hypothetic polywell power plant owner is in possession of some high purity U-235 he could really mind himself with the bomb design directly.
It is not just some losses.
The reactor might not produce any net power due to the energy required for the magnets and Carnot losses.
I have not run the numbers but net power with such a setup might be as little as 10% of generated power. Or it might be as little as nothing.
Magnet losses go up .3% for every deg C rise in temp for copper coils.
With a full court press development effort (i.e. Manhattan Project level of funding) I'd estimate pBj might add a year to a year and a half to the timeline of the project.
One thing to keep in mind is that the speed of roll out will depend on the cost differential between fusion reactors and conventional energy generators. Another problem is that the cost of decent size steam turbines is 80% of the cost of a conventional plant and they take 2 - 4 years to produce.
Fast roll out and short manufacturing cycles practically dictate pBj.
Let me add that district heating has very limited utility in America. We don't use it much.
The reactor might not produce any net power due to the energy required for the magnets and Carnot losses.
I have not run the numbers but net power with such a setup might be as little as 10% of generated power. Or it might be as little as nothing.
Magnet losses go up .3% for every deg C rise in temp for copper coils.
With a full court press development effort (i.e. Manhattan Project level of funding) I'd estimate pBj might add a year to a year and a half to the timeline of the project.
One thing to keep in mind is that the speed of roll out will depend on the cost differential between fusion reactors and conventional energy generators. Another problem is that the cost of decent size steam turbines is 80% of the cost of a conventional plant and they take 2 - 4 years to produce.
Fast roll out and short manufacturing cycles practically dictate pBj.
Let me add that district heating has very limited utility in America. We don't use it much.
It seems to me that any state in the southwest (Texas and California in particular) facing the ocean could use this heat for desalinating seawater, if it was cheap enough. This is going to be done one way or another, and though boiling seawater is the expensive way to do it (reverse osmosis is way more efficient), if the energy is cheap enough it doesn't matter. Even if you were running a p-B11 fusion device, as mentioned in one of the other threads, there's going to be plenty of waste heat just from alpha particles colliding with the coils. Using that to boil seawater as a way to recoup more operating costs would make some sense, I would think.MSimon wrote:Let me add that district heating has very limited utility in America. We don't use it much.
Good idea for the use of waste heat from coil cooling.scareduck wrote:It seems to me that any state in the southwest (Texas and California in particular) facing the ocean could use this heat for desalinating seawater, if it was cheap enough. This is going to be done one way or another, and though boiling seawater is the expensive way to do it (reverse osmosis is way more efficient), if the energy is cheap enough it doesn't matter. Even if you were running a p-B11 fusion device, as mentioned in one of the other threads, there's going to be plenty of waste heat just from alpha particles colliding with the coils. Using that to boil seawater as a way to recoup more operating costs would make some sense, I would think.MSimon wrote:Let me add that district heating has very limited utility in America. We don't use it much.
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Munchausen
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There is certainly a lot to find out about the polywell. Even the fundamental principle is yet to be proven.
My idea was that those losses should be somewhat size dependent. With a larger coils you have a larger confined volume where the reactions occur and you dont have to push that much electricity through them.
If a "polywell light" is feasible there are many contries with well developed district heating systems that can make good use of 90 degrees warm water.
The room where I am now is district heated. The radiator is right beside me.
My idea was that those losses should be somewhat size dependent. With a larger coils you have a larger confined volume where the reactions occur and you dont have to push that much electricity through them.
If a "polywell light" is feasible there are many contries with well developed district heating systems that can make good use of 90 degrees warm water.
The room where I am now is district heated. The radiator is right beside me.
The main problem with D-D is neutrons. With all fusion reactors you have the same problem - the fusion is done in a "vacuum". So there's nothing to stop the neutrons smacking into things like confinement vessel and coils. Dealing with alphas will be a lot easier than dealing with neutrons in terms of impacts, so going pB11 makes the engineering problems on the system over all a lot easier.
Tokamak guys have the same problem. If we go D-D we can use their solutions!
Tokamak guys have the same problem. If we go D-D we can use their solutions!
Fission-powered desalinization seems to be a reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalinization
Australia, Israel and Singapore seem to be good markets as well.
I think Bussard also had a design for a floating Polywell desalinization ship.
If p-B11 can't be done for whatever reason, D-D Polywell fusion might eventually be cheap enough for this purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalinization
Australia, Israel and Singapore seem to be good markets as well.
I think Bussard also had a design for a floating Polywell desalinization ship.
If p-B11 can't be done for whatever reason, D-D Polywell fusion might eventually be cheap enough for this purpose.