Aussies Claim Working Fusion Reactor

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MSimon
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Aussies Claim Working Fusion Reactor

Post by MSimon »

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Interesting find. I wonder who they are?

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

Their claims are even more amazing than the one of Defkalion:
Specifically, the reaction is said not to require the high temperature, high pressure or accelerated particles of others’ approaches. “The key is not how many neutron hits you generate, but how you sustain them, how well you can control them.” For a 40-watt power input, the reactor is said to be able to generate a megawatt,” is the quote.
What can we say. If even one tenth of the claims on a single one of all of these companies will become true, than 2012 is going to be a very interesting year :roll:

D Tibbets
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Post by D Tibbets »

After reading the article, as is surmised in the article itself, the claim is very suspicious.

Concerns not addressed includes the heat load of a MW of power on a 'Rice Cooker' sized vessel. This ~ 1-2 liter volume would result in a high thermal wall loading. Not mentioned is what is done with the neutrons, which would carry most of the energy from a D-T reaction. And, even if you can fuse D-T at such low temperatures and high densities that are implied by such a description, any use of the D-T reaction is completely useless unless you also account for where the tritium comes from, and the energy cost of obtaining it.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

I agree with all the above comments. Esp the heat load. Conventional cooling is 1 MW/m^2. Above that things get interesting.

Let us say a big rice cooker. 10 cm radius. 20 cm high.

Area of the sides: 2* pi * r * h = 2* pi* 10 * 20 = 1257 sq cm

Area top and bottom 4 * pi * r^2 = 1257 sq cm

Total area = 2,513 cm^2. about 1/4 sq m.

4 MW/sq m. - they are needing some very big pumps for the experiments. Or just run it in pulses.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

How exactly are they keeping their tritium needs secret?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

Ok, this is even less probably for me than Rossi was originally and waaaay less than he still is to me now (which is back to below 50% due to his dubious behaviour regarding UoB).
I mean there is absolutely nothing to support this story, beyond some hearsay...
How exactly are they keeping their tritium needs secret?
I would guess that with sufficient funding, you can work arround it.
I also guess that they dont need that much of it. If the device is that small and they are only testing it in pulses long enough to get the information they need, who knows how little this really may be.
All that is pure speculation of course. I very much doubt that this device exists. I have not even heard of any kind of design/principle that would even theoretically work at these small scales.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

What can we say. If even one tenth of the claims on a single one of all of these companies will become true, than 2012 is going to be a very interesting year
I am sitting on the edge of my chair ;)

seedload
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Post by seedload »

“The key is not how many neutron hits you generate, but how you sustain them, how well you can control them.”
What a curious quote. What are "neutron hits" in the context of tritium/deuterium fusion?
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

I took it as some means to impact/control cross section, which I also found "interesting".

seedload
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Post by seedload »

Of "neutrons"?!?!
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Neutron targets.

seedload
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Post by seedload »

Nuclear targets, sure. Proton targets even. But neutron targets? Sorry, still confused. But then again, it doesn't matter much. Probably just a misquote.
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

Hold on guys, I think I know who they are. I had this bell ringing in mind all the day, in the end I remembered:

http://www.starscientific.com.au

I covered them before, they are the BLP/Steorn/Eestor of Australia, the pioneers in Muon Catalysed Fusion and lot of other baseless claims.

If you check the various pages it looks a perfect fit to what was written in the report.

The crowd of snake oil salesmen is getting bigger and bigger.
If your local laws allow you to do so, I suggest you start oiling the double barrel gun and charge it with an extra dose of salt, just in case someone comes to ring to your door offering some amazing investment scheme.

JohnFul
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Post by JohnFul »

heh heh,

The only stock I invest in is the one I know; the company I work for through our Employee Stock Purchase Plan. I do have to say this strategy has served me well.

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