Search found 145 matches
- Sat Nov 21, 2009 11:02 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Fusion Will Never Work
- Replies: 83
- Views: 31020
However, I think Dittmar is not considering the fact that countries like Japan are already using the complete Plutonium fuel cycle in that they already have commercial FBRs. Japan has a closed fuel cycle (i.e. they reprocess to produce MOX fuel assemblies) but their FBR program isn't really part of...
- Sat Nov 21, 2009 5:02 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Fusion Will Never Work
- Replies: 83
- Views: 31020
Re: Dittmar is biased
Uranium fuel shortage is the basis for Dittmar thesis of nuclear fission will not be able to expand. No uranium shortage. Let me poke at this a bit, just to play Devil's Advocate: Dittmar doesn't claim that the current production shortfall is the long-term problem. Instead, he claims that the infer...
- Sat Nov 21, 2009 4:38 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Fusion Will Never Work
- Replies: 83
- Views: 31020
Please excuse the silly question: But, since we do not have any working fusion reactors yet, where do we get our tritium from right now? I would suspect fission reactions. So if that works now, why would that be a problem for future fusion reactors? Heavy-water fission reactors. There are a couple ...
- Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:56 am
- Forum: News
- Topic: Fusion Will Never Work
- Replies: 83
- Views: 31020
Would not the fission/fusion hybrid concept (LIFE) be the way to get around this problem? Certainly fission reactions are used to breed Tritium. Most of Dittmar's objections would seem to apply to any D-T fusion reaction, so the hybrid approach will only work if the Li6 is receiving neutrons from f...
- Fri Nov 20, 2009 5:47 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Fusion Will Never Work
- Replies: 83
- Views: 31020
Wow, that whole thing is pretty grim. Two things jump out at me from the whole 4-part series: First, he's taking really big swipes at the Red Book with minimal evidence but, if he's right, this is the most cogent case against fission investment that I've seen. More relevant to fusion development, th...
- Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:15 pm
- Forum: News
- Topic: Polywell's current patent application.
- Replies: 48
- Views: 22700
Or it might be that they have learned enough new stuff to realize that the patent as applied for does not protect the important stuff well enough to be worth pursuing. Then they could modify the application! But to abandon it? There are limits on what you can modify without getting into restriction...
- Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:20 am
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
Why should the sheath be electron rich? (And why should it matter?) There is nothing to keep the ions from expanding to the same radius as the electrons (They don't see the B field much, remember?), and their inertia will force them to expand a little bit beyond the electrons. The outermost layers ...
- Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:24 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Magnetically Shielded Fusor Grids--Why Won't This Work?
- Replies: 64
- Views: 23475
- Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:20 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
I've pondered this a bit. The "reflections" will not be specular, I do not think. Due to the interaction with the strong electric field gradient orthogonal to the magnetic field lines at the wiffle-edge the electrons will return to the interior with greater angles than they arrived on the average, ...
- Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:11 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
I have never heard R. Nebel chime in with his opinion. Dr Nebel told me that in the my video Fusion for Dummies, the electron paths of one cusp to the other cusp was wrong. I would then put Dr Nebel in the same cusp group. Still seems to me that whether they re-enter (fall back) through the same cu...
- Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:17 am
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
In addition to what TallDave said, consider the Wiffle ball as a solid near spherical ball with very small holes in it (the cusps). The electrons that have a speed high enough that thier gyroradius is much larger than the magnetic field gradient see the border effectively as a solid wall that it bo...
- Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:18 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
This convergence results in the electrons repelling each other- they slow to a stop near the center, then reverse and accelerate to the magnetic field border where they reverse and start over again. What is the mechanism for this reversal and re-acceleration back towards the center? As far as I can...
- Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:47 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Magnetically Shielded Fusor Grids--Why Won't This Work?
- Replies: 64
- Views: 23475
So, to summarize the last 3 pages of this melee, we have three fundamental sources of loss in a fusor: 1) Fuel ions thermalizing. 2) Grid discharges to the wall. 3) Ion collisions with the grid. Of these, chrismb is putting up a spirited defense that #3 doesn't swamp the other 2 sources of loss, and...
- Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:40 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Magnetically Shielded Fusor Grids--Why Won't This Work?
- Replies: 64
- Views: 23475
Magnetically Shielded Fusor Grids--Why Won't This Work?
So, we know that fusors with grids won't generate net power because the ions collide with the grid before they transit the center enough times to fuse, and that those collisions fry the grid pretty quickly, too. But we've just spent a whole bunch of time engineering a magrid that prevents electrons ...
- Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:22 pm
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: Bussard's bremsstrahlung calculation
- Replies: 109
- Views: 44241
Remember that once any charged particle is inside the magrid it does not see any electric field from it ( actually my understanding is that the field is present, but that the oposite sides tug equally so that the net effective field is zero). The potential on the magrid (see above) serves two purpo...