He is much less sure of ITER and actually makes the mistake of saying something positive about Polywell.
I am dismayed at the huge amount of wishful thinkng swirling around Polywell. There's no good reason for you all to think it will work, an excellent reasons (published in peer-reviewed papers) to think it will not and cannot work, at least with advanced fuels.
There was a day when Paul was sure it wouldn't work at all. :-)
If you want to see my reply click over.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
He is much less sure of ITER and actually makes the mistake of saying something positive about Polywell.
MSimon wrote:Paul,
The good thing about Polywell is that even if it doesn't work with Hydrogen-Boron it will probably work with Deuterium-Deuterium. And almost for sure with Deuterium-Tritium.
If ITER doesn't work with with Deuterium-Tritium it is a big pile of scrap metal. Fortunately for ITER we will not have an answer for 40 or 60 years. For Polywell we will know in two years or less.
Assuming pB11 fails but DD works, would DHe3 (probably) work as well?
Yes, I know the problems with obtaining He3, but the DHe3 cycle is the "low end aneutronic" cycle.
My hierarchy:
DT: "Well, OK, if we have to."
DD: "Doing better."
DHe3: "Hey, looking up."
pB11: "Yes! Yes! Yes! No, don't stop!!!"
LiLi: Orgasmatron
I guess the ITER proponents will just keep bashing us on our faith. Afterall, no one has publish any papers with serious data and stuff, even if they have, how the hell are they gonna compare those data with the data of other schemes? They're too different.
It's good to have some faith, just a little bit. I know ITER proponents have too much faith in it. But whatever... just because they do it, doesnt mean we should do it.
Why hasnt Dr. Nebel published something with data of some results? Under embargo again? I dont know.
The actual equation is 2Li6 + 3p > 3He4 +3p. Look up Migma.
Perhaps I mistakenly mentioned the possibility of 6Li+6Li in another post, thus confusing people.
What are you suggesting here with 2Li6 + 3p > 3He4 +3p ? A *5* body reaction!? How likely is that!?
Looking at nndc, it seems to suggest that 6Li+6Li has a reaction to n + a + 7Be with the release (I guess, adding up masses) of no more than 1.8MeV. That's with a peak cross-section of around 0.2barn at 5MeV beam energy. So it's neutronic and produces less energy that the particle energy needed to get a half-likely reaction going. Is that right? Am I missing or misunderstanding anything?
If there is a 6Li+6Li->3[4He] ((edited)), then that'd put out a decent amount of energy, but what is the cross-section/reactivities for that reaction?
Last edited by chrismb on Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Actually until one of us does an experiment or EMC^2 releases more of their results, we're kind of working on a very vague idea. Theory is nice, but data trumps. so, yes, we are operating on a lot of faith in this sector.
The pursuit of knowledge is in the best of interest of all mankind.
The actual equation is 2Li6 + 3p > 3He4 +3p. Look up Migma.
Perhaps I mistakenly mentioned the possibility of 6Li+6Li in another post, thus confusing people.
What are you suggesting here with 2Li6 + 3p > 3He4 +3p ? A *5* body reaction!? How likely is that!?
My thought is "not very", which I suspect is why I haven't read anything new about the Migma group recently.
chrismb wrote:Looking at nndc, it seems to suggest that 6Li+6Li has a reaction to n + a + 7Be with the release (I guess, adding up masses) of no more than 1.8MeV. That's with a peak cross-section of around 0.2barn at 5MeV beam energy. So it's neutronic and produces less energy that the particle energy needed to get a half-likely reaction going. Is that right? Am I missing or misunderstanding anything?
I have no idea. See below.
chrismb wrote:If there is a 6Li+6Li->3[3He],
I suspect you meant 4[3He]. If so, no need to respond. If not, where did the other three nucleons go?
chrismb wrote:then that'd put out a decent amount of energy, but what is the cross-section/reactivities for that reaction?
No idea. I just read about the Migma proposal and thought WOW the DiLithium Chamber! I know nothing about the physics behind it.
Robthebob wrote:what's the actual problem that may make p+B11 impossible?
Most critics point to Tom Riders bremstrahlung arguments as making it dead in the water. They ignore Bussard's arguments about running proton-rich to bring it down to 5%. If Rider is right and Bussard is wrong, polywell is just an expensive farnsworth fusor. If Bussard is right, we have our mcguffin. Even if the truth is somewhere in between, we can expect to be successful to some degree.
