Since these guys https://lppfusion.com/fusion-power/dpf-device/ have been recently in the news http://www.digitaljournal.com/…fuse-atoms/article/503354
is there a commonality between their device and quarkx? Also what the call 'reverse accelerator' to harvest electricity from plasma, is it MHD generator Mills is talking for his SunCell?
LPP fusion has no connection with Rossi, Mills, etc.
they are doing ultrahot fusion using a clever idea that could just work although the technical problems are formidable. They have a lot of detailed tech reports and papers.
They have data that shows fusion rates scaling as they expect - but only if they have a very pure and symmetrical initial plasma to collapse. Getting this is challenging due to electrode wear.
The good news is that this could in theory give fusion with real power pay-back in a smallish system, and possibly run (almost) aneutronic fusion with H-B
You will notice that their claims are realistic.
LPP fusion has no connection with Rossi, Mills, etc.
true. But their process might have more in common with them than with mainstream hot fusion devices it i.e. various sizes tokamacs.
There is no complicated magnetic confinement. They don't inject plasma from a separate source and so on. The process is 'aneutronic'. They also scrub excess energy through 'reverse accelerator' which sounds a lot as what Mills planning to do.
true. But their process might have more in common with them than with mainstream hot fusion devices it i.e. various sizes tokamacs.
There is no complicated magnetic confinement. They don't inject plasma from a separate source and so on. The process is 'aneutronic'. They also scrub excess energy through 'reverse accelerator' which sounds a lot as what Mills planning to do.
Well, not really.
The aneutonicity comes from a known hydrogen boron hot nuclear reaction - this happens to be preferentially selected in this specific confinement method, which is nice.
The confinement is in fact complex and magnetic - but it is a dynamic collapsing plasmoid. A few other people are trying with vaguely similar ideas (e.g the FRC stuff but this uses much lower temperatures and pressures, and a longer confinement time.
The charged particle direct-conversion idea has been around a long time (before mills or LPP). It is something you can maybe do with fusion that gives high energy alphas as products (as hydrogen-boron fusion does). It is highly speculative because there are issue due to the fact that you never get mono-energetic product but it is attractive because potentially it offers 80%+ conversion efficiency and therefore much reduced cooling requirements.
In both this case and Mills this is jam tomorrow of PR value and nothing else till they get workable fusion - and if they had this it would be valuable whatever conversion method if used. (High efficiency maybe means you can get payback with a Q that is perhaps 2X lower, and a lower capital plant cost. But such a novel conversion method has its own set of practical issues).
The difference is the LPP proposal for aneutronic fusion is sound, backed by multiple experiments with scaling results and consistent simulations, though highly challenging. Mills' proposal is backed neither by experiment nor simulation.
It is not fair to the LPP guys and their transparent and complex work (very well documented) to compare it with Mills' opaque and incoherent PR, or Rossi's showmanship and technical errors.
Some Recent Research.
The work carried out for several years by Eric “magneto” Lerner and his disciples in their home in Lawrenceville is an example for all independent researchers.
By using the laws of MHD and the observations of experiments not predicted by the computer and theoretical simulations, they obtained extraordinary results. While applications for the production of electrical energy on Earth are still hypothetical, their "Focus Fusion Device" will undoubtedly be the basis of future fusion space engines, due to its simplicity and very low weight.
In short, instead of fighting the instabilities of the plasma, they use these instabilities to form filaments, then plasmoids, and the fusion of the gaseous borane produces two relativistic jets. It is difficult to extract energy from these jets, but the jet of heavy ions (helium, protons, and boron) can be used directly to propel a spacecraft, and the electron jet will eventually form a "Umbrella" in front of the vessel and set off again towards the rear to join the wake of positive ions.
And of course, the umbrella of electrons wil produce a bubble of trapped magnetic field shield which expell all the interstellar dust from the path of the starship.
Like Eric “Magneto” Lerner and my friend Gennady Tarasenko, I like to play with HV pulsed currents.
I built this small Planté-Marx-Arkhad'eev generator to produce ultrashort HV pulses for a new kind of Z-Pinch.
The idea was to make a generator with minimum self-induction, and light enough to be loaded onto a satellite. And obviously, to be able to shoot with a reasonable frequency (so not with a "canary cage" as in SANDIA.)
A quiet place would have to be found in North Dakota to build it as a tower fifty feet high. (Or in Siberia)
Or in a well of the same size, dug in the earth and filled with kerosene, for electrical insulation. An old ICBM silo will be cool.
We should be able to make beautiful "sprites" which could be visible from space on stormy days.
But I admit it's a bit off topic.
it's a bit off topic.
For me,
I disagree... In a curious way.
Thanks for posting as I often wonder what Mars transit time would be with 20MW of LENR Electric supplied to power various electric space drives presently available, such as advanced Hall Effect thrusters.
What might we expect from such an array of your space drives?
Let's say pushing Musk's Starship...
