Re: Moon a Source of Unlimited Energy


Posted by Uncle Al on Jan 19, 2004 at 12:22
(68.5.243.16)

Re: Moon a Source of Unlimited Energy (Mike Kremer)


  1. Controlled hot fusion doesn't exist. There is no reason to assume it ever will - certainly not as an industrial process. 100,00,000 C and a massive 10 MeV neutron field in tight proximity to 4 K maxed out supercon windings is insanity. Using He-3 as your fusion fuel is incredibly less doable for needing a much higher temperature (below).

  2. If "easy" deuterium fusion did reduce to practice, it would be useless as a power station. Harvesting the energy of 10 MeV fusion neutrons (50% of fusion energy yield) is particularly nasty. So is leaklessly handling megacurie inventories of tritium.

  3. He-3 is not a good fusion fuel. In fact, it is an awful fusion fuel for its low reaction cross-section (below).

  4. There is no decent way to harvest lunar regolith He-3, whose meager wt-% abudance makes 5 ppm diamond ore (the really hot commercial stuff) look positivley overflowing.

  5. Calculate the volume of 30 tonnes of helium. Gas or liquid, it hardly makes a difference. Here's a start: You are talking 224,000 cubic meters at STP. What is the volume of the Space Scuttle's cargo bay? The Space Scuttle cargo bay is about 150 cubic meters.

  6. The huge tonnages of spent nuclear fuel rods in storage have aproximately 5% of their fissionable uranium burned. They also contain substantial concentrations of fissionable plutonium from U-238 neutron capture and subsequent decay subsequent beta-decay. Reprocessing for *civilian* fuel is inexpensive compared to raw material mining.

  7. It is very Enviro-whiner to turn your back on efficient, cheap, and safe in favor of expensive, shoddy, and deadly. If you need even a single PhD to run your productin line, you don't have a production line.

  8. Learn to recognize Official Truth.

Deuterium is a better fusion fuel than He-3 under any imaginable circumstances. The Earth's water is filthy with deuterium, which is trivially and inexpensively isolated to high purity via H2S isotope exchange lines.

 Temp                 Reaction Cross Sections (cm^2)

 (keV       D-D         D-T         T-T         D-He3       T-He3
   1.0   1.5x10^-22  5.5x10^-21  3.3x10^-22  3.0x10^-26  1.0x10^-28

   2.0   5.4x10^-21  2.6x10^-19  7.1x10^-21  1.4x10^-23  1.0x10^-25

   5.0   1.8x10^-19  1.3x10^-17  1.4x10^-19  6.7x10^-21  2.1x10^-22

 10.0   1.2x10^-18  1.1x10^-16  7.2x10^-19  2.3x10^-19  1.2x10^-20

  20.0   5.2x10^-18  4.2x10^-16  2.5x10^-18  3.8x10^-18  2.6x10^-19

  50.0   2.1x10^-17  8.7x10^-16  8.7x10^-18  5.4x10^-17  5.3x10^-18

 100.0   4.5x10^-17  8.5x10^-16  1.9x10^-17  1.6x10^-16  2.7x10^-17

1000.0   2.2x10^-16  2.7x10^-16  8.0x10^-17  1.8x10^-16  5.2x10^-16

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)

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