I have gotten round to create a web site for my idea. It is:
http://www.headonplasmafusion.info/
Not .com!
Anyway it contains a complete description of a low cost experiment to achieve hydrogen plasma fusion. Not deuterium. Not tritium. Hydrogen.
It is a new method. No Tokamacs. No lasers. No Bussard style electrostatic nets.
The way it works is: two streams of hydrogen fusion are accelerated to high speeds, and fired head on at each other. They collide, and a small proportion of the hydrogen plasma fuses into helium, giving off large quantities of energy. This energy release can be tapped as described on this web site.
The beauty of this device is that whatever minimum relative collision velocity is required for fusion, this required velocity for the plasma jet is halved as two plasma jets are fired at each other head on.
Physicists I have talked to say that it is a good idea - except for one snag. You have to accelerate the plasma jets to very high speeds to achieve fusion. Velocities in the region of hundreds of thousands of kilometers per hour.
Also you need a dense plasma to achieve the Lawson Criterion so as to allow complete four stage fusion of hydrogen into fusion.
I have looked at this, and my calculations based on probabilities and quantum mechanics indicate that the individual plasma jets need not be accelerated past 25,000 kms per hour! This is quite feasible using the acceleration device also described on the web site. Also the plasma jet can be made increasingly dense to achieve the momentary four stage fusion. It is a matter of experiment.
The experiment is low cost and can actually be conducted in a simply equipped laboratory.
Anyway I have passed this idea on to a number of international universities. If anyone tries the idea and is successful let me know at my gmail email address. I would like to keep track of progress in this area.
Showing posts with label Plasma fusion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plasma fusion. Show all posts
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Squeeze
In my patent (location below) I said that the "magnetic pocket" would be kept the same size as it moved along the tube as it travels from one end of the tube to the other.
In fact, if hydrogen plasma is being used, it would be more useful if the magnetic pocket was made smaller as the plasma was accelerated along the tube. The reason for this is that if the magnetic pocket was made increasingly smaller the magnetic field would squeeze the plasma and increase the pressure and density of the plasma. This would assist the effect of the acceleration so as to increase the pressure and density of the plasma, and thus making it easier for the required pressure and density for fusion to be achieved; so that hydrogen fusion would occur when one jet of hydrogen plasma strikes the other on-setting jet of hydrogen plasma.
In fact, if hydrogen plasma is being used, it would be more useful if the magnetic pocket was made smaller as the plasma was accelerated along the tube. The reason for this is that if the magnetic pocket was made increasingly smaller the magnetic field would squeeze the plasma and increase the pressure and density of the plasma. This would assist the effect of the acceleration so as to increase the pressure and density of the plasma, and thus making it easier for the required pressure and density for fusion to be achieved; so that hydrogen fusion would occur when one jet of hydrogen plasma strikes the other on-setting jet of hydrogen plasma.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Easy hydrogen fusion
Further to the possibility of hydrogen fusion. I have done further calculations. Since the energy requirement for hydrogen fusion is 30 x less than for deuterium, a plasma velocity of only about 200 kms/sec would be required. To put this into context, a shotgun discharge is 50 kms/sec. So it is not a very high velocity.
In fact the shotgun analogy is very apt. In order to accelerate the hydrogen plasma so that the intense pressure requirement is achieved, (equalling the pressure at the core of the sun), the acceleration distance would be about the length of a shotgun barrel.
So two head to head shotgun tubes are all you need for hydrogen fusion. Maybe lasers can be used to accelerate the hydrogen plasma. But you will still need a magnetic pinch to keep the hot plasma away from the sides of the tube.
In fact the shotgun analogy is very apt. In order to accelerate the hydrogen plasma so that the intense pressure requirement is achieved, (equalling the pressure at the core of the sun), the acceleration distance would be about the length of a shotgun barrel.
So two head to head shotgun tubes are all you need for hydrogen fusion. Maybe lasers can be used to accelerate the hydrogen plasma. But you will still need a magnetic pinch to keep the hot plasma away from the sides of the tube.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Fusion of hydrogen and deuterium plasma jets head-on into each other
Workable plasma fusion is desperately needed in this world. The major source of carbon dioxide, the cause of global warming, is electrical energy generation. The major alternative, nuclear power, is not much more attractive.
What is needed is something which will produce plentiful cheap electrical energy without producing carbon dioxide or harmful long-lasting nuclear radiation.
If nuclear fusion is possible, this will fill the bill. Nuclear fusion is the fusion of light nuclei into heavier nuclei, with the release of massive amounts of heat as a tiny amount of the mass is converted into energy. E+mc^2. It produces little long-lasting radiation.
The heat given out by the sun is produced by nuclear fusion. In the sun's case the conversion of hydrogen into helium. Nuclear fusion has been created briefly in laboratories, usually by so-called Tokamacs - torus shaped magmetic compressors of deuterium plasmas.
A plasma is an intensely heated gas (until it glows and has lost electrons) which can be controlled by a magnetic field. A plasma exhibits a magnetic field because its particles are moving.
I have invented a device which will fuse plasma of either hydrogen or deuterium into helium, releasing large quantities of heat.
I have called it a 'Plasma Accellerator' (excuse the spelling). A description of the device can be found on the IP Australia web site http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/search-index.shtml
The plasma accelerator can accelerate plasma to a very high velocity. It is a tube surrounded by individual electric coils. The coils are used to create a strong variable magnetic field inside the tube. The fields are varied so that a magnetic 'pocket' can be produced, which creates a magnetic 'pinch' effect. Into this pocket is inserted the plasma, and the pinch effect of the magnetic pocket holds the plasma.
A 'stripped' moving plasma contains a magnetic field which can be acted upon by the coils' magnetic fields.
The pocket can then be moved, even accelerated, by varying the the current in the electric coils in tandem. The plasma moves with the magnetic pocket, and can thus be accelerated to very high velocities.
If two of these tubes set end-on-end to direct the high velocity plasma head-on into each other; if a high enough velocity is achieved for deuterium or hydrogen plasma, the plasma will fuse into helium releasing a large quantityof heat.
A gas, or water vapour, can be directed at the point of impactof the two plasmas to carry the heat energy away to power electricity generation.
Will this sideways stream interfere with the reaction? Yes, to a certain extent it will. but all that is needed is to increase the velocity of the plasma streams to overcome this.
A continuous stream of plasma can be directed at each other to generate continuous energy through fusion. If the magnetic pockets follow each other fast enough it will look like and behave like a continuous stream.
It can be argued that the particles will pass each other without collision. If the plasma is dense enough, this is improbable. You only have to turn bunsen burners or welding jets on each other (admittedly they are at low velocity) to watch the flames 'splash'. The setting of the length of the distance apart of the ends of the acceleration tubes to obtain complete fusion is an engineering or technical problem.
Thus it is possible that the earth's 'clean' energy problems are solved. But is this solution possible or feasible?
Yes it is. I have calculated the minimum velocity required for two deuterium plasma jets to fuse is about 135,000 kms per hour. (See my post on Physics Forum - plasma jet fusion). If this cannot be achieved, the experimenters are not trying. (These are my own calculations. Others more expert can argue about this figure).
But what about hydrogen? Suprise, suprise. It is even easier to achieve fusion. While this is a really amazing (and welcome) result it will take a little bit of understanding.
At the moment, hydrogen to helium fusion has only been achieved in the core of the sun. Why? Because of the very high density required. High temperatures can be achieved relatively easily. But don't turn off, as all the scientists have. It requires a bit more explanation.
Deuterium fusion has a coulomb barrier of 4 x 10^8 K. (Temperature and energy measures are interchangeable). This is a measure of the repulsive force of two deuterons (deuterium nuclei) before they penetrate the coulomb barrier and fuse into helium. A coulomb barrier is the electrostic repulsion barrier around the atom. (Remember, at least theoretically, this can already be achieved by my plasma accelerator).
However inside the sun, the coulomb barrier of a proton (a hydrogen nucleus) is far less. It is 1.5 x 10^7 K. The reaction in the sun is called the proton-proton reaction.
However there are three steps in the proton-proton reaction. As is generally known the steps towards hydrogen fusing into helium inside the sun is as follows;
1. A pair of protons fuse, forming a deuteron.
2. The deuteron fuses with an additional proton to form Helium-3.
3. Two Helium-3 nuclei fuse to create Beryllium-6, but this is unstable and disintigrates into two protons and Helium-4.
4. The last reaction also releases two neutrons, two positrons, gamma rays and a great deal of heat.
Thus the fusion process takes three steps, and several different particles have to collide with each other, unlike in the deuterium-deuterium reaction, where there is just one step and one particle.
Thus the role of probability steps in. The collisions have to be highly probable for the fusion reaction to be sustainable. For the reaction to be probable, the gas has to be dense as well as hot and energetic.
The plasma accelerator I have designed can compress gas to an extremely dense pressure at the same time it is accelerating it. In fact the process of acceleration will massively increase the density of each pocket of the plasma. This dense pressure will only be need for a very short space of time, until the plasma reaches the end of the tube.
While there are engineering problems, I think the inherent design of the design of the device is making everything fall into place.
Also with hydrogen, a lower velocity would be required for fusion compared to deuterium, as a much lower impact energy is required. Thus a hydrogen fusion device can be called a relatively high compression/high acceleration/low velocity device compared to the deuterium's relatively low compression/low acceleration/high velocity device. What the two processes differ on mainly would be the rate of acceleration.
Thus plasma fusion is technically possible. The engineering problems do not appear to be beyond current technology. It is certainly worth a try.
What is needed is something which will produce plentiful cheap electrical energy without producing carbon dioxide or harmful long-lasting nuclear radiation.
If nuclear fusion is possible, this will fill the bill. Nuclear fusion is the fusion of light nuclei into heavier nuclei, with the release of massive amounts of heat as a tiny amount of the mass is converted into energy. E+mc^2. It produces little long-lasting radiation.
The heat given out by the sun is produced by nuclear fusion. In the sun's case the conversion of hydrogen into helium. Nuclear fusion has been created briefly in laboratories, usually by so-called Tokamacs - torus shaped magmetic compressors of deuterium plasmas.
A plasma is an intensely heated gas (until it glows and has lost electrons) which can be controlled by a magnetic field. A plasma exhibits a magnetic field because its particles are moving.
I have invented a device which will fuse plasma of either hydrogen or deuterium into helium, releasing large quantities of heat.
I have called it a 'Plasma Accellerator' (excuse the spelling). A description of the device can be found on the IP Australia web site http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/search-index.shtml
The plasma accelerator can accelerate plasma to a very high velocity. It is a tube surrounded by individual electric coils. The coils are used to create a strong variable magnetic field inside the tube. The fields are varied so that a magnetic 'pocket' can be produced, which creates a magnetic 'pinch' effect. Into this pocket is inserted the plasma, and the pinch effect of the magnetic pocket holds the plasma.
A 'stripped' moving plasma contains a magnetic field which can be acted upon by the coils' magnetic fields.
The pocket can then be moved, even accelerated, by varying the the current in the electric coils in tandem. The plasma moves with the magnetic pocket, and can thus be accelerated to very high velocities.
If two of these tubes set end-on-end to direct the high velocity plasma head-on into each other; if a high enough velocity is achieved for deuterium or hydrogen plasma, the plasma will fuse into helium releasing a large quantityof heat.
A gas, or water vapour, can be directed at the point of impactof the two plasmas to carry the heat energy away to power electricity generation.
Will this sideways stream interfere with the reaction? Yes, to a certain extent it will. but all that is needed is to increase the velocity of the plasma streams to overcome this.
A continuous stream of plasma can be directed at each other to generate continuous energy through fusion. If the magnetic pockets follow each other fast enough it will look like and behave like a continuous stream.
It can be argued that the particles will pass each other without collision. If the plasma is dense enough, this is improbable. You only have to turn bunsen burners or welding jets on each other (admittedly they are at low velocity) to watch the flames 'splash'. The setting of the length of the distance apart of the ends of the acceleration tubes to obtain complete fusion is an engineering or technical problem.
Thus it is possible that the earth's 'clean' energy problems are solved. But is this solution possible or feasible?
Yes it is. I have calculated the minimum velocity required for two deuterium plasma jets to fuse is about 135,000 kms per hour. (See my post on Physics Forum - plasma jet fusion). If this cannot be achieved, the experimenters are not trying. (These are my own calculations. Others more expert can argue about this figure).
But what about hydrogen? Suprise, suprise. It is even easier to achieve fusion. While this is a really amazing (and welcome) result it will take a little bit of understanding.
At the moment, hydrogen to helium fusion has only been achieved in the core of the sun. Why? Because of the very high density required. High temperatures can be achieved relatively easily. But don't turn off, as all the scientists have. It requires a bit more explanation.
Deuterium fusion has a coulomb barrier of 4 x 10^8 K. (Temperature and energy measures are interchangeable). This is a measure of the repulsive force of two deuterons (deuterium nuclei) before they penetrate the coulomb barrier and fuse into helium. A coulomb barrier is the electrostic repulsion barrier around the atom. (Remember, at least theoretically, this can already be achieved by my plasma accelerator).
However inside the sun, the coulomb barrier of a proton (a hydrogen nucleus) is far less. It is 1.5 x 10^7 K. The reaction in the sun is called the proton-proton reaction.
However there are three steps in the proton-proton reaction. As is generally known the steps towards hydrogen fusing into helium inside the sun is as follows;
1. A pair of protons fuse, forming a deuteron.
2. The deuteron fuses with an additional proton to form Helium-3.
3. Two Helium-3 nuclei fuse to create Beryllium-6, but this is unstable and disintigrates into two protons and Helium-4.
4. The last reaction also releases two neutrons, two positrons, gamma rays and a great deal of heat.
Thus the fusion process takes three steps, and several different particles have to collide with each other, unlike in the deuterium-deuterium reaction, where there is just one step and one particle.
Thus the role of probability steps in. The collisions have to be highly probable for the fusion reaction to be sustainable. For the reaction to be probable, the gas has to be dense as well as hot and energetic.
The plasma accelerator I have designed can compress gas to an extremely dense pressure at the same time it is accelerating it. In fact the process of acceleration will massively increase the density of each pocket of the plasma. This dense pressure will only be need for a very short space of time, until the plasma reaches the end of the tube.
While there are engineering problems, I think the inherent design of the design of the device is making everything fall into place.
Also with hydrogen, a lower velocity would be required for fusion compared to deuterium, as a much lower impact energy is required. Thus a hydrogen fusion device can be called a relatively high compression/high acceleration/low velocity device compared to the deuterium's relatively low compression/low acceleration/high velocity device. What the two processes differ on mainly would be the rate of acceleration.
Thus plasma fusion is technically possible. The engineering problems do not appear to be beyond current technology. It is certainly worth a try.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)