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http://pesn.com/2006/03/18/9600250_LPP_Chilean_Nuclear_Commission/
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U.S., Chilean Labs to Collaborate on Testing Scientific Feasibility of Focus
Fusion
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics and Chilean Nuclear Commission initiate a
three-year, three-phase experimental collaboration to duplicate earlier results,
improve and optimize efficiencies, and test alternate input fuels in the focus
fusion process.
The vacuum chamber used by
Lerner, et al. at Texas A&M University, 2001. (Ref.) |
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Lawrenceville Plasma Physics and the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission (CCHEN)
have agreed to collaborate on a three-year experimental test of the focus
fusion approach to fusion energy. The project will use the Speed-2 plasma
focus device at CCHENs Thermonuclear Plasma Laboratory in Santiago, Chile,
one of the two largest plasma focus devices in the world. The experimental team
at CCHEN of four scientists, headed by Dr. Leopoldo Soto, will collaborate with
Eric Lerner, President of LPP and Executive Director of the Focus Fusion
Society, and with other researchers.
The project will consist of three phases. In the first, beginning in July, 2006,
the team will duplicate and improve on the experimental results earlier obtained
at Texas A&M University indicating that the plasma focus can achieve the
high ion energies, above 100keV (the equivalent of one billion degrees C), that
is needed to burn hydrogen-boron fuel. Hydrogen-boron fuel can produce energy in
the form of charged particles, eliminating radioactivity and potentially
allowing inexpensive direct conversion into electricity. The experiments will
considerably extend the earlier work because the new tests will be conducted at
higher peak current, will have better diagnostic instruments, and will have more
optimized electrodes.
In the second phase, the electrodes will be modified in order to improve and
optimize the efficiency of energy transfer into the dense, hot plasmoid where
fusion reactions take place. In both of these first two phases, the gases used
will be deuterium and helium and mixes of the two. These gases are easy to use
and, in the case of helium, have atomic mass and charge fairly similar to that
of the target fuel, hydrogen-boron.
In the third phase, mixtures of helium and decaborane, a compound of hydrogen
and boron and, later, pure decaborane will be used to test the feasibility of
the focus fusion approach, which relies on this fuel to produce fusion energy.
In these experiments, the team will determine if it is possible to reach
extremely high magnetic fields, billions of times stronger than that of the
earth. If such fields are reached, this phase will study the magnetic field
effect that will reduce the emission of X-rays and retard the cooling of the
dense plasmoids. The experiment will determine if enough fusion energy can be
produced from hydrogen-boron fuel to allow net energy production with reasonable
energy conversion efficiencies.
The aim of these experiment it to see if net energy production is
scientifically feasible. explains Lerner. To actually achieve continuous
production of net energy will require a subsequent substantial engineering
effort aimed at developing a prototype reactor.
The collaborative agreement was finalized during Lerners visit to Chile in
February, where he was a visiting scientist at the European Southern
Observatory, also located in Santiago. He was able to visit the Thermonuclear
Plasma Laboratory and have extensive technical discussions with the team there,
as well was with other plasma focus groups at Catholic University in Santiago
and at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.
The three-year-long experimental work in Santiago will be financed by CCHEN,
with an estimated budget of about one million dollars. LPP will be contributing
an additional $700,000 to the project to finance planning, data analysis and
simulations. This will be raised from private investors. Given this funding, LPP
will be collaborating with researchers at George Mason University and Naval
Research Laboratory to develop a highly innovative simulation to help guide and
understand the experiments.
LPP and CCHEN will share equally in all income from intellectual property
developed during this experiment, and both will be free to exploit the
technology. LPP also has additional intellectual property of its own in the form
of a patent application covering the main concepts of focus fusion.
Background on Speed-2
The Speed-2 plasma focus device was first constructed in Dόsseldorf, Germany.
When the Dόsseldorf team was about to dissolve due to retirements, Dr. Soto was
able to obtain the device for the Chilean Thermonuclear Lab. The device is
capable of achieving a peak current as high as 4 MA (million amperes) with a
maximum charging voltage of 300kV and has routinely operated at 2.4 MA. By
comparison, the range of current theoretically predicted to be optimal for focus
fusion is 2.4-3 MA. When operating at 3 MA, the capacitor bank of Speed 2
produces nearly 700 GW of power for 0.4 microseconds. During that brief pulse it
is producing about as much power as is produced by the entire electrical supply
system of North America.
Dr. Sotos lab not only uses Speed-2 but has also developed a series of plasma
focus devices ranging downward in size to the Nano-focus, whose electrodes are
smaller than a pen.
# # #
Source:
Contact
Eric Lerner <elerner {at} igc.org >
New Jersey
973-736-0522
Aaron Blake <blake_aaron {at} hotmail.com >
Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts
781-862-3292
Related Coverage by PESN
 Focus
Fusion poses competition to Tokamak - Purports to be a far more
feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion, in contrast
to what the international project (ITER) in France is pursuing.
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is currently researching and developing the
Plasma Focus Device for hydrogen-boron nuclear fusion. (PESN; Nov. 2,
2005)
 Top
100: Fusion
/ Focus Fusion
>
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Submits Patent Application - The patent
covers the use of high magnetic fields in the production of fusion energy,
the injection of angular momentum into the plasma sheath, and a new method
of converting X-ray energy into electricity; as well as how to combine these
into a functional fusion energy reactor. (PESN; Mar. 18, 2006)
Top
100: Fusion
/ Focus Fusion
>
Sandia
Z-Pinch and Texas A&M Focus Fusion Compared - Billion-degree
fusion reported by Eric Lerner, et al. at Texas A&M University in 2001
has been duplicated recently by a variation set-up at Sandia National
Laboratories. The two processes are compared. (PESN; Mar. 18, 2006)
Other Resources
See also
Editing by Mary-Sue
Haliburton
Page posted by Sterling
D. Allan March 17, 2006
Last updated March 18, 2006
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