Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: Fusion Energy Calcs
Date: Mar 07, 1:29 pm
Poster: Richard Hull

On Mar 07, 1:29 pm, Richard Hull wrote:

"These are all just mere words, which you, or I, or anyone else can turn inside out like a glove!"

Man and Superman (don Juan in hell) G.B. Shaw



So it is with mathematics.........

Lets do some musings based on proven fusor III performances.

Given:
input 30kv @10ma 300 watts or joules or watt-seonds.

measured output 100,000 neutrons per second



Let the musings begin:

Assume, ideally, that all the fusions were the result of 30kev deuteron head-on collisions. (not far off base).

Now, 100,000 neutrons are only half the story.......... For each neutron made in D-D fusion d+d = He3+n there is demanded another invisible, (to the neutron counter), matching fusion where d+d = T + p.
Thus........there were actually 200,000 fusions/second in fusor III.

Furthermore, two deuterons were required for each fusion. This makes 400,000, 30kev deuterons involved in fusion reactions every second.

This involved at grand total of 1.2 X 10e10 ev of input acceleratory energy. ((** I have dropped the energy required to make the deuterons (ionization) from this discussion for at 15ev/deuteron that means that the ionization energy is only a 2000ths part of the acceleratory total and not worth consideration in the grand scheme of things))

1ev = 1.6 x 10e-19 joules or watt-sec......

We actually input ~2 X 10e-9 joules or watt-sec of energy to achieve all these successful fusion reactions noted above.

Restated, we only used .6 X 10e-11 of the actual total applied input energy in making successful fusions...or..... we threw away,as waste heat, a total of 99.999999934% of all the input energy! If we were looking for alternate energy forms this result would reduce us to despair. If we were looking for cheap fusion from any angle, this works out as follows:

Richmond Virginia kwh rate is 6.43 cents/kwh.
Based on a kilowatt-second, that is .0017 cents/kws., or about .0005 cents/second of fusor operation at 300 watts. This makes bulk neutrons cost about 5/1000 of one cent/million.... or a penny's worth of electricity will purchase you about 200 million 2.45mev neutrons.

If we chose to look at only the actual successful applied energy for fusion versus the actual fusion ouput energy the gain would be in the millions, but this is real faulty thinking; more like the pie in the sky output from some of the big hot fusion labs. Impresive but bogus and misleading.

I may have screwed up in places but the gist of the thing is correct. Fusion is cheap in a fusor! It is cheap not only at the wall socket, but cheap in regards to infrastructure as well. (But that is antoher tale to be told.)

Richard Hull