3 ms·
Considering they have to pump in x-rays, does this even stand a theoretical chance of being net energy positive? Remember that fusion can be achieved in a bench
by the8472 6y ago
Considering they have to pump in x-rays, does this even stand a theoretical chance of being net energy positive? Remember that fusion can be achieved in a bench top experiment[0] without being useful for energy production. Could the neutrons be provided by fission instead of xrays?
Link to paper is at the bottom of the article, the main text links to a paywalled one for some reason.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
- pfdietz 6y ago> Considering they have to pump in x-rays, does this even stand a theoretical chance of being net energy positive? No. The cross section for photodisintegration of a deuteron is much smaller than the cross section for loss to electrons. So even if 100% of the neutrons produced lead to fusion (which I extremely highly doubt) it could not be anywhere close to breakeven. The only way this might work would be if one could accelerate the deuterons directly and beam them at a deuterated target. But that's been done for 80+ years, so don't suddenly expect those results (that it cannot be close to breakeven either) to change.
- the8472 6y agoWhat about fission neutrons? Rather than having a pure fission device maybe one could boost the power output of a small nuclear reactor this way.
- pfdietz 6y agoOnly about 3% of the energy of a fission reactor comes out as neutrons, so even if one stipulates these would cause fusion efficiently the energy multiplication would be small. One might as well just stick with fission.