Hi all
I am positive I've asked this group this question before but my Google
skills seem insufficient to extract any answers I might have recieved at
the
time from archive. I apologise before hand if anyone is tired of answering
this sort of question over and over again.
Question follows:
Assuming sono-fusion does work (i.e. produces more energy than it
consumes,
doesn't poison itself or its users, doesn't spontaneously explode into a
rapidly expanding sphere of anti-protons, etc,etc,etc) what would a
sono-fusion reactor look like?
I am imaging a spherical reactor pressure vessel made from thick steel
with
dozens of acoustic emitters bolted onto it at regular intervals, looking
something like the classical comic-book naval anti-shipping mine.
Alternatively a cylinder with the same pattern of acoustic emitters.
Inside it may or may not have a layer of neutron absorbing material lining
the pressure vessel to slow down the fast neutrons and keep neutrons in
general inside.
It would have hardy and tough pipes going in (I assume at the 'north' and
'south' 'poles' of the sphere for acoustic emitter symetry). The pipes
would
deliver fresh reagents/fuel and extract spent fuel.
How would you get energy out?
You could simply boil water on the steel exterior if it gets hot enough.
Or you could have a heat-exchanger inside the fluid inside, extracting
heat
(possibly interfacing to the outside world through the fuel in/out pipes).
The shape of the heat -exchanger would have to take the internal acoustic
patterns into account and not disrupt them or things won't work.
Or do you need something like a Tomaka (sp? torus-shaped magnetic fusion
reactor)?
How small could you makes these things, in terms of volume and generating
capacity? Small enough to power an aircraft carrier, a small city, or a
bus
or a VW Beetle or small enough to provide your pocket portable MP3 player
with 50 billion years worth of play time?
How long would the reactor vessel last, and what sort of disposal and
recycling procedure would you need to follow? Burial for sixty trillions
mega-years, or send it to scrap-yard, melt, and make a new one out of, or
do
you just drain out the send fuel after every 50,000 hours give it a clean
and a polish and refill it after a quick check of the emitters?
Given the recent (last five years) developments in this field what is
your
fuel likely to be:
Deutrium enriched acetone (or DE-diesel or bunker oil or bitumen) or
DE salt water or
DE hydrocarbon with uranium salts and tritium boosters and Li-6 additives
and boron moderators and .....
Licensing? If these things are safe and small enough to be used in,say a
city bus how likely is it that, in a future world where hydrocarbons are
scarcer and uranium is not cheaper and solar power doesn't magically work
better and wind power is not available all the time, and where there are
no
freshly discovered mega-cubic-miles worth of pure hydogen on tap , the
average human being will be comfortable riding a bus (or a VW Beetle)
powered by fusing De or Ti atoms?
Anything I've missed.
Thanks adn regards
Frank Scrooby
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