Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech

[jmyrlefuller]

https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydrogen-boron-fusion-clean-energy/

by Loz Blain
February 21, 2020

Fusion, of course, is the long-awaited clean, safe theoretical solution to humanity's energy needs. It's how the Sun itself makes the vast amounts of energy that have powered life on our planet up until now. Where nuclear fission – the splitting of atoms to release energy – has proven incredibly powerful but insanely destructive when things go wrong, fusion promises reliable, safe, low cost, green energy generation with no chance of radioactive meltdown.

It's just always been 20 years away from being 20 years away. A number of multi-billion dollar projects are pushing slowly forward, from the Max Planck Institute's insanely complex Wendelstein 7-X stellerator to the 35-nation ITER Tokamak project, and most rely on a deuterium-tritium thermonuclear fusion approach that requires the creation of ludicrously hot temperatures, much hotter than the surface of the Sun, at up to 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit). This is where HB11's tech takes a sharp left turn.

HB11's approach to fusion does away with rare, radioactive and difficult fuels like tritium altogether – as well as those incredibly high temperatures. Instead, it uses plentiful hydrogen and boron B-11, employing the precise application of some very special lasers to start the fusion reaction.

(excerpt)

[jmyrlefuller]

These guys may very well be onto something.

I remember in high school coming across a chart showing that much of the fusion process in the sun comes from the conversion of carbon to nitrogen to oxygen—so logically, using boron (just one proton less than carbon) as the base would simulate the sun's fusion process more closely than using tiny hydrogen atoms.

[Elderberry]

More info on HB11 Fusion

Road map to clean energy using laser beam ignition of boron-hydrogen fusion

Cambridge  December 2017

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/laser-and-particle-beams/article/road-map-to-clean-energy-using-laser-beam-ignition-of-boronhydrogen-fusion/8BE057DC1BC9E0A588FB3ABAA993078C/core-reader

Abstract

With the aim to overcome the problems of climatic changes and rising ocean levels, one option is to produce large-scale sustainable energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and other very light nuclei similar to the energy source of the sun. Sixty years of worldwide research for the ignition of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) have come close to a breakthrough for ignition. The problem with the DT fusion is that generated neutrons are producing radioactive waste. One exception as the ideal clean fusion process – without neutron production – is the fusion of hydrogen (H) with the boron isotope 11B11 (B11). In this paper, we have mapped out our research based on recent experiments and simulations for a new energy source. We suggest how HB11 fusion for a reactor can be used instead of the DT option. We have mapped out our HB11 fusion in the following way: (i) The acceleration of a plasma block with a laser beam with the power and time duration of the order of 10 petawatts and one picosecond accordingly. (ii) A plasma confinement by a magnetic field of the order of a few kiloteslas created by a second laser beam with a pulse duration of a few nanoseconds (ns). (iii) The highly increased fusion of HB11 relative to present DT fusion is possible due to the alphas avalanche created in this process. (iv) The conversion of the output charged alpha particles directly to electricity. (v) To prove the above ideas, our simulations show for example that 14 milligram HB11 can produce 300 kWh energy if all achieved results are combined for the design of an absolutely clean power reactor producing low-cost energy.

1. INTRODUCTION

When the field of nuclear physics was created by Lord Rutherford just after 1900, it was evident from the beginning that the energy exchanges for nuclear processes are about 10 million times higher than those in chemical reactions. The binding energy of the protons and neutrons in a nucleus is of the order of 10 million electron volts (MeV) while the typical chemical reaction binding energies are of about 1 electron volt (eV) only. Using Rutherford's experiments with Albert Einstein's explanation of the connection between mass and energy, as demonstrated by the most famous equation in physics E = mc 2 (c is speed of light and E is the energy contained in mass m), it was evident that the burning in nuclear reactions is related to 10 million times more energy than in chemical reactions.

There are two types of nuclear reactions that can yield energy: Fission and fusion. During the fission process, a heavy element like uranium (element number Z = 92) splits into two elements and neutron emission while during the fusion two light elements are to be combined into a heavier one. The nuclear fusion of the light elements, from the one proton hydrogen (Z = 1) up to iron (Z = 26) can release energies of the order of few MeV per reaction. The most important nuclear fusion, namely the one that gives life to our planet, is the hydrogen cycle producing the helium nuclei (α) and yielding the energy of the sun. This cycle includes the weak interaction of proton–proton fusion creating a deuterium that further collides with a proton to get the helium-3 isotope that fuses with another helium-3 to get the final alpha nuclei.

The proton–proton fusion cross section has by far the lowest cross section of this chain of reactions and it is given by σ(p + p → D + e+ + νe) = [S(E)/E]exp[−2πη(E)], where e+ is the positron and νe denotes the neutrino (Eliezer & Ross, 1974) of the electron class. [S(E)/E] = 4.0 × 10−46 keV.cm2/E keV and η(E) = 2πe2/(hv) where v is the relative velocity between the two colliding protons. The rate and timetable of this cycle are dominated by the H–H interaction of the nuclei of the light hydrogen H, the protons.

The fusion power (in watts) is in general given for the interaction of particle 1 with particle 2 by

More at link.

[DB]

The climate is going to change no matter what we do for energy.

As far as sea level rise, the seas have been rising since the last interglacial period started about 13,000 years ago.

How can anyone give credence to a science report that starts off with bogus science?

[MajorClay]

Hmmm