LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions).

There must be some interesting information all these threads that have mysteriously gone "missing" over the years.

 

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From my Post #17:

From Post #24 by KitemanSA:

Even those experimenting with Muon catalyzed fusion do not consider it commercially viable.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion:

While Wikipedia is not as reliable as a major physics journal, it is almost always a good source for checking on expert opinion.

BTW: I am not an advocate of hot fusion, which has been researched for decades & still seems decades away from being commercially worthwhile.

Magnetic containment of the plaza failed: The magnetic “bottles” leak.

Laser implosion has problems getting a worthwhile ratio of energy out to energy in. I think there are other problems with it.​

 

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I agree. In the early years I work a decade on this, and like others had high hopes for controlled fusion.

I'll add to your "The magnetic 'bottles' leak." that the flow of neutrals, like an iron atom blasted out of the vacuum chamber walls by neutron flux, which for the most feasible D/T reaction carry most of the energy released by that fission reaction, is like pouring cold water on a fire.

I.e. even as it ionizes the low charge to mass ratio makes it hard to keep it out of the fusion plasma. It becomes many stages ionized and in a dynamic equilibrium is capturing electrons as well as losing and exciting them to still bound upper levels of the highly ionized impurities. This is a fantastic radiative quenching of the hot plasma. In order to fight it some of the outer layers of the confining magnetic field are intentionally taken away from the hot plasma region into "diverter volumes" with the hope that the vacuum system can remove them.

SUMMARY that leak "leaks" in both directions, helping make economic feasibility a still distant dream.

 

And because one proven extant method to accomplish something may be commercially unviable, ALL similar methods to accomplish it must be also? Sorry, does not compute.

 

I suspect you are not really calling out a magnetic confinement of a town square or anything like that, so I will read "plasma" rather than "plaza".
Your statement about magcon of plasma has been true so far, and you did bring up and dismiss inertial confinement, but you have missed another confinement method... electro-static. Indeed, there is a magnetically augmented electro-static confinement machine called a Polywell that just might prove viable before too long.

 

If memory serves me that is a configuration with many charged rods forming some lower potential spaces passing near them. It will have huge problems of the nature I mentioned in my post 44 extension of Dinosaur's post. I.e. If it ever made a fusion neutron flux streaming into the "polyrods," the flux of neutral atoms blasted out of the rod would radiatively quench the plasma to terminate the production of neutrons (kill the fusion reaction).

 

I noticed it long before that though. Probably as early as December 2013. I even used the "contact us" form to ask directly to the adminstrators. Nobody replied. Only several weeks later I noticed this new thread and asked the question here.

It would be great if it could be brought back, there were interesting discussions.

 

Its permanently gone I'm afraid.
I have been assured that no-one removed the thread deliberately.
It didn't even cross my mind that you had removed it Trippy.

 

Some of the old thread is retrievable through Archive.org

https://web.archive.org/web/2013100...13-Low-Energy-Nuclear-Reactions-(cold-fusion)

I think for future reference we should consider closing large threads after a set number of posts and restart them again with a link to the previous thread to reduce the chances of this happening again in the future.

 

I agree and note the "evolution thread" is now on #4, I think, with references to three earlier ones.

 

"Polyrods"??? Perhaps you should learn something about it before making odd proclamations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

 

Thanks for the link. Yes my memory was faulty, it is rings not rods inside the vacuum that necessarily are very near what they hope will be a fusion plasma but my point remains very valid, even more so after reading your link! I. e.

There will be flux of high atomic number of positive ions streaming into the plasma that radiatively quench it. In conventional magnetic fusion, the neutrals blasted out the much more distant wall just drift in until becoming ionized and then are partially keep out of the central plasma by the magnetic field confining plasma. In the Polywell, they are accelerated into the fusion area by the negatively charged electron cloud!

Not even considering this greater source of radiative quenching, independent analysis has shown (I assume from the fact all accelerated charge radiate energy plus the harsh X-rays with bremsstrahlung - extreme energy ion abruptly stopped by another as getting them fuse requires) the energy loss rate will be 20% larger than the fusion energy production rate!

From your link:
Todd Rider had calculated that x-ray radiation losses with this fuel will exceed fusion power production by at least 20%. Rider modeled the system using the following assumptions:
The plasma was quasineutral. Therefore positives and negatives were equally mixed together.[31]
The fuel was evenly mixed throughout the volume.[31]
The plasma was isotropic, meaning that its behavior was the same in any given direction.[31]
The plasma had a uniform energy and temperature throughout the cloud.[31]
The plasma was an unstructured Gaussian sphere, with a strongly converged dense central core. The core represented a small (~1%) part of the total volume.[31] In a later 1995 paper, Dr. William Nevins at LANL argued against this assumption. He argued that the particles would build up angular momentum, causing the dense core to degrade.[33] The loss of density inside the core would reduce fusion rates.
The potential well was broad and flat.[31]

Note the Nevins correction to the original paper, greatly REDUCES the rate of fusion energy production but has little effect, if any on the "bremsstrahlung losses" as that is when one of the fuel ions hit a ion already in the plasma- and it must or just goes out the other side, with slight scattering, but perhaps more than enough to slam into one of the coils blasting even more high atomic atoms into the plasma for still greater radiative quenching.

And from your link, for others who don't know the concept:
"A polywell consists of several parts. A set of positively charged electromagnet coils that are arranged in a polyhedron. This is called the MaGrid. This structure generates magnetic fields which are designed to trap electrons. The MaGrid is placed inside a wire cage within a vacuum chamber. Electrons are introduced into the cage and are accelerated towards the MaGrid using an electric field. Once inside the MaGrid, the electrons are confined by the magnetic fields. Those that escape are retained by the electric field. This configuration traps the electrons in the middle of the device. The electrons act as a virtual cathode (negative electric potential).

Gas is puffed into the cage. The gas ionizes when it reaches the electron cloud. The electron cloud generates a potential well. Ions fall down this well building up speed, slamming together* and fusing in the center. Ions are also electrostatically confined so densely that they fuse, releasing energy. The energy required to confine the electrons is far smaller than that required to directly confine ions, as is done in other fusion projects such as ITER.

* That "slamming together" is fantastic deceleration making huge bremsstrahlung losses - much more than is achieved by stopping merely 50K volt accelerated electors in a common X-ray machine - I.e. it alone radiates too much, not even considering the much greater radiative loss, I mentioned in earlier post due to the influx of high atomic number atoms blasted from the near by polyrings. Knowing this for years is why I did not need to check the design details - falsely remember rods, instead of ring were used. AFAIK everyone well verse in this field has a low opinion of the polywell, and its funding has been terminated for good reason. - It can not work.

 

Sorry, I don't think you get the concept.
It seems that AFAIK, you don't know very far.
What "flux of high atomic number ions?
Rider used overly simplifying assumptions. Bussard determined he was wrong.
Quasineutral, not ambipolar. Makes a big difference.
You judge based on a popularized "slamming together"? By your explanation NO fusion will ever work because the ions slam together. Ooops, the sun doesn't work since the hydrogens "slam together". Yes there will be brem, but not enough to make D-T unviable, and with correct portioning of p & B11, not for the a-neutronic reaction either.
The review panel of the greatest experts have reviewed twice and seem to support continued work.

 

Well if the close to plasma coils are copper and the frame holding them (resisting their mutual interaction magnetic forces) is steel, mainly copper and iron atoms will be streaming into any fusion plasm producing high enrgy flux of neutrons as He is made from D & T. Each fusion reaction send a more than 17Mev neutron out in a random, uncontrollable direction so many will slam into the coils and their support structure the atoms of which are bound to each other by less than 10ev "bindng energy."

Thus EACH energetic neutron hitting those near-by solids will release about a million high atomic number atoms to quickly turn off the reaction - quench it. They will be essentially ionized to 10 to 20 stages of ionization, but not completely so the still bound electrons will be almost continuously being excited to higher bound levels and "falling" back down to a lower lever with the emission of harsh X-rays. BTW high atomic number atoms are some times introduced to Z-pinch plasma to produce the most intense short duration flash of x-rays man can make - used for time stopping reaction photos deep ins side some high pressure steel chamber, etc.

This radiative cooling or "quenching" will be many times greater than the bremsstrahlung caused by one of the intentionally injected fuel atoms being greatly and rapidly decelerated by hitting or bouncing off another fuel ion already in the negatively charged plasma. But even just that bremsstrahlung - which is a very minor component of the total radiative losses being included in the analysis was at least 20% more than the fusion generated energy.

I.e. when the radiation from the influx of high atomic number is included, the rate of radiative cooling will be much more than 10,000 times greater than the rate of fuion release of energy included in the calculations showing concept cannot work.

Note also an iron or copper atom in say the 15th stage of ionization will also be attracted / accelerated towards the negative plasma cloud, but enter it with 15 times more kinetic energy than the singly charged fuel ions (D & T) do. It is also much heavier with greater momentum, so when it hits an ion inside the plasma, that hit atom will, in many cases, also be blasted into the coils and their support structure so my only estimating a million high atomic number atoms from the coils and support structure are streaming into plasma for each neutron hitting coil or support structure is probably several order of magnitude too low.

 

It seems that since the Cold Fusion mega-thread mysteriously 'disappeared' things have gone awfully quiet around here.
So to resurrect the controversy, look at this:
http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/10/08/e-cat-report-released/

 

Aren't the names on this "Third Party Report" those of Rossi's pals at Bologna?

 

Hmm. This report seems to claim that the device transmutes Ni-58, Ni-60, Ni-61 AND Ni-64 (i.e. natural nickel) into Ni-62. So most nickel atoms gain neutrons, some lose two. This seems unlikely, and is not explained by anything in their claim.