In reply to Jones Beene's message of Sat, 11 Mar 2006 12:46:14 -0800: Hi, [snip] >> All true, except that as I understand how this is supposed to >> work, >> the beta decay releases large amounts of energy as magnetic >> flux. > >But where is the beta emitter? The fuel in this one is natural >uranium, an alpha emitter. There will be some "daughters" but the >betas from them are 'de minimis'.
Michael's statement was I believe based upon the description of a nuclear battery designed to operate with a radionuclide that is a beta emitter. That doesn't necessarily imply that only beta emitters will work, only that they may have been considered to be more convenient. > >> The circuit is set up to make the the beta decay magnetic >> fields, >> which would normally be random, resonate with the LC circuit. > >There should be only a little beta decay with 238U - so let's say >instead that the intention of the new inventors (or their good >fortune) is to get the secondary gammas (from the alpha radiation) >to resonate the LC circuit at much higher intensity than they >should, based on their won energy. Consider the possibility that the alpha radiation will strip thousands of electrons from surrounding atoms in the solid. These free electrons may then resonate with the magnetic field. (Don't ask me what this means ;). > >As best I can tell on short notice, the EM-equivalent energy from >the radioactive alpha decay of the one kg of un-stimulated uranium >is less than 0.3 milliW. A billion years ago, it may have been >half a mW. Even if the alphas were converted to gammas at 100% eff >and then the gamma converted to electricity at 100% eff. the ouput >of such a device should be is less than a microwatt per gram - so >the watt per gram which is claimed can mean: > >1) the "stimulation" increases the energy a million fold >2) it is a foolish inaccuracy or fraud >3) there is something else going on, along the lines of a trade >secret The varying mag. field causes U235 to preces and relax which stimulates it to decay. U238 doesn't preces (it has no magnetic moment), so probably isn't affected. However all the daughters of the U235 decay also have magnetic moments, so these can also be stimulated to decay, all the way down to Pb207. This releases a total of about 46 MeV / U235, most of which is in alpha particles. Note that some of the lower decays will produce dangerous gammas, especially as these are encouraged to decay at an accelerated rate. > >>Do you have any reason to believe these guys are not on the >>up-and-up? > >Not at all. In fact I am ever hopeful that 3) is correct. But >what could that "something else" be? Paul Brown did not have it, >or even know about it - I can guarantee you that much. > >And, most importantly, why would Paul essentially give up on this >device a full seven years before his tragic death - if it were so >promising?? Because the radiation created is too dangerous for one to be in every household, which limit's it's use to nuclear power plants. Then the energy obtained from U235 is only 46 MeV (actually probably nearer to 20-40 MeV after losses), which is not much compared to the 200 MeV available from fission. > >He moved on to nuclear remediation. Which is a sensible approach to take, considering the above. The technique can still usefully be employed in remediating about half of normal nuclear waste, especially the (for humans) dangerous Cs135, Cs137 and I129 isotopes, which have nuclear magnetic moments, and hence are susceptible. This still leaves the question of what to do with the nuclear waste that has no magnetic moment. It would seem best to simply put this back into a reactor, and let it pick up a free neutron, converting it to an isotope with and odd mass number, i.e. one having a magnetic moment, such that it can be processed. The problem with this approach is separating the radioactive isotopes from those that have been neutralized. And this is I suspect, no small problem, since chemical separation would only be a partial solution. However if one is going to bury the waste anyway, then this is still a useful process to apply beforehand. It reduces the total amount of radioactive material present in the waste, produces enough energy to pay for the processing, and in particular it destroys the I129, Cs135 and Cs137, so that these are no longer present in the waste, and hence can't leak out at the burial site and contaminate ground water. [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
