One further thought on that "other" potential use
of sonofusion... as it all ties into recent threads.
... that is, should sonofusion not be
amenable to becoming a stand-alone net producer of energy as Ross Tessien and
Russ George and others hope:
http://www.d2fusion.com/education/sonofusion.html
http://www.d2fusion.com/education/sonofusion.html
...perhaps even, the Sierra Club notwithstanding,
this suggestion below is the actually the "best" use - given that fusion - even
sonofusion - in the long run is no "cleaner" than the kind of fission where one
burns (neutralizes) all of the fission ash in situ.
IN either case, after 50 years of use, one ends up
with an "activated" reactor as the disposal issue. Easily handled, compared to
the alternative choices.
After 50 years of burning natural gas, by the way -
in addition to the megatons of CO2 one has released, there
are ton quantities of tritium gas, radium gas, and radioactive xenon gas:
these release directly into the atmosphere where they do the most
harm. These radioactive components are all part of natural gas in PPM or PPB
levels - and in the case of tritium sometimes higher.
That is Lovelock's main point about the ecological
"desirability" of fission (properly done) over everything currently available
except wind energy. He is absolutely correct on this.
By now, there should be no doubt in anyone's
mind that ultrasound cavitation will produce some neutrons. Not many, but some.
Consequently, there could easily be a hybrid arrangement, a small
Uranium-fission-sonofusion arrangement, just waiting to be developed. It will
reprocess and burn its own fission waste.
... But only a
few extra neutrons from ultrasound is not going to help much, right? That
is the initial reaction to this suggestion... but it could be short-sighted.
What happens when you irradiate a
specially-designed "independent" core with ultrasound (a deuterium-filled
moderating core) in an operating reactor, where there is already a high
flux of two other forms of irradiation - do you get synergy (or a waste of
bandwidth)?
IF there is a simultaneously large neutron flux in
this core (10^13 per cc) PLUS a huge gamma-ray flux, all at the same time as the
added ultrasound irradiation, will that not free significantly more
neutrons, than without the ultrasound ?
Common sense says "probably"... Just one more in
the long list of "Important Experiments which Need to be Performed"... and
soon... and, sadly, probably would have been - were it not for a
costly and unnecessary war.
And unlike the situation with "stripping"
where the heavy water would need to be continually purified, as the newly
formed proton (of H-O-D) will now be poised to re-absorb a free-neutron - for no
net-gain, with sonofusion you have a gaseous ash - helium. However, we want to
retain whatever degree of stripping is also involved, but...
Here again we find "Ms Synergy" jiggling her
lovely booty - in that the heavy-water purification step can be easily
accomplished in situ, due to the favorable situation of an "independent"
core (one not heated by the fuel itself). It is especially easy in a cool heavy
water core, kept near 100 degree C, to continually rid it preferentially of the
helium and light-water components, as those will boil-off
first. The 6% mass difference assures us of that. Secondary processing will
be needed, but the major first-step of differential evaporation rates assures us
that reactor grade heavy water is always present, no matter how many free
neutrons are being added..
Jones
Jones
