In reply to Jones Beene's message of Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:11:56 -0700: Hi, [snip] >Anyway - This potential problem in LENR, which will certainly get the NRC >involved eventually - is due to three separate factors. > >1) neutrons - if SPAWAR and others are correct. >Even a few neutrons are problematic over long term operation.
That depends on the application. First consider that the number of neutrons would be many orders of magnitude less than from a fission reactor with the same power output. If fission reactors are considered acceptable (and I seem to recall you being a rather strong proponent thereof ;), then a LENR reactor should represent a vast improvement. However if some neutrons (or gamma or energetic x-rays) are produced in even relatively small amounts, then this would probably rule out some "personal" applications, e.g. one might not wish to have such a source in one's laptop. :) Yet, use in a home power unit might still be acceptable, if it were sufficiently shielded e.g. by being buried under a few feet of dirt outside the house. > >2) tritium - often seen, but not always. Can the possibility of 3H be >totally eliminated? Probably not - and it is EXTREMELY toxic, since it can >go directly into the human metabolism, through either the air of water >vector. While Tritium production probably can't be eliminated, if light water is used, then the production can be kept very low. Furthermore, given it's high reaction cross section with Deuterium, the vast majority of the tiny amount that is produced may well react within the reactor itself, making it of negligible concern, particularly if the reactor is a closed system (not out of the question). This risk could be even further reduced by using D depleted light water as the fuel for sensitive applications. > >3) The nature of the heavy reactants (transmutation products) With hydrinos, >as we have shown, these tend to be not radioactive and are lighter elements >- but with heavy elements such as palladium, radioactive activation >(isotopes of silver cadmium etc) this is problematic, and much harder to >imagine as benign. My reactor would not use any Pd, nor even LENR as currently understood, and if Al were used as the primary construction material, most of the reactor would be fuel, in one implementation of the device. :) > >The main problem I see with your aluminum hypothesis is that there seems to >be a very strong ferromagnetic bias for hydrino attraction into a nucleus, >as opposed to the hydride replacing an electron and lodging in an orbital. >That ferrormagnetic pull would be lacking with aluminum -and- where are the Normal ferromagnetism is caused by the atomic electrons and has nothing to do with nuclei. The Al nucleus does however have a magnetic moment, so if the magnetic field of Hydrinos plays a role, then an Al nucleus shouldn't pose any problems in that regard. >favorable orbital values in aluminum? None are listed in my version of CQM >(but there are about a dozen different versions out now). I was not suggesting that Al was a Mills catalyst (if that's what you were trying to say), just suggesting that it would make a good fuel. The two do not have to go hand in hand. > >Mills does not stress, or even mention AFAIK - the intense magnetic field of >the Hy - but his mentor, Dr Farrell often has. This is an important point. Good. :) [snip] >Of course if someone were able to get the bulk of the population of Hy down >to that few fm radius, as you suggest then anything works - but to my >thinking that likelihood seems extremely rare compared with the ease of >simply going with a robust UV implementation. ...yet it is precisely what my invention may readily achieve (if it works at all). (And much more readily than Mills himself can do BTW). > >Why tempt fate (with engineering for nuclear reactions) by getting the >getting the NRC involved at this early stage when there are non-toxic >alternatives ? Because Mills is struggling with Hydrino reactions to even get a COP of 2, whereas nuclear reactions can deliver a theoretical COP of 1000 or more (probably somewhat less in practice). However as a rough rule of thumb, nuclear reactions are a thousand times more energetic than Hydrino reactions, which is why it is sensible to use the Hydrinos as a stepping stone, rather than as an end in themselves. Obviously the nuclear option would result in a robust and reliable power generator, whereas the Hydrino only option isn't really quite there yet. Furthermore, there is the long term consideration that the nuclear option uses far less fuel than the Hydrino option, which tends to become more important when one considers things like irrigating an entire continent. ;) BTW returning for a moment to the molten Sodium I mentioned in my previous email, there is an existing patent for an electrical generator that uses a stream of molten tin(droplets?) to overcome a space charge, thus directly generating DC power. Sodium has a melting point of 97.81 ºC, and a boiling point of 882.9 ºC, which would seem to make it a good candidate as both working fluid and fuel, combined in one. Injection of well shrunken Hydrinos into the "cold" liquid would create reactions heating it to the high side temperature. The maximum Carnot efficiency that one might thus expect is 68%, which is not bad even by modern standards. Of course there are also a plethora of other methods available that rely on fast particles to indirectly create an electric current. The reactions are:- Hy + 23Na -> 24Mg + IC electron + 11.69 MeV and Hy + 23Na -> 20Ne + 4He + 2.38 MeV (Once again, the products are all stable nuclei). There is also plenty of Na in the form of salt and bound in Silicates. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
