It is time to repeat this point again.
Rossi does not need to use water to steam as a power transfer mechanism because steam implies high pressure. And high pressure is expensive. A molten salt or liquid metal coolant produced at ambient pressure can cool the Rossi reactor. These coolants can drive a super-critical Co2 turbine through a heat exchanger. The DOE and the national labs are making development of a super critical Co2 turbo-electric generator a top priority. Why not take advantage of this new technology? This improvement should be the first improvement made to the H-Ni technology. On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 5:06 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Alan J Fletcher wrote: > > I don't think that's going to (or needs to) happen any time soon --- it >> only delivers 500C (limited by the nickel powder degrading?) at 50 bar. >> Electrical conversion efficiency at that level is less than 20% (??) -- >> times the 6x factor is barely over unity. >> > > It is way better than that. Conventional nuclear power plant water in the > secondary loop is kept at 275°C, and that produces about 30% efficiency. In > pressurized plants, the primary loop is around 345°C. > > They could make a nuke run a lot hotter, as they do in a combustion plant. > That would improve Carnot efficiency. They deliberately hold the temperature > down to reduce wear and tear on the equipment in a nuclear plant, because > the primary energy is so cheap. I expect they will do the same with a Rossi > gadget generator. > > There is no question the Rossi device can produce temperatures high enough > for efficient, compact electric power generation. 500°C is not the upper > limit, and even if it was, that's high enough for high-efficiency > conversion. > > Also, the 6x factor can easily be improved. That is just a matter of > engineering. The device can run with no input at all. That is dangerous, but > the control current can be reduced to less than 1/6th of the output heat. > > As Abd pointed out, with mordant humor, running a convention fission > reactor in a self-sustaining mode without control current is also dangerous. > > - Jed > >
