In reply to Eric Walker's message of Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:59:54 -0700: Hi, [snip] >Ed Storms has estimated that to generate 1 watt of power, a typical output, >by way of helium production, you would need on the order of 10^12 reactions >per second. (I think this is probably for a 1 cm^3 volume, but I am not >sure.)
1 W = 1 J/sec = 6.24E18 eV/sec. If the formation of each He4 particle yields 23.8 MeV, then you need 2.6E11 / sec to produce one Watt. Volume is irrelevant. >So I would probably need a 99.999999 percent success rate in order >for this approach to succeed. No, you just need that many reactions / second. The percentage success rate then depends on how many particles you have trying to react. E.g. if you have 100 times more pairs than you are getting He4, then your success rate is 1%. > >The evidence for gammas is quite strong. I recall seeing in one chart for >an experiment hundreds of events for each of a number of energies in the >gamma range. The main problem is that they are at levels much lower than >that that would be expected for 1 watt of power, as mentioned above. But >they are significant. This is the sort of thing that makes me think that the primary energy release mode is via fast particles, e.g. protons, alphas, or even heavier nuclei (from a clean fission reaction). These don't usually produce much in the way of gamma radiation. Fast electrons may also be produced that would produce some x-rays that may be reported as gammas. > Right now I'm wondering whether they arise from >secondary reactions or from primary ones. If they only arise from >secondary reactions, I don't suppose you would need a mechanism like gamma >quenching. But I should also add that it would be surprising if charged >electrons and protons moving through a powerful magnetic field (assuming >one sometimes arises) did not give off synchrotron radiation, even if all >the radiation for the system is to radiate and decrease the energy of the >particles. > >There is still plenty of room for magic. Whether there is gamma quenching >or not, somehow you have to get from hydrogen or deuterium plus something >else to tritium, which has been observed in small but significant amounts. Tritium is the isotope that has the highest neutron to proton ratio of all the isotopes with a reasonable half life. IMO that makes it a likely candidate to be the result of a fission reaction of heavier nuclei (since these have an excess of neutrons). Of course another possibility is the ordinary d+d -> T+p reaction, though explaining the absence of He3 is difficult. (Mills had shot at it in his earlier work by suggesting that in a Deuterino molecule the protons try to stay as far away from one another as possible, resulting in the neutrons being closer, which in turn meant that T was the more likely fusion product. However muon catalyzed fusion (which is similar), yields T/He3 ratios approximately the same as those from hot fusion, so Mills' early reasoning may be a bit suspect.) BTW another possibility is that when two Deuterons are close together, it's easier for a neutron to hop from one nucleus to the other than for a proton, as the neutron has no Coulomb barrier to contend with. This may result in T formation by preference. BTW He3 with an electron trapped in the nucleus (as per Horace's theory), might look like T (since the electron would compensate for the charge of one of the protons), especially if the electron were occasionally able to escape, making it appear to be radioactive. > In my ignorance I am not able to get from p+p or p+D to tritium or >helium-3, a decay product of tritium, without electron capture or something >even more mysterious. As long as D is present, then the D+D reaction can't be ruled out. [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
