The proton-proton reaction is fundamental to the way stars such as the sun operate since most of the material drawn together from the space nearby is raw hydrogen with no neutrons. It is interesting to notice that there is a lack of neutrons available in the initial stages. Your point is well taken.
The proton-proton fusion process does release a significant number of neutrinos and of course the 511 keV gammas when the positrons find a mating electron. Rossi and the others tend to downplay the emission of these gammas and thus it is not clear that they constitute a real problem. And of course we have been searching very hard to find a process that does not release strong gammas and this would fit that requirement as long as we overlook the 511 keV ones. Has anyone calculated the usage of hydrogen that would be required to meet the net energy needed for the 6 months of usage if only the proton-proton fusion process is available? My immediate concern is that far too much energy would get away in the neutrinos, but I have not done the math yet. Are you considering an additional fusion reaction to follow up on the initial one discussed to use the hydrogen fuel more efficiently? If there is anyway to end up with helium 4, that problem would vaporize. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, Jul 18, 2012 10:01 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:principles of DGTG 's technology On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 5:38 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: Never mind. Entirely my mistake. I totally forgot to include gammas released during the neutron captures. These can be significant. No worries. I think the neutron capture reactions will result in characteristic radiation that you would be able to detect and trace back to the reactants, assuming the gammas were not halted by some mechanism. I think the lack of expected radiation is the reason for the proposed "heavy electron patches," which are understood to intercept gammas. Many people do not like them; I personally don't mind working with the assumption that gammas are present at some point or in some form, although I don't have a strong opinion about what might happen to them -- e.g., whether they are dealt with in the way that Widom and Larsen describe. I also see the possibility of there being no gammas whatsoever. Having no knowledge or expertise in this area, it's obviously not something on which I would try to assert an opinion. I'm personally starting to take a liking to the proton-proton chain as something to explore in connection with LENR. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction There are three attractive things about it. First, it is entirely aneutronic. Second, it is not well-understood. To quote the Wikipedia article: "Even so, it was unclear how proton–proton fusion might proceed, because the most obvious product, helium-2 (diproton), is unstable and immediately dissociates back into a pair of protons." Obviously it proceeds; it's just that we don't understand how it proceeds. So there are some basic unknowns about the conditions under which it is possible. A third reason that I like it is that it is an important way that fusion occurs in nature; as such, it embodies an energetically optimal way of dealing with the forces involved. Humans up to now have taken some rather ugly approaches to nuclear energy. We have bombarded heavy, radioactive elements with dangerous neutrons. Or we have used a radioactive isotope of hydrogen in order to make possible a form of fusion that will spit out neutrons. Or we have come up with huge contraptions that inject neutrons into a hot plasma that is being irradiated with microwaves of various frequencies. Perhaps we lack imagination of the right kind -- we're thinking that it's impossible to get the combination of temperature and pressure that would be needed for something like the proton-proton chain, so we resort to complex, Rube Goldberg contraptions. We've been trying to brute force our way into fusion. Eric
