This hot fusion "story" (less journalism than PR) from Austin smells like a fresh cow patty... even if you are not an Aggie.
"Tabletop fusion reactor mimics cosmic-ray crashes" "It seems like a remarkable achievement, a once-in-a-decade leap," says François Waelbroeck, director of the Institute for Fusion Studies at the University of Texas in Austin. Still, the work is a far cry from making fusion power a reality. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24367-tabletop-fusion-reactor-mimics-cosmicray-crashes.html The energy is nowhere near cosmic ray level. The only unvarnished truth to be found in this mess of disinformation is that fusion power remains an unobtainable goal due to exorbitant cost. Yet, the practitioners need more taxpayer fund$ and will say almost anything to get it. In Hot Fusion, we are nowhere close to finding an acceptable end-game than before - and it is time to shift funding priorities to LENR. The spiraling cost makes solar energy look dirt cheap, and as such it will never find a commercial niche for power - tabletop or not. Nevertheless, a version could be useful for interplanetary space propulsion. Plus, it is widely rumored that the cadre of hot fusion proponents are basically using dishonesty to promote this boondoggle R&D by asserting that "less than 1% of the energy comes from neutrons". The scarce real data apparently shows otherwise - more like 5% but they insist on showing only "projections" and ignoring spallation. Neutrons in boron plasmas come from both the carbon pathway and the hot alpha: 11B + p → 11C + n 11B + alpha → 14N + n (the alpha comes from a previous p+B) and from spallation. Laser spallation can be severe in terms of neutrons. Best strategy: ignore the problem. Even if the rate of neutron emission could be reduced to the 1% level in practice, instead of relying on self-serving projections - the fusion reactor STILL becomes completely irradiated in a short time (weeks to months) and the process in not much safer or cleaner, and is far more costly ... plus it requires the same amount of shielding due to higher energy gammas. The shielding problem is proportionately more problematic for numerous small reactors - compared to one large one. This project is dead in the water - except for Space. Let NASA have it. As for net energy produced, there is a high school student in Texas with a Farnsworth Fusor who has produced more net nuclear reaction than this multi-million dollar burn-up of scarce research dollars. Advice to Austin: send your fusion money across town to EarthTech ...or over to New Mexico.
