In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Thu, 9 Oct 2014 15:51:09 -0400: Hi, [snip] >Peter Gluck already told us about this. I should pay closer attention. > >I do not know what to make of this. How could Rossi know what power level >they would run at? It is a shame they did not try to run for 40 days. > >It is difficult believe Rossi can calibrate the amount of fuel so closely, >given that a microscopic amount of fuel produces a huge amount of energy. > >(I am assuming that Ni is the fuel for the purpose of this analysis. I >don't know whether that is true.) > >- Jed
If Rossi already knew the reaction mechanism, then it wouldn't be hard to weigh out exactly the right amount of chemicals. I also suspect that he originally used D iso Li, but changed to Li when he found that D produces protons that are too energetic and produce too much secondary radiation. (It costs about 7.2 MeV to remove a neutron from Li7, but only 2.2 to remove one from D. When such a neutron is accepted by a Ni nucleus you get about 8-11 MeV back, depending on the Ni isotope, so there is only a small gain when Li7 supplies the neutrons, but a much larger gain when D supplies the neutrons.) For the rest of the world this is important. It means that the Li reactors are intrinsically cleaner, but we will run out of our current known land based reserves of Lithium[1] long before we run out of deuterium, so there may yet be a role to play for centralized[2] power plants that burn D and have proper shielding, leaving the clean Li reactors for transportation applications. 1. At our current rate of energy use, if Lithium had to supply all our energy, then current proven land based reserves would last about 5000 years. 2. Centralized could be as small as a current local substation, because even D wouldn't require all that much shielding, and in fact it could easily be provided by burying the reactor under ground, or in a well. In fact back yard versions might be feasible. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
