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University of the South - Nov. 12, 2014
- 1. E. J. Lerner, Chief Scientist, LPPFusion, Inc. Nov 12, 2014 Focus Fusion: the Fast Route to Fusion Energy Systems University of the South LPPFUSION
- 2. What Would Happen If We had Cheap Clean Energy? What if we could develop in the next five years a 5 MW energy source 10 times cheaper than any now available that was safe and non-polluting?
- 3. LPPFUSION.com Economic Benefits 17% increase in real income for median industrialized country resident 44% increase in real income for median person in the world
- 4. LPPFUSION.com JOBS, Services and Infrastructure $5 TRILLION per year not spent on energy 100-150 million new jobs globally
- 5. LPPFUSION.com Environmental Benefits • End 7 million deaths per year from pollution by coal, diesel, gasoline • End oil spills, mining devastation • Total recycling with plasma torch • Money released to end deforestation, environmental clean-up • No greenhouse gases • No radioactive waste
- 6. LPPFUSION.com Benefits for Peace No more war to prop up the price of oil Fission energy is obsolete— lock up the uranium mines
- 7. LPPFUSION.com Distributed Power • 5 MW generators, safe enough to put in neighborhoods • far more reliability in disasters, • rapid deployment to towns and villages throughout the world
- 9. LPPFUSION.com Dense Plasma Focus : small inexpensive device
- 10. LPPFUSION.com FOCUS FUSION – 1, Experimental Device
- 11. LPPFUSION.com Focus-Fusion-1 Experimental Device 12-CAPACITOR BANK Stored energy 100kJ (vs 10 GJ for JET) Capacitor potential 45 kV Peak current 1.4-2.8 MA Electrodes: 5 cm cathode, 2.8 cm anode
- 12. How could we possibly be so small and fast? 1) Magnetic fields supplied by currents not external magnets 2) Use natural instabilities, not fight them 3) Seeking metastability, not absolute stability—far easier
- 13. Physics of the DPF Parallel Currents Attract : Pinch Effect Ampere and the Pinch Effect http://vimeo.com/97608819
- 14. Key Concepts How Do We Know the Magnetic Field? Ampere’s Law How Do We Know the Force? Lorentz Force Law
- 15. Physics of the DPF Ampere’s law Ampere-1826 Maxwell—1864 Heaviside 1884-89 • The curl of the magnetic field at any point is proportional to and in the same direction as the rate of change of the electric field with time plus the current density (current per area).
- 16. Meaning of the curl Imagine the magnetic field as a flow of fluid in the direction of the magnetic field at every point. Then If your fingers of the right hand are in the direction of the flow then your thumb defines the axis the fluid is spinning – the direction of the “curl” –and the rate of spin is the magnitude of the curl. The current density gives the curl of the field and the curl lets us calculate the magnetic field
- 17. Lorentz Force Law Heaviside 1889 Lorentz 1892 F=q(E + vXB) Force on a charge is equal to the charge q times the sum of the electric field strength and the cross product of the particle’s velocity and the magnetic field strength
- 18. LPPFUSION.com How A DPF Device Works
- 19. Magnetic Field of DPF
- 22. LPPFUSION.com Key plasma parameters-- such as velocity--are scale-invariant In Lab: 10 cm , msec Solar flare: 10,000 km, 100 sec Galaxy: 30 kpc, 15 My Super-cluster: 100 Mpc, 100Gy The Cosmic Connection Alfven, Falthammar
- 23. LPPFUSION.com Spiral GalaxyQuasars Beam From Star Formation REPRODUCING NATURAL INSTABILITIES Solar Flares
- 25. LPPFUSION.com
- 26. Metastability Far Easier High Density, High B field ITER DPF Minor radius cm 200 6x10-4 Ion velocity 108cm/s 1.2 10 B Field 5x104 5x109 Ion density 1014 1024 Confinement time 400 s 6 ns Ion revolutions 4x107 1.6x103 25,000 times easier
- 27. What Is Aneutronic Fusion? It’s a fusion using aneutronic fuel, ideally made of hydrogen and boron, pB11, which produces no neutrons and thus no radioactive waste. Aneutronic → No neutrons → No Radioactive waste LPPHYSICS.COM
- 28. Faraday’s Law Faraday 1831 The curl of the field is proportional to and in the opposite direction from the rate of change of the magnetic field with time.
- 29. LPPFUSION.com ENERGY CAPTURE DEVICE X-rays, Ion Beams
- 30. LPPFUSION.com SAFE • NO neutrons from main reaction • NO high energy neutrons • NO radioactive waste—electrodes contain less radioactivity than a roomful of people. • Generator safe to service without protection 9 hours after turn-off
- 31. How Safe? • 0.8 micro curies of radioactivity in each used set of electrodes. • Radioactivity of human child –about 0.2 micro curies Radioactivity of classroom of 25 children—5 micro curies • NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE
- 32. Aneutronic DPF Allows Far Higher Energy Density, Far Lower Cost ITER Focus Fusion Power (MW) 500 5 Power/m3 0.05 1200 Power/m2 0.5 40 Neutron power/m2 0.5 0.08
- 33. Fusion Comparison Fusion Yield/Energy Input Energy output per 1,000 J input DT: DD: JET 2.2 J 0.01 J Sarov DPF 0.2 J 0.00045 J NIF 0.03 J FF-1 DPF 0.004 J
- 34. LPPFUSION.com WHERE ARE WE? Ion temperature— goal achieved —over 1.8 billion degrees, enough to ignite pB11 Confinement time— goal achieved 20 ns—more than 8 ns goal Energy transfer to plasmoid— over 50% of goal Density—must increase by 10,000
- 35. LPPFUSION.com Steps To Increase Density 50x-- Achieve theoretical density—tungsten electrodes to eliminate impurity 10x-- Increase current to 2.8 MA 20x-- Better compression with heavier pB11
- 36. How Do we Reduce X-ray Cooling? X-ray emission increases as z2 Boron 25 x as emissive as hydrogen How do we avoid this?
- 37. LPPFUSION.com Reducing X-ray Cooling Quantum Magnetic Field Effect
- 38. LPPFUSION.com Quantum Magnetic Field Effect 2003 QMEF reduces Te by >20x Cuts X-ray by >4x Allows ignition of pB11 BUT only with B>~3 GG
- 39. Ion energy of 160 keV LPPFUSION.com
- 41. How Does it Get so Hot? Main Mechanism is Viscous Heating—Haines, others Ordered Motion Into Random Motion Higher Densities, Electron Beam Wave Heating
- 42. Why Does DPF Fusion Yield Plateau? LPPHYSICS.COM y = 1E-08x6.7542 1.00E+06 1.00E+07 1.00E+08 1.00E+09 1.00E+10 1.00E+11 1.00E+12 1.00E+02 1.00E+03 NeutronYield Current I (kA) Buenos Aires(PFI) FF-1 Frascati(1MJ) Limeil NTSC Swierk U of Illinois LPP Stuttgart(HV) Darmstadt Stuttgart(Poseidon)
- 43. LPPFUSION.com Sources of Impurities: Erosion of Anode, Arcing at Joins Amounts: 0.6mg from anode erosion, 0.4mg from arcing 50% of D sheath mass LPPFUSION
- 44. LPPFUSION.com 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Impurity/Dmassratio Charging voltage (kV)
- 45. LPPHYSICS.COM Uneven impurity distribution (2012) asymmetric sheath poor compression Increase in collision rate with zeff 4 (2013) prevents magnetization of filaments leading to double sheath Low Density Yield Plateau
- 46. LPPFUSION.com What We Should See
- 47. LPPFUSION.com What We Actually See
- 48. LPPFUSION.com New-2014 Cause of Anode Erosion: Runaway Electrons (PHYSICS OF PLASMAS 21, 102706) During breakdown, with high E fields Vre=5.5e(E/40p)^1/2 eV (Tarasenko and Yakovlenko) Vaporization occurs if thermal conduction can’t carry away heat at the boiling point e(E/40p)^1/2 eV> 0.22LwT(rEtC/t) 1/2/I
- 49. LPPFUSION.com Why More Effect with Higher Current? 1) Arcing above 2 MA/cm2 2) Magnetization of filaments easier to disrupt Magnetization depends on B/n. For B2/n constant, B/n declines with increasing B
- 50. LPPFUSION.com Monolithic Electrodes Connected Outside Chamber Solution to Arcing
- 51. Getting the B Field • FF-1Now– 0.06 GG With filaments—0.6 GG Full current—1.3 GG With pB11—10 GG
- 52. LPPFUSION.com Needed: Beryllium electrodes Tungsten is fine for impurity, but absorbs too many x-rays Beryllium far more transparent But costs-- (single unit)--$120,000
- 53. LPPFUSION.com Biggest Engineering Challenges Heat Removal—Electrode Erosion • Sputtering may limit electrode lifetime but with re-deposition a few weeks may be OK • Anode will be heated by x-rays - key upper limiting factor in repetition rate • Deposition of boron - key lower limit on repetition rate
- 54. LPPFUSION.com Why Has it Taken So Long? Massive Underfunding: Tungsten too expensive Too few large experiments Under staffing slows progress