[ExI] lockheed's fusion video

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 1:04 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

> How thick is the layer of molten, circulating lead needed to absorb
> enough of the neutrons so magnetic coils do not fry? Is it so thick as to
> make the device as large as ITER, or is it still in a reasonable range?
>

You wouldn't want to use a heavy element like lead to stop neutrons, it
would be like throwing a ping pong ball at a canon ball, the ping pong ball
would bounce off at almost the same speed it went in at and the canon ball
would be largely unaffected. But if you threw a ping pong ball at a golf
ball the ping pong ball would slow down a lot and the golf ball would move
a bit. Most of the energy released in a deuterium tritium reaction is in
those very high speed neutrons so you want to surround the fusion reaction
with a blanket of Lithium 6, it's light so the neutrons bounce off it and
move and so Lithium gets hot and so can run a heat engine.

Just as important the fast neutron slow down when they hit the Lithium, and
when a very slow neutron hits a Lithium 6 nucleus it causes a nuclear
reaction that releases some energy but more important it transforms the
Lithium 6 into Tritium; and it's a good thing it does because unlike
Deuterium Tritium does not exist in nature. You extract the Tritium and
feed it back into the fusion reactor to keep it going, a fusion reactor
makes it's own fuel.

  John K Clark
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