[ExI] lockheed's fusion video

[Adrian Tymes]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 9:24 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>  *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes
>
> >…You miss my point.  "Go huge" increases the surface area less than the
> amount of stuff passing through that surface area.  It seems possibly
> counterproductive…
>
>
>
> Oh OK.  When you increase the radius of the Tokamak, you decrease the
> neutron flux by the square of radius.  As I understand it, the neutron flux
> is inversely proportional to the life of the shield.
>

Ah.  So, neutrons get captured inside a larger fusing mass at an exponent
even larger than the increase of the volume, then?


> >…Also, while I know it to be true, I wonder what the main reasons are
> why magnetic containment can not pull this off.  What are the primary
> difficulties encountered?
>
>
>
> Neutral particles are unaffected by either electric fields or magnetic
> fields.  They can’t be accelerated, steered or anything by any magnetic
> field.  Charged particles can be, but not neutrinos or neutrons.
>

My mistake - I meant to ask, why magnetic containment can't confine plasmas
at all for more than a few milliseconds.  It's been bugging me for a
while.  Are plasmas just that chaotic?


> Repeat until you hit a noble gas.  Then that atom or ion is gone.
>

That's why I said "without mass replacement".  That noble atom (all ions
are technically still atoms) is gone...and you have to replace it with
something else, or eventually your shielding goes away.


> Perhaps you could constantly recirculate the liquid neutron-shield,
> chemically extracting the bismuth and re-injecting the pure lead.
>

Yes, that is what I was suggesting.  (Although I suspect centrifugal
extraction might work better than chemical, at those temperatures and given
the equipment you'd have on hand anyway.)
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