A New Approach to Fusion Energy D. C. Barnes coronadocon@msn.com FPA Pathways to the Future September 28, 2006 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Outline Ultimate fusion – neutronless Two new ideas (both for rotating plasmas) Use high T to make efficient heat engine Use rotation to make waves from static field (Doppler effect) Summary and plans 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

The challenge of aneutronic fusion p-11B is 1000 times more difficult than D-T T is 6 x and 3 electrons/ion  n is 0. 05 x , and yield is 1/2  P' is 0.001  V is 1000 x Thermonuclear p-11B tokamak won’t work (physics or economics) What alternatives might exist? Apply to D-T – reduced size and field 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

How to lower the fusion threshold? Beam-target fusion 100 keV D beam into T plasma More heat than fusion 200 300 400 500 600 T Q phys 0.1 0.2 16 bar 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

New idea #1: Heat engine power flow Beam-target fusion gives this Qphys ~ 10-20% Plant engineers see this Qeng ~ 10 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Plasma Centrifuge Heat Engine for Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor* Plasma Centrifuge Heat Engine for Continuous Beam Fusion Reactor† Plasma Centrifuge Heat Engine Beam Fusion Reactor** *Patent Pending, App. No. 60/596567, USPTO (2005). † Patent Pending, App. No. 60/766791, USPTO (2006). * *Patent Pending, App. No. 1153471, USPTO (2006).

How to make plasma heat engine? Several ways Make “potential field” force on plasma Plasma does work against field, giving mechanical energy to source of field Barnes & Nebel – POPS (1998) Collisionless plasma can oscillate without entropy generation Chacón et al. work (2000) Thermonuclear plasma in equilibrium with low T particle replacement Continuous or oscillating Continuous trap (Pastukov – 1974) “This result can be understood if one bears in mind that all the energy of an escaping particle consists of transverse motion,…” If make B  0 at outflow, get low T exhaust! 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

How to make plasma heat engine? Centrifugal well created in rotating plasma Make B and r small at ends where particles escape Open field is that outside a field reversed configuration (FRC) 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Supersonic rotating plasmas exist Maryland Centrifugal eXperiment (MCX) From Ellis, et al. PSP-2 ½ MV Experiment at Novosibirsk From Abdrashitov, et al. 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

P-CHES D-T reactor 1T 1m High-b and beam-target operation implies low B operation [33 W/cm3  400 MW] 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

P-CHES D-T reactor (cartoon approximation) Toroidal current driven by rotating magnetic field (RMF) with stationary dipole Beam formed by electrostatic acceleration of injected, low-energy particles e.g. Ftrapped = 0.45 W  Vtrapped = +200 kV 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

P-CHES on the path to fusion energy Form supersonically rotating FRC Study Tloss/Tcentral show small and dependencies to minimize Raise applied and induced voltage and inject beam to get fusion conditions D-T fusion system p-11B fusion system 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Forming rotating FRC Coronado Consulting New idea #2: Make and use waves with plasma rotation e.g. RMF From Slough and Miller From Hoffman, et al. 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Forming rotating FRC Coronado Consulting Firing end anodes produces rotating plasma Rotating plasma “sees” RMF, producing FRC 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting

Summary and future Coronado Consulting A new paradigm is proposed Beam-target fusion with heat recovered to rotation High efficiency of beam formation from rotation Many advantages Very high power density Required T reduced (500 eV for D-T) Required confinement reduced (< 1 ms for D-T) Static fields, DC operation Extensible to aneutronic systems 2 new ideas suggest a modest experiment Demonstrate formation of rotating FRC Heat engine physics diagnosed if warm FRC produced Propose future study Theory and design Small experiment 9/19/2006 Coronado Consulting