A New Approach to Fusion Energy

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

2. 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 Coronado Consulting

3. 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 Coronado Consulting

4. 0.2 phys phys Q Q 0.1 200 200 300 300 400 400 500 500 600 600 T T How to lower the fusion threshold? • Beam-target fusion • 100 keV D beam into T plasma • More heat than fusion 16 bar Coronado Consulting

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

6. 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).

7. 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! Coronado Consulting

8. 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) Coronado Consulting

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

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

11. 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 Coronado Consulting

12. 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 Coronado Consulting

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

14. Forming rotating FRC Firing end anodes produces rotating plasma Rotating plasma “sees” RMF, producing FRC Coronado Consulting

15. Summary and future • 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 Coronado Consulting