Authors: Colin Bruce Jack
This is the first fusion method provably viable at utility scale. Energy input is by charged pellets fired at ultraspeed from modified particle accelerators, a technique routinely used to test spacecraft meteor shields, and first proposed as a fusion driver 50 years ago. A key enabling technology, now available, is the ability to track and steer individual pellets in flight, permitting very precise delivery independent of distance from accelerator to target. A train of pellets fired at successively increasing speed catch up together over a long flightpath to arrive as a unit: an accelerator of modest power can deliver an intense input.
For an efficient fast ignition strategy, medium-speed pellets impact and heat a hohlraum, causing 3-D compression of a hemispherical fuel capsule within. Smaller faster pellets fired from a parallel accelerator converge into a dense bullet, which strikes the compressed fuel to ignite it.
Technical risk is negligible because:
- Fuel compression required is less than already achieved in NIF.
- Subsequent ignition is so rapid that there is no chance for instabilities to disrupt it by fuel redistribution or mixing.
- All materials and components required have been successfully manufactured.
The system can burn deuterium-tritium fuel closely and completely surrounded by lithium, for a closed fuel cycle with no radioactivity issues. Capital cost will be modest: it may even be possible to modify existing coal-fired plant for fusion.
Key features are claimed in patents currently in the national phase worldwide.
Comments: 26 Pages.
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[v1] 2014-11-02 12:23:52
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