The Fusionator

[Andrew Boulton]

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/nextnews7.24b.html

 

[Icosahedron]

Hmm, IIRC, the main advantage of fusing Deuterium was its plentiful supply in sea water. How abundant is Boron-11 and how much pollution is involved in extracting/isolating it?

 

[atpollard]

Constituting about 0.001 percent by weight of the Earth's crust, boron occurs combined as borax, kernite, and tincalconite (hydrated sodium borates), the major commercial boron minerals, especially concentrated in the arid regions of California, and as widely dispersed minerals such as colemanite, ulexite, and tourmaline. Sassolite—natural boric acid—occurs especially in Italy.

Pure crystalline boron may be prepared with difficulty by reduction of its bromide or chloride (BBr3, BCl3) with hydrogen on an electrically heated tantalum filament.

In nature, boron consists of a mixture of two stable isotopes—boron-10 (19.8 percent) and boron-11 (80.2 percent); slight variations in this proportion produce a range of ±0.003 in the atomic weight.

Boron appears expensive to purify, but Boron-11 is at least the most common form of Boron.

 

[Anthony]

The quantity of boron required isn't particularly large. Boron is about a hundred times more common that Uranium and several thousand times as common as U235.

However, as I am unable to confirm this story based on other sources, I suspect it's not true. Arnie may have said something friendly, but no evidence that the money or political will is present.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Let me dream. Oh, well, DARPA is still on it.

The big problem with D-D is the neutrons. Not as many as D-T, but too many to be healthy.

 

[shadowdragon]

unfortunately, if i recall, DARPA's new admin decided "they dont fund fusion". Scaled Composites owns all the lab equipment and whatever research notes DARDA allowed out.