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Main Question or Discussion Point
With 10000 dollars, 10 people and 1 year, is it possible for me to make a fusion generator? The efficiency doesn't matter. Any tips would be nice. What kind of fusion would be best for the situation?
No. It is not possible.With 10000 dollars, 10 people and 1 year, is it possible for me to make a fusion generator?
why? ten thousand bucks is a pretty god chunk of change but i wouldn't know. no experience in the field.No. It is not possible.With 10000 dollars, 10 people and 1 year, is it possible for me to make a fusion generator?
Let me put it this way- say fusion technology existed and a team of scientists told the government they could build a fully functioning fusion power plant for a couple hundred million dollars, that would be a smokin' deal.why? ten thousand bucks is a pretty god chunk of change but i wouldn't know. no experience in the field.
I'd drop the word 'generator' as it justs confuses the issue, but yes absolutely you can produce a fusion device in your garage based on a concept called Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion invented by Philo Farnsworth (TV inventor) in the 1960's, called the Farnsworth Fusor. It can done for less than $5000, maybe $2000 if you are a good scrounger. A well built device can easily produce enough neutrons to activate materials. It will consume more energy than it produces by many orders of magnitude. The primary components of fusor w/ respect to cost: high voltage power supply and apparatus, vacuum chamber, vacuum pumps (regular and diffusion), deuterium gas supply and apparatus.With 10000 dollars, 10 people and 1 year, is it possible for me to make a fusion generator? The efficiency doesn't matter. Any tips would be nice. What kind of fusion would be best for the situation?
Beezey stated efficiency doesn't matter. If we are going to talk about fusion power: NIF alone has cost $4B; the US has spent much more than that on the general concept of laser implosion fusion for 40 years. Similar amounts have been spent on ITER and magnetic confinement fusion. Neither have yet produced more power than they consumed, though in the case of ITER it appears very much like it will indeed produce slightly above break even once constructed. There are still very serious questions if either of them (ITER/NIF) can be used as practical power sources before the second have of the century, if then.A fusor is NOT a fusion generator. It's more like science fair project.
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Alternatively, you could look at the Department of Energy's National Ignition Facility, which has the purpose of achieving Fusion "Ignition" when it is finally finished in the next decade. Originally estimated at $667 million in 1993, it has to date cost over 4 billion dollars, and will be the most powerful laser facility on the planet when completed.
The vacuum/diffusion pump is indeed usually the highest cost component. However, please re-read the OP and lets not go off topic, the OP is clearly about the possibility of amateur experimentation. For materials cost alone a D-D IEC device with measurable neutron output (10^5/sec) can indeed be made for very little, <<$10000.Hee Hee
About $800 would buy you the non-evaporating oil for the booster vacuum pump. Its not too hard to price up all the little bits and pieces and get over $10000 without getting around to any main fusor bits at all!
You have to have a good picture in your mind of just how vastly empty is the space between and inside of those atoms, and how truly difficult it is to force some nuclei near each other, given they fiercely resist most of the way. Nuclear engineers have been determinedly trying every trick they can dream up for decades.
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The sub $10000 route is just not feasible. Just spent on paying you for your efforts toward this endeavour, how long would you work for that much, let alone put to purchasing hardware?
X-rays appear to be the only thing the majority of these guys produce w/ any real power which are easy to stop. All the amateurs use a camera to look through the glass view ports. Anyway, I expect the foolish never get pass the high voltage setup. :uhh:Don't forget to put money aside for the chemo-therapy :uhh:
I was more thinking of a serious flux of fast neutrons....X-rays appear to be the only thing the majority of these guys produce w/ any real power which are easy to stop.
Yep, though only a handful of amateurs have ever reported reaching even a sustained 10^5 n/s on the amateur web site. That is, it takes a fairly knowledgeable amateur to get there.I was more thinking of a serious flux of fast neutrons....
There are commercial "hand-held" devices, like this one from SODERN, which pretend delivering 10^10 neutrons per second. Pretty dangerous things if used inappropriately...Yep, though only a handful of amateurs have ever reported reaching even a sustained 10^5 n/s on the amateur web site. That is, it takes a fairly knowledgeable amateur to get there.
Apparently SODERN is using D-T for the 10^10n/s model. D-T of course has a much better fusion cross section. Not much T available to the amateur.There are commercial "hand-held" devices, like this one from SODERN, which pretend delivering 10^10 neutrons per second. Pretty dangerous things if used inappropriately...
http://www.sodern.com/site/FO/scripts/siteFO_contenu.php?mode=&noeu_id=45&lang=EN