Explore the Science

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What is Fusion?
Aneutronic Fusion
Neutronic Fusion Devices
Aneutronic Fusion Devices
Dense Plasma Focus Device (DPF)
What is Focus Fusion?
Nuclear Fusion is the process that powers the Sun and all the stars. It is the power that
drives the Universe. Fusion power, also called fusion energy, is the use of nuclear fusion
reactions to provide controlled energy production.

Fusion energy can:

Provide cheap energy

Reduce poverty, as cheap energy becomes available to all
Provide clean energy, with no carbon dioxide and no radioactive waste
Release money from expensive energy solutions, which can then be used to build
schools, housing, hospitals, modern transportation, and clean water supplies
End reliance on oil, coal, and gas
Prevent wars over oil, caused by efforts to support its price
Eliminate nuclear weapons proliferation, as nuclear fission energy becomes obsolete
and the use of uranium is banned
Eliminate the chance of nuclear meltdown or accidental release of radiation, such as
those caused by earthquakes
Reduce carbon emissions and the resultant warming of the earth and climate change
End 7 million deaths from carbon-based fuel air pollution
End carbon emissions and the resultant climate change
End oil spills and mining devastation

Such is the hope attached to this technology that many people say-“it is too good to be true.”
But just as airplane pioneers like the Wright Brothers knew flight was possible from the flight
of birds, we know fusion works in the sun and the stars. The challenge is to control this
natural process. And researchers have begun to do this.

What is fusion?
A fusion reaction occurs when two nuclei of atoms collide with such force that they, at least
briefly, stick together or fuse. Sometimes they immediately break apart forming other nuclei.
But the key points are that these reactions happen between the electrically-charged nuclei
and that they release large amounts of energy.

Fusion is a different physical process than nuclear fission, the process that drives what is
today called “nuclear energy”. In nuclear fission, a neutral particle—a neutron—reacts with a
nucleus, breaking it apart and producing more neutrons and a lot of energy. In fission, the
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resulting nuclei are generally radioactive—they emit radiation as they decay. The neutrons
can react with a reactor’s structure to produce more radioactive elements. Together these
huge amounts of radioactive elements constitute radioactive waste.

So fusion differs from fission in what “ingredients” go into the reaction:

Fusion ingredients: two charged nuclei

Fission ingredients: one nucleus and one neutron

A key part of the science of fusion is plasma physics. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, in
addition to solid, liquid and gas. Plasma is a state of matter which occurs when electrons
have been knocked off their atoms, generally due to high temperatures, and are free to
move and respond to electromagnetic fields. Well over 99% of the matter in the universe is in
the plasma state—stars and the matter between the stars are all plasmas. On earth, we see
plasmas in fire and lightning. Plasma technology stretches beyond fusion energy research
and is applied industrially in TVs, lighting and manufacturing.

Brief history of fusion power

Aneutronic Fusion
There are two different types of fusion reactions, depending on what products are generated
by the reaction. In neutronic fusion, one of the products is a neutron, while the others are
charged nuclei. In aneutronic fusion, all the products are charged nuclei—no neutrons are
produced.

Most fusion energy research involves neutronic fusion, with the fuel being two isotopes of
hydrogen—deuterium and tritium. This fuel was chosen because it reacts—burns—at the
lowest temperatures of any fusion fuel, so was thought to be the easiest one to use. But
neutronic fusion has two strong disadvantages. Neutrons can produce some radioactive
waste, although much less than from fission. They also can destroy the reactor structures
over time. Second, the only way we know of getting energy out of neutrons is by using them
to generate heat. So if you use energy to heat something up we are stuck with the way we
have produced electricity since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We use heat to boil
water, to produce steam, to turn a turbine, to turn a generator. All of which is very expensive
and wasteful of energy at every step. More on neutronic fusion

Aneutronic fusion, producing only charged nuclei as products eliminates these

disadvantages. Without neutrons, there is no radioactive waste. Since the energy output is
now in the form of the motion of charged particles, and moving charged particles are
electricity, energy can be obtained by direct conversion—much cheaper than turbines and
generators. Aneutronic fusion is the only energy source we know that is potentially
both much cleaner than other energy sources and much cheaper.

The best fuel for aneutronic fusion is a mixture of hydrogen with boron. This fuel is also
known as pB11, from the scientific symbols for the ingredients. When the hydrogen nucleus
—a single proton(p) —and the boron-11 (B11) nucleus come together at high temperature,

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they react to form three helium nuclei—and a lot of energy.

This fuel is essentially inexhaustible. Hydrogen of course comes from water and the amount
of boron mined right now is 10 times as much as would be needed to replace ALL existing
energy sources with aneutronic fusion. Boron is also the 12th most abundant element in
seawater. The boron in the oceans would provide enough fuel for billions of years of energy
consumption at triple the present level.

Fusion Devices

Neutronic Fusion Devices

Main types: tokamaks, laser inertial confinement, stellerator, liner implosion

https://youtu.be/AcXYPvVxtCY

Aneutronic Fusion Devices

Main types: dense plasma focus, inertial electrostatic confinement, laser side-on ignition,
field-reversed configuration

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 https://youtu.be/Je43p4jtumc

Dense Plasma Focus Device (DPF)

The DPF device has been in existence since 1964, and many experimental groups around the
world have worked with it. The dense plasma focus device’s core consists of two cylindrical
metal electrodes nested inside each other. The outer electrode is generally no more than 15
cm in diameter and 30 cm long. The electrodes are enclosed in a vacuum chamber with a low
pressure gas filling the space between them.

A pulse of electricity from a capacitor bank (an energy storage device) is discharged across
the electrodes. For a few millionths of a second, an intense current flows from the outer to
the inner electrode through the gas. This current starts to heat the gas and creates an
intense magnetic field. Guided by its own magnetic field, the current forms itself into a thin
sheath of tiny filaments; little whirlwinds of hot, electrically-conducting gas called plasma.

This sheath travels to the end of the inner electrode where the magnetic fields produced by
the currents pinch and twist the plasma into a tiny, dense ball only a few tenths of a mm
across called a plasmoid. All of this happens without being guided by external magnets.

The magnetic fields in the plasmoid change very quickly, and these changing magnetic fields
induce an electric field which causes a beam of electrons to flow in one direction and a beam
of ions—atoms that have lost electrons—in the other. The electron beam and the friction
(viscosity) of the plasma heat the plasmoid to extremely high temperatures, the equivalent of
billions of degrees C (particles energies of 100 keV or more).

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Collisions of the ions with each other cause fusion reactions, which add more energy to the
plasmoid. This happens even though the plasmoid only lasts 10 ns (billionths of a second) or
so, because the very high density in the plasmoid, which is close to solid density, makes
collisions very likely and they occur extremely rapidly.

The ion beam of charged particles is directed into a decelerator which acts like a high-tech
transformer. The energy in the ion beam is transferred to an electric current in a circuit. This
in turn feeds into a second capacitor bank. Some of this electricity is recycled to power the
next fusion pulse while the excess (net) energy is the electricity produced by the Focus
Fusion generator. Some of the X-ray energy produced by the plasmoid can also be directly
converted to electricity through the photoelectric effect (as in solar panels).

Unlike other devices that attempt to control plasma, the DPF works to harness the
instabilities inherent in the plasma. By using the instabilities, the DPF works with the
plasma’s natural tendencies rather than trying to make it stable.

What is Focus Fusion?

When the DPF is used with pB11 fuel, the combination is called “Focus Fusion”. Due to the
extremely compact size of the generators, Focus Fusion can be extremely cheap.
Researchers estimate the cost of Focus Fusion electricity at around 0.3 cent per kWh, more
than ten time cheaper than any existing energy source. The capital cost of about $100 per
kW of capacity is also ten times less than any existing power source.

Each Focus Fusion generator would generate about 5 MW of power, enough for a small town
or neighborhood of 5,000 people. Given the complete safety of such generators, they can be
located in a decentralized manner, increasing the reliability of the grid.

However, Focus Fusion is not yet available. It is still in the research phase. Right now, only
one company, LPPFusion, Inc. in Middlesex, NJ has an experimental program to research and
then develop Focus Fusion. So far, this effort has demonstrated the second-highest fusion
yields per unit energy input of any effort in the world, although they have only spent $5
million. LPPFusion, currently funded by private investments, estimates that they require
another $2 million to complete the research phase, perhaps by as soon as 2018. The
engineering phase, developing a working generator, will take more resources, perhaps $50-
$100 million and three to four more years.

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https://youtu.be/e4WJdkHmq64

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