10
2012
Andrew Horvath
The Big Picture
For more than 10 years now Star Scientific Limited has been resolutely focused upon perfecting our method of muon catalysed fusion in a bid to demonstrate, and commercialise, fusion energy.
And while nuclear fusion doesn’t enjoy too many media moments in the sun, when it does it’s largely plasma, and occasionally laser fusion techniques which hog the headlines.
Many a time I’ve been quizzed as to why we, at Star Scientific Limited, have chosen a different path with our pursuit of muon catalysed fusion.
The gist of the inquiry tends to be that if plasma and laser fusion technologies are more commonly researched – and more favourably funded – why are we not swaying from our path?
And why are the Americans and Europeans committing such vast sums to plasma and laser fusion technologies if they’re not the way forward. The sentiment is: surely they can’t all be wrong?
No, they might not be. Plasma and laser fusion may at some point achieve their energy production goals… but at significant cost. I’m not suggesting they’ll never produce power, but I am suggesting there’s a better way which borrows from Nature rather than trying to tie it down using brute force.
You see nuclear fusion is the energy supply that powers every star in the galaxy, including the Sun through the fusion of light nuclei to form heavier nuclei, liberating energy along the way. It is the simplest, most elegant and efficient of nuclear reactions. It’s Nature’s ultimate power switch.
Star Scientific Limited, together with hundreds of privately owned and government funded facilities around the world, are investigating how to release this cosmic energy here on Earth, and how to be the first to construct a power plant which releases sustained, demonstrable fusion energy – enough to bring power to the grid.
Though plasma and laser fusion are hailed as the most likely nuclear fusion prospects to produce power – enough to bring to the grid – in the next few decades, every reactor built so far consumes far more power than it creates.
Plasma (thermonuclear) fusion consumes 18 times more energy than it produces attempting to capture fusion through force by relying upon extreme temperatures of up to 300 million degrees to fuse together particles of deuterium – from sea water – and tritium, which is produced from molten salt containing lithium. Because of the inconceivable temperatures required, this type of fusion faces huge hurdles finding, and sustaining materials able to withstand such intense conditions.
California is home to the world’s largest, most powerful 500 trillion watt laser beam and is at the heart of the laser fusion concept which focuses huge laser beams to heat and compress a target filled with hydrogen fuel, aiming to fuse the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms together to release energy.
Thus far though, major problems include attaining the high energy densities required to efficiently implode the target, the extreme precision required to make the target, premature mixing of hot and cold fuel and successfully aiming the beams simultaneously.
The common theme here is that besides muon catalysed fusion, alternative forms of nuclear fusion favour brute force, are complex, costly and require giant structures to house their reactors. Star Scientific aims to achieve sustained, controlled muon catalysed fusion at room temperature in existing infrastructure and requiring very little energy to run.
Muon catalysed fusion is founded on the way nuclear fusion occurs in nature, but it too has its detractors.
Critics of muon catalysed fusion have long cited the fact muons are used as the catalyst for a reaction, rather than high temperatures, which means vast quantities of muons are required to liberate energy.
Many researchers have abandoned muon catalysed fusion because of the now notorious “alpha sticking problem”, which is the approximate 1% probability of the muon sticking to the alpha particle resulting from deuterium-tritium nuclear fusion – resulting in the removal of the said muon from the muon-catalysed fusion process.
Either way, cheaply producing huge volumes of muons seems to hold the key.
But between the alpha-sticking problem and the energy input verses output argument, many fusion researchers simply changed horses mid race, abandoning the idea of muon catalysed fusion to chase other forms.
For years we have been researching a single element of the fusion process, the catalyst. How? By perfecting a technique to economically and constantly produce pions – which immediately decay into muons – the elusive catalyst that makes muon catalysed fusion a reality.
Conventional thinking believed pions had to be manufactured in large particle accelerators, at massive energy costs. That’s not the case. The process Star Scientific Limited is perfecting occurs at room temperature, which means the age-old battle to produce more energy than you put in becomes obsolete.
As the global community explores its options for clean, green, efficient, affordable and safe energy generation in a post-fossil fuel future, muon-catalysed fusion will attract more attention. And it should.
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