Tri - Alpha Nuclear Fusion

Tri-alpha is another emergent player in the race to master fusion and is also focused on the bismuth reaction. This reaction allows for vastly lower temperatures for energy generation although that is relative. I would prefer to see the same resources brought to bear on Focus fusion in particular although progress will always be incremental and money can sometimes get in the way. Lack of it often allows imagination to establish brilliant work arounds.

Yet there is some intriguing new science happening here that could change things so we need to keep our eyes on it.

I suspect that fusion energy is well on the way to been tamed in the next decade. Certainly researchers are attracting the coin and nobody thinks that the big money programs will be overly useful even if serious progress is made. Thus unusual approaches are been well investigated.

Of course, it is the bismuth cycle that has thrown open the field more than any other factor simply because it brought the temperature within reach.

Tri-alpha Energy Nuclear Fusion 100MW Project emerging from Stealth Mode

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Tri-alpha Energy (stealth nuclear fusion project that has over $140 million in funding including funding from Goldman Sachs) has a 79 page presentation.

Tri-Alpha structures in 12C.

Tri-alpha Energy has a patent - Controlled fusion in a field reversed configuration and direct energy conversion.

The 11B (p,α)αα reaction

* When 675 keV protons strike 11B, a resonance in 12C is formed at 16.6 MeV having a width of 300 keV.

* This resonance decays by emitting a primary α−particle, leading to the first excited state of 8Be which is 3 MeV above the ground state. This state decays into two secondary α-particles. σ(α1) = 600 mb!

* The state-of-the-art understanding of this reaction came from a 1987 study which “proved” that the reaction yielded one high energy primary α-particle, and two low energy secondary ones.

Our discovery of TWO high energy α-particles is having a huge impact on the reactor design. They are much easier to extract and convert more efficiently into electricity.

Physics Review Letters - Field Reversed Configuration Confinement Enhancement through Edge Biasing and Neutral Beam Injection

ABSTRACT - Field reversed configurations (FRCs) with high confinement are obtained in the C-2 device by combining plasma gun edge biasing and neutral beam injection. The plasma gun creates an inward radial electric field that counters the usual FRC spin-up. The n=2 rotational instability is stabilized without applying quadrupole magnetic fields. The FRCs are nearly axisymmetric, which enables fast ion confinement. The plasma gun also produces E×B shear in the FRC edge layer, which may explain the observed improved particle transport. The FRC confinement times are improved by factors 2 to 4, and the plasma lifetimes are extended from 1 to up to 4 ms.