greer%utd201%utadnx%utspan.span@VLSI.JPL.NASA.GOV (04/04/89)
We won't know for sure about this "cold" fusion stuff till the paper
is published in May, but the possibilities seem so exciting, I decided to
do some research and some back of the envelope calculations to try to get
a realistic handle on the meaning of this thing, to whit:
1 electron volt (ev) = 4.5e-26 kilowatt-hour
1 D-D reaction = about 4 Mev = about 1.8e-19 kw-h
My household average monthly energy consumption = about 1000 kw-h
1e3/1.8e-19 = about 6e21, or .01 gram-mole of D-D reactions
We need two D nuclei per reaction, so 40 milligrams of D will serve
me for a month. There are about 1000 months in 83 years, so in a
lifetime I would probably use 40 grams of D, or about 200 grams of D2O,
an amount which can be found in about 1000Kg of water, which is 1 cubic
meter, or about 250 gallons in non-SI units.
Convenient that it works out to such nice round numbers, isn't it? Of
course, I've put a little slop in my calc's, and I'm assuming 100%
efficiency, but my figures are in the ballpark (I think). Also,
according to Tim Reynolds' article in SPACE_DIGEST V9 #334, there are
other reactions going on that generate more heat than the D-D reactions.
So what'll this do to your monthly electricity bill? About ten years
ago, the closed-market price of D2O was about $230/Kg, which brings my
per month cost to about 5 cents. The D2O market is closed because the
U.S. doesn't want D2O to be readily available since heavy water fission
reactors can be used to make plutonium. I don't know how much Pd would
be used.
As for bombs, this thing could probably help a medium-sized nation
transmute U238 to Pu, and the tritium could be used to make fusion
enhanced weapons, where tritium and other things are used to produce
enough neutrons to considerably reduce the amount of Pu required for
criticality. A U238 reflector around such a device would be transumted
to Pu and add to the explosive power as well. All this might be a little
sophisticated for Libya, but maybe Argentina?
----
"Pave Paradise, | Dale M. Greer
put up a parking lot." | Center for Space Sciences
-- Joni Mitchell | University of Texas at Dallas
| UTSPAN::UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER
The opinions are my own, and may or may not reflect those of my employer.