Boron Hydrogen Gas Fusion

[steve_bank]

Heard this from Bill Nye on a scince segent.

A private company is working on a fusion reactor using boron hydrogen gas as fuel. If it works it is said to be safe, A different fusion process from previous work.

Hydrogen boron fusion

The fusion of a boron nucleus with a proton (hydrogen ion) produces slow-moving helium particles but no neutrons or radioactive waste. One method of producing proton-boron fusion uses one laser to create a boron-11 plasma and another to create a stream of protons that smash into the plasma. Feb 3 2019

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/coming-attractions/hydrogen-boron-fusion

 

[Derec]

Not much at the article, but 5.4 billion °F is ~3GK, or 30x as hot as 100MK needed for deuterium-tritium fusion and 200x hotter than the center of the Sun (needs far less temperature because of immense pressure).

Aneutornic fusion is interesting because it would eliminate even low level nuclear waste from activation of reactor vessel through neutrons.

Found this article from 1.5 years ago:
Physicists Test a Strange Nuclear Sphere That Could Revolutionise Fusion Energy
So it's laser heated, inertial confinement reactor.

Wish them a lot of success, of course.

 

[steve_bank]

The profit motive is a strong motivation for success. I am sure all those involved have a stock option that will make them well off if it works.

Space X is an example.