Road map to clean energy using laser beam ignition of boron-hydrogen fusion

Abstract

With the aim to overcome the problems of climatic changes and rising ocean levels, one option is to produce large-scale sustainable energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and other very light nuclei similar to the energy source of the sun. Sixty years of worldwide research for the ignition of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) have come close to a breakthrough for ignition. The problem with the DT fusion is that generated neutrons are producing radioactive waste. One exception as the ideal clean fusion process – without neutron production – is the fusion of hydrogen (H) with the boron isotope11B11 (B11). In this paper, we have mapped out our research based on recent experiments and simulations for a new energy source. We suggest how HB11 fusion for a reactor can be used instead of the DT option. We have mapped out our HB11 fusion in the following way: (i) The acceleration of a plasma block with a laser beam with the power and time duration of the order of 10 petawatts and one picosecond accordingly. (ii) A plasma confinement by a magnetic field of the order of a few kiloteslas created by a second laser beam with a pulse duration of a few nanoseconds (ns). (iii) The highly increased fusion of HB11 relative to present DT fusion is possible due to the alphas avalanche created in this process. (iv) The conversion of the output charged alpha particles directly to electricity. (v) To prove the above ideas, our simulations show for example that 14 milligram HB11 can produce 300 kWh energy if all achieved results are combined for the design of an absolutely clean power reactor producing low-cost energy.

Extreme laser pulses for non-thermal fusion ignition of hydrogen–boron for clean and low-cost energy

“…With the aim to minimize heat by using non-LTE or nonequilibrium plasmas, the equation of motion (1) needs such high laser intensities with fields that the non-linear force f NL produces much higher pressures than the thermal pressure p. The result of an example calculated in 1977 is shown in Figure 1 The motion of the plasma bocks after 1.5 ps interaction in Figure 1 can be seen in Figure 2. The ultrahigh acceleration of the plasma block when moving against the laser light were first measured by the blue Doppler shift of the spectral lines by Sauerbrey (1996) using the sub-picosecond laser pulses (Strickland and Mourou, 1995) of the comparable intensities as in Figure 1 in agreement with the numerical calculation of 1977 (Hora, 1981) with reconstructing a dielectric swelling of the laser intensity in the irradiated plasma of a usual value near 3 (Hora et al, 2017a(Hora et al, , 2007. This measurement was repeated (Földes et al, 2000) after similar accelerations were measured (Badziak et al, 1999) which were in drastic difference to the measurements with a red Doppler shift.…”

“…This is possible now by using the latest developments of picosecond laser pulses for initiation of the ignition of fusion for providing plasma conditions of extreme non-LTE. In addition, it opens for the very first time the fusion of hydrogen with the boron isotope 11 (HB11 fusion) (Hora et al, 2015(Hora et al, , 2017a. The difference by non-LTE conditions refers also to laser fusion with nanosecond laser pulses (Hurricane et al, 2014) where the differing LTE condition arrived at other kinds of respectable results yet below break-even.…”

“…This is possible only based on the most exceptional related measurement by Zang et al (1998) that the picosecond laser pulses had to have a very difficult high contrast ratio such that relativistic self-focusing could be avoided. This was needed for the theory of plasma-block ignition (Hora 1981(Hora , 2016Osman et al, 2004;Hora et al, 2015Hora et al, , 2017a Extreme thermal non-equilibrium conditions for boron fusion…”

“…The enormous bridging by nine orders of magnitudes is just possible by choosing the non-LTE option of a nearly non-thermal laser fusion based on the non-linear (ponderomotive) force by most extreme laser pulses of picosecond duration (Hora, 1969(Hora, , 1981 as measured with HB11 fuel (Picciotto et al, 2014;Margarone et al, 2015;Hora, 2015Hora, , 2017a.…”

“…This can be seen from the equation of motion for the force density f in a plasma with the thermokinetic pressure p given by the temperature T and the particle density n, and by Maxwell's stress tensor M of the electric and magnetic fields E and H of the laser with inclusion of the complex refractive index varying dynamically on time and space within the plasma (Hora et al, 2015(Hora et al, , 2017a…”