Emerging Solutions for High-Energy-Density,

Transcript:Emerging Solutions for High-Energy-Density,:
Emerging Solutions for High-Energy-Density, Years-Capacity, Nuclear-Weak-Force Batteries (NTAC and LENR) and Issues with Space-Based Solar Power Dennis M. Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center Sang Choi, Senior Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center NTAC = Nuclear Thermionic Avalanche Cell LENR = Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Why Nuclear Weak Force, NTAC and LENR, Batteries - Last for years - Superb energy/power density Much lighter, smaller than reactors Scale far better than reactors, up to tens of megawatts or down in power and energy to milliwatts Work off the nuclear weak force, radioactive decay 2 Issues with respect to State-of-the-Art (SOA) Nuclear Batteries Current best SOA Nuclear battery is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) device, 6% efficient, converts heat to electricity RTGs generate some 10 watts/ Kg of isotope Cannot shut off, must handle the heat 3 NTAC Bottom lines Up Front NEW, NASA Nuclear Battery Frees up the inner electrons as well as the valence electrons Direct electricity production, solid state Alpha, total weight, Kgs/kilowatt-electric (kWe), is of order one, reactors are 25 to a hundred, advanced RTGs are even greater Up to 22 kWe/Kg of isotope, from release of intraband electrons Scales well from powering phones to tens of MWs Solves nuclear waste, powers ships, undersea sensors, everything space, 200 day round trips to Mars [vice 3 years] using Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), high thrust, 6,000 sec of ISP Physics experimentally proven, experiments to determine efficiency being worked Largely self shielding 4 Electrons from Intra-bands (IB) Photon-Coupling: Photoelectric (pe) effect, Photonuclear (pn) effect, Compton scattering (Cs), Electron/Positron pair production (pp) (p-n junction: Brillouin limit) 5 NTAC System Alpha Study 6 LENR – Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Over three decades, thousands of papers WRT LENR Experiments worldwide indicate heat release greater than chemical, TRANSMUTATIONS, with no radioactive emissions Experiments until recently had replication and scaling issues, theoretical efforts not successful Over the last ten years the Japanese have devoted considerable time and treasure to LENR and apparently determined the key issue wrt replication and scaling – necessity of surface nano asperities/ cracks to concentrate area energy by up to E3, as shown in academic studies 7 Status of LENR A Japanese company, Clean Planet is developing a commercial 1 kW device, covered by some 62 patents, and a 600kW device for applications requiring greater power, cited device capability is 10,000 times chemical, working with a large number of applications,