Robin, As regards the reactions you mention:
Li7 + H -> 2 He4 + 17.3 MeV Li6 + H -> He4 + He3 + 4 MeV Li7 is 92.6%, Li6 is 7.4% of natural Lithium. This yields an average of about 16.3 MeV / atom of natural Lithium. Yes these are clean reactions which produce fewer radioisotopes, lots of energy and "look good on paper". In practice, it has been another story entirely. Although everything you say is true, what you have left out is that the threshold parameters for this kind of reaction (really a fission reaction) are severe - so much so that if you are going to use protons, the p-11B fuel cycle is highly preferred over lithium, due to the more attainable cross-section in practice. After all, lithium targets for proton beams were among the very first targets, and there are 60 years of R&D that show that accelerating protons for this reaction is hopelessly lossy. Of course, I suspect that is not what you have in mind, but I merely wanted to put this in perspective for those who have not followed your thought process over the years. If aneutronic fusion is the only goal using accelerated protons - then p + 11B --> 3 4He will happen at a threshold of only 125 keV, which seems to be doable with IEC since boron targets are very heat resistant - yet the optimum temperature for this reaction is still ten times higher than that for the tritium. The energy which would be lost to magnetic confinement would be too severe to consider (500 times more than for the D-T reaction), plus the power density will be 2500 times lower. So IEC is the only known way to use boron (or lithium), and it has its own cost and efficiency problems. Of course we all hope that another approach to lithium fusion is feasible, and methinks you are ultimately focused on a hydrino pathway, but until that pathway is shown to have a decent cross-section (or other method of implementation), then it probably remains too speculative for high level funding in the USA, due also to the stigma given to Mills/BLP by the likes of Park & company. I hope you can get enough funding to show that a reaction of 7Li + Hy works in some form, or else another promising hydrino fission reaction, which ever is better. Due to power density consideration, this may end up being the only way that the hydrino is feasible for large amounts of grid power. If I win Lotto - you will be on my list for immediate funding ;-) Jones
