In reply to Berke Durak's message of Sat, 5 Nov 2011 22:03:31 -0400: Hi, [snip] >Robin van Spaandonk wrote: > >> So why bother enriching at all? > >Rossi himself stated that the fuel is enriched, and that the energy >cost for enriching >it for a 1 MW set of reactor is (only!) 200 W.h. > >By analogy with classical Uranium nuclear reactors, I can only assume >that the reactive >isotope ratio in natural nickel is not enough for self-sustained operation.
Isotope enrichment in Uranium is necessary, because the fissioning nuclei provide the neutrons that keep the reaction going. However in fusion reactions there are no neutrons provided by the reaction, and the reaction isn't maintained by a neutron chain reaction, hence the analogy doesn't hold up. The reaction is maintained by external factors which makes the isotope ratio irrelevant. *IMO* Rossi just said that enrichment took place to throw others off the trail, and because he had only just discovered that reactions with isotopes other than Ni62 & Ni64 produce gammas which can't be easily shielded. Since he wasn't seeing the gammas, he simply said that they enriched the Ni (rather than admit that he didn't really have a clue what was going on). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
