At 08:23 AM 9/24/2012, Terry Blanton wrote:
If Dr. Storms is right, we might produce helium from hydrogen in his cracks.
Well, not "if he is right," the conclusion Storms presents that PdD
cold fusion generates helium is not speculative, it's solid and
deserves, at this point, to be considered established. It's not "from
hydrogen," it's from deuterium.
The value of the energy produced dwarfs that of the helium, at this
point. I don't know that enough helium is produced to be even worth collecting.
Let's see. 23.8 MeV/He-4, at least roughly (maybe exactly).
1 MeV = 4.45 x 10^-20 kWh.
mass of 1 He-4 is 4/Avogadro's constant in grams.
Avogadro's constant = 6.022 x 10^23.
energy produced per atom of helium, 4 AMU, is 105.9E-20 kWh.
per gram of helium, then, 160 x 10^3 kWh.
per kilogram of helium, 160 x 10^6 kWh.
per metric ton of helium, 160 x 10^9 kWh, or about 160 TWh.
planet-wide energy consumption is on the order of 140,000 TWh.
Producing the world's energy consumption with PdD cold fusion would
produce roughly 900 metric tons of helium per year.
World production (extraction from geologic reserves as gas) is
currently about 29,700 metric tons per year.
(That's a big leap, didn't consider efficiency, etc.)
However, this production might not be large-scale. I.e., consider
that you might have a home power plant, lots of us think that LENR
might be decentralized. So you have, say, a power plant that is
generating 10 MWh per year for your home use. How much helium would
you be generating? I get 62 milligrams. Current value may be $14,000
per metric ton. That's less than a tenth of a cent per year worth of
helium. And what would the cost of collecting this be?
Okay, lets propose a nice big power plant, say 10 GW. Running
full-out, 87 TWh per year. That's about half a metric ton per year of
helium, worth $7000 at today's prices. Collecting will probably cost
substantially more than the value. If this is a gas-phase PdD plant,
the helium will be mixed with deuterium. Not worth extracting it.
And we are very unlikely to see mass power applications with PdD. NiH
applications, if we are lucky and NiH is real and reliable, are more
likely. And almost certainly, very little helium is produced with NiH.
Assuming I've done the math correctly, and what are a few orders of
magnitude among friends, --
Forget about supplying the world's helium using LENR, at least this
kind of LENR. Something else might work. If we want to make a lot of
helium, we want a reaction that does *not* generate a lot of heat, or
we will have serious heat pollution. We may want something that will
sit there and transmute stuff with only a little energy release.
Maybe it will be done. (I'm assuming an exothermic reaction so that
the thing, whatever it is, is self-powered. It's possible something
endothermic could be used. All it would take is power, and power
might become cheap. Helium might also be a byproduct of some other
nucleosynthetic operation.)
*However*, my thinking has been limited. What if the helium
production is off-earth, in space? What if vast amounts of energy are
being generated and used in space? I was, for a time, the
administrator of the L-5 Society. Space elevators to geosynchronous orbit?
On the other hand, with a massive presence in space, there is a lot
of helium out there. It still might be not worth collecting helium
from power production.
Anything is possible.
