Ermmm ... could you check your settings?

When you made this post, you reset all of your archived posts ... my rss request spewed at me everything you posted since since 2-18.

Something you are doing is confusing my rss client and making it thing these are new posts.
Kristopher Barrett | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 10:50 am | #

KB, I dont know what it could be. Noting I've done should have changed the RSS feed. UNless for some reason the feed is gettign some sidebar invormation. The last time I edited the sidebar was 2-18, and then I edited it again today.

Unfortunately theres no way to fix that.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 11:11 am | #

OK Chris, I have good news for you on point number 5. Alpha particles are really easy to stop regardless of energy. Most will not penetrate your skin or pass through several feet of air. Tin foil will stop them completely. Neutrons are fairly easy to stop with anything containing large amounts of hydrogen. The idea being that a neutron weighs about the same as a proton, and if you think of them as billiard balls, any proton a neutron hits will steal, on average, half of its energy. Water works really well, H2O you know. Also, a lot of plastics have hugh numbers of hydrogen atoms tied up in carbon chains. So, they work fairly well also. I don't have time right now to think about your other points in detail. Maybe tomorrow?
Craig J Davis | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 6:27 pm | #

english...I need that in english.
Robert | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 6:46 pm | #

Craig,

At this level of energy flux, any shileding materila you can devise will saturate and degrade really quickly. I've done the research on this one.

In concert with magnetic containment, it's not a problem, but by themselves, its like being sandblasted.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 11:07 pm | #

Oh, and the conventional means of shielding high erngry fusion experiments?

Outside of the containment bottle you will have 2-6" of aluminum, 2-6" of steel, and 8" of plastic foam in a room surrounded by three feet of water, and six feet of concrete.

After a long period of developement I would assume we can reduce the bulk significantly, but we still have a big problem if the magnetic containment fails, never mind if there is active live plasma.
Chris Byrne | Email | Homepage | 02.24.05 - 11:24 pm | #

Point 6, Tritium. Isnt this why the DOD had the DOE reopen the investigation into the Pons and Fleischman experiment? I believe that they and others were reporting tritium as a by-product. I dont know where this stands now but that was the story a few months ago.
Sandpaper | Email | Homepage | 02.25.05 - 1:10 pm | #

Yeah the volume of radiation will eat the shielding material, but it is still common material, and fairly straightforward engineering. At least compared to your other points.
Craig J Davis | Email | Homepage | 02.26.05 - 12:39 pm | #