(February 11, 2012 at 12:59 am)Phil Wrote:(February 11, 2012 at 12:52 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: This isn't a perpetual motion scenario - fuel is added to the system.
Which powers itself. I think some people here need to read about pseudoscience scams such as Joseph Newman's machine.
I'm familiar with Newman's "Energy Machine" (which as you say is bunk). This isn't in the same category at all.
This is really no different from a typical fission reactor in use today, except that a U235 doesn't require input energy to get the reaction started, and Thorium does. It's less efficient than U235, but safer (according to it's theory of operation).
This isn't a perpetual motion device, and doesn't claim to be. It's not producing energy, it's releasing potential energy stored in the fissile fuel.
Now, it does need 20MW of power to "bootstrap" the reactor, and that's going to have to come from an external source on the grid. Once it's up and running, there's no reason I can think of that the 20MW operating energy can't come from the the same grid that the output would be connected to.
I'm not quite sure I get the point you're trying to make.
