Muon Catalyzed Fusion (MuCF) (Score 1)

The key point to MuCF is that the muon is not consumed in the reaction but just catalyzes it. This means, in principle, a single muon could catalyze many fusion reactions. Hence, the big interest. Contrary to the other postings, MuCF does work at high temperatures, just not as efficiently. And since efficiency is the goal here, low tempatures apear to be the place to start. There are four main problems preventing MuCF from becoming practical: 1) as previously pointed out, making muons is highly inefficient. The cost is ~$2000/hr for a 1mA beam. 2) The lifetime of a muon is only about 2uSec. 3) The muons diffuse out of the target and are lost. 4) Probably the most important problem, the muons are captured by the helium that results from the fusion reaction. Once captured the muons are not availible to catalyze further reactions. I believe the number is something like an average of 200 fusions before the muon is caught. The most important problem to solve is number 4. If the number of reactions before capture is raised then the other problems can be solved mainly by increasing the Deuterium target density. Hope this helps.