Indirect evidence for a new nuclear physics reaction - an alpha chain-reaction; and a method to test this claim

Indirect evidence for a new nuclear physics reaction - an alpha chain-reaction; and a method to test this claim. Author: Andrew Graham Brown Abstract: There are many poorly understood observations when it comes to understanding the ‘classic’ energy range of nuclear reactions, 1-3 MeV (Mega-electron-Volts), in and near running or dormant nuclear reactors. Some example observations include: the exact mechanism of the explosion of the high-level radioactive waste depository that lead to the Kyshtym disaster in 1957; the exact mechanism that caused the reactor meltdown in Three Mile Island inside the core itself in 1979; the exact mechanistic cause of the second explosion in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986; the exact mechanism as to why the product of a (U-235 or other) nuclear fission is two unevenly sized isotopes and essentially never two identically sized isotopes; and the cause of the high observed neutron background rate in the cleanup of radioactive boy-scout David Hahn’s 1995 experiment, in a shed with no power and insufficient alpha-source material to create a high (alpha, n) neutron flux off beryllium. In this work, I suggest that a consistent explanation can be made for all of these effects through a process I call ‘alpha-accelerated tritium (triton) bombardment of depleted U-238 leading to induced fission or spallation’. If – and it must be stressed if – this process exists, then it points to a brand new cheap, and relatively safe form of power supply, without the need for complex fuel replacement or control rod strategies. See attached pdf Fig. 1: FBI photo of Radioactive Boyscout David Hahn’s shed cleanup in 1995. Note the three isotopes ‘Th (orium) ’, ‘U (ranium) ’, ‘T (ritium) ’. ‘Am (ericium) ’ is unfortunately vertically clipped from this image. I have long been fascinated with Radioactive Boy-scout, David Hahn’s work in 1995 attempting to ‘build a backyard nuclear reactor’. David was barely 19 years old at the time, and had managed to scavenge the following 4 radioactive isotopes, as evidenced by the white-paint writing on the wall of his powerless garden shed in a published FBI cleanup photo at the time: T (so, tritium, H-3, a very trivial nomenclature error), Americium (Am-241), Thorium (Th-232) and Uranium (natural so predominantly the isotope U-238). It took me a while to work out how he managed to get each of these into (close to) pure form – see below. The main point I wish to highlight here is that this is a young man, basically illiterate in any conventional nuclear reactor setup analysis understanding – all he knows to do, is to get the raw materials, put them in all sorts of arrangements, until something happens. And I argue that, if the rest of this paper turns out to be correct as I believe it is, this was enough for David Hahn to be the greatest physicist and chemist both of the 20th century, without any other coming anywhere close. So, I mentioned that David Hahn managed to obtain 4 radioactive isotopes (or mixed isotopes for Uranium) – how did he do this? Let us go through each. For Americium (Am-241) this is easy. He collected many old fire (smoke) alarms, removed the americium film in placed in front of the smoke alarm sensor. I believe he then gathered up the films, placed them in a simple acid like sulphuric acid, I suspect even lemon juice would have worked, and then made an Americium-241 concentrate, which he then left to dry, leaving essentially a very small, water-soluble ‘film’ of Americium-241, inside the container he used. Right, that is for Americium, what about Thorium? Thorium I believe David obtained by buying very old, pre-world-war 2 ‘gas mantles’ online, these are white ‘wire-mesh’ appearing gas-lighter covers (I believe), that produce a white light when near a running, lit gas-light. I believe again all David did here was to dip the mantles into sulphuric acid, wherein the thorium oxide should dissolve into the acid. He could then obtain relatively pure white thorium oxide - though not thorium itself - from this method, giving him a second radioisotope. However I will be clear that I am quite certain these two radioactive isotopes David quickly dismissed as being of interest for a very simple reason – these two isotopes are practically everywhere and easy to get. If it was possible to make a nuclear power plant out of Americium and Thorium, they simply wouldn’t be available commercially, as obtaining the raw material requires some strong-ish acid solution and some sunshine to dry it out, and not much more. So now we turn our attention to the big beasts: uranium, and tritium. Of the two, uranium is by far the hardest to source, and can best be obtained by antique uranium glassware. Uranium glassware - yellow or green - was a popular tabletop replacement for ‘normal’ glassware – plates, cups and pots - in the late 1920s and 1930s. It would function as glassware except ‘glow in the dark’, essentially. Now you can still buy this glassware online for less than 100. I believe what David did to obtain quite pure uranium, is as follows. David bought – likely using his father’s credit card without permission or feigning it for another purpose – large amounts of uranium glassware and collected it. David then placed the glassware in a large ceramic crucible, so simply a large bowl in which the glassware could be melted. David then used multiple blow torches underneath the crucible to melt the glass – at least enough such as the glass could flow. Now, noting that uranium is itself extremely heavy and dense, it would over the course of some days sink to the bottom of the partially-molten glass. When David was certain that there was sufficient uranium, he would then turn off the heat, and after the setup had cooled, chip off the glass above with a hammer and chisel. Only when the very last uranium containing piece was left would he then reheat it to make a smoothed surface, then let it cool again, and pull out the small (millimetres in size) now pure uranium with a small glass back, that could be removed easily with a simple glass cutter. Tritium is much easier to source, though quantity is a non-trivial problem. While nearly all commercial radioactive tritium is produced directly inside a nuclear reactor, it is a very common household object. This is because tritium is present in nearly all watch dials and fire exit signs, the radioactive decay of the tritium provides the glow in the dark. I believe the method David used to obtain the tritium is rather easy. David would have gathered hundreds of fire exit signs, and then removed the ‘tube’ holding the tritium (gas) inside. One by one, holding the tube diagonally down over a bowl with a lighter, David would smash the bottom corner of the tube with a hammer, then quickly hold a lighter underneath. There should then be a pale blue flame – the tritium gas burning – and one or two nearly invisible to the eye drops of tritiated water should then form either at the bottom of the tritium gas tube or in the bowl. Using a needle-tip, David could then gather the tritiated water into a container, and then use this for his experiments. So, David at this point has 4 quite pure radioactive isotopes (or elements) – tritium, americium, thorium and uranium. Now how is it that I am so sure that it is just the tritium and the uranium that makes sense? It is simple, the FBI press release said he was collecting radium – but the writing on his shed wall (Fig. 1. ) makes no mention of radium at all. This means simply that the FBI did ‘not want to discuss’ what happened in the shed – however – the photo was either leaked or released by accident – and it was too late. The main issue is the fact that radium is discussed in the press release while uranium isn’t, and yet the writing on the picture on the wall (Fig. 1. ) of an official FBI photo makes it clear that uranium is involved. Therefore, uranium is the chief element of interest – and when considering the combination with the other three (tritium, americium and thorium), you quickly see it must be tritium that is of interest – for many reasons - simply as americium and thorium are not behaving so differently than uranium in a radioactive sense - they are all very heavy >200 nucleon alpha (helium nucleus) emitters, whereas tritium is very light 3 nucleon size beta (electron) emitter. Right, so at this point I got to thinking: what could be happening that could make uranium and tritium together go BLAMMO? Well, it struck me: the uranium is decaying via an alpha decay energy of 4. 2 MeV – and if David had painted the tritium water directly onto the pure uranium he had also obtained, would that not cause a simple kinematic recoil of the tritium (now a triton), now with a kinetic energy anywhere up to 4 MeV? So, this would be, in effect, using the natural alpha decays of the natural uranium to produce a ‘natural tritium particle accelerator’ through this recoil. Great! That’s new! But is it actually useful? And then I looked up the cross section for tritium bombardment on depleted uranium-238 and then. . . Duh duh duh. . . . MISSING. So, there is NO data in the ENDF database for tritium (triton) bombardment of depleted U-238 so (T, U-238). For anyone who knows radioisotope distributions in nuclear reactors, this is simply ‘not’ supposed to happen. This is because there is just so much tritium in the water surrounding nuclear fuel rods, and also, so much uranium-238 in the fuel rods themselves. The tritium and the U-238 are separated only by an extremely thin zirconium alloy (zircalloy) cladding. This means even a slight damage to the fuel cladding can then leads to tritiated water entering the (mostly) U-238 fuel cell, and so the interactions between these two radioisotopes simply ‘must’ be measured and be well understood for safe reactor operation. So, I think at this point, any reader – lay or experienced - can see there is ‘a’ problem with missing ‘something’ – and thi