Patent Number: 056075197
Section: summary

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention deals with using ionizing gamma and/or other radiation sources to ionize an ionizable material, that produce photons that generate electrons. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION At the present time electric generators produce direct or alternating electric current by rotating looped wires in a magnetic field or rotating magnetic fields in looped wires. Wind power, water power and mechanical power produced by internal combustion engines turn electric generators to produce electricity. Nuclear power uses heat to boil water to produce steam to turn a turbine that turns an electric generator. Electric output never equals the input horsepower. Solar power uses photons from the sun falling on PN junctions to convert photons with energy of 1.59 electron volts into electrons by providing an electromotive force at the PN junction, allowing electrons to cross thereover. At the upper edge of the atmosphere a one square meter solar cell has a potential irradiance of 1367 watts per square meter. However, with an efficiency factor of ten percent, the useable energy output is 136.7 watts. At ground level in the middle of July on a clear, cloudless day, during the best sunshine hours, the atmosphere reduces the ground level potential irradiance to 865 watts per square meter. At ten percent efficiency, useable electrical energy output then is 86.5 watts per square meter. In the middle of January, same clear, cloudless day, etc., the atmosphere reduces the ground level potential irradiance to 300 watts per square meter. At ten percent efficiency only 30 watts of electrical energy output is available. The storage problem created with nuclear waste has become enormous. One of the purposes of this invention is to provide a use for ionizing gamma and/or other radiation source waste. Technology exists for processing this ionizing radiation gamma and/or other source waste into concentrated energy sources of ionizing energy capable of generating a substantial number of photons and/or electrons, using an existing technology that builds solar cells for the space program. An electron generator like this invention could utilize a large percentage of the world's gamma and/or other radiation nuclear waste sitting in holding pools at reactors all over the world. Using the 6 to 7 Mev gamma and/or other radiation source being emitted by a typical nuclear reactor to ionize hydrogen atoms subjected to this ionization will produce a substantial amount of electrical horsepower without turning a single steam-driven generator. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION This invention is comprised of a container capable of storing the smallest size atoms for an unlimited period of time. This container is enclosed in a lead vault to contain radiation energy. The inside surface of this container is covered with photo-voltaic elements, which comprise PN junctions, and which are capable of converting photons and/or electrons into useful electrical energy. Inside the container is an ionizing radiation energy source, surrounded by an ionizable material that can be ionized and induced to emit an ultra-violet photon and/or electron for absorption by a PN junction device to convert to electrons to produce electrical energy. Because it only requires 8.21 to 13.6 electron volts to ionize, the preferred ionizable material is the hydrogen atom. This ionizable material, hydrogen is compressed to a density of from 25 to 50 hydrogen atoms per cubic nanometer. A density of 35 hydrogen atoms per cubic nanometer would provide 3.5.times.10.sup.28 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. A single or a plurality of ionizing radiation energy sources of 1.20 Mev energy can produce the Compton effect. Reference: NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY, Theory and Applications by Gregory R. Choppin and Jan Rydberg, pages 282 and 283, explaining the extensive secondary ionization that takes place with a weak bond electron and high energy ionizing gamma and/or other radiation energy source for ionization. A conservative absorption rate of only 240 parts per billion hydrogen atoms will induce 3.5.times.10.sup.20 BILLION hydrogen atoms to emit 8.4.times.10.sup.22 ultra-violet photons (8.21 ev). This ultra-violet photon has 5 times the 1.59 ev energy level found in the near infra-red photon that reaches ground level. 8.4.times.10.sup.22 photons and/or electrons per second would indicate a substantial potential amount of electric horsepower when that number of photons and/or electrons is divided by 4.685.times.10.sup.21, the number of electrons per second in one horsepower (746 watts) for a total of 17.9 horsepower. A plurality of high energy sources can be used to make full use of the combined photo-electric effect and the Compton effect with its extensive secondary ionization of hydrogen atoms to raise electrical energy production efficiency levels well above that needed to power electric cars without batteries. Since the hydrogen bond strength is only one-tenth that of a covalent bond, gamma-rays and/or other sources of radiation higher energy, rather than interacting with the field of the whole atoms as in the photo-electric effect, interact with the field of one electron directly. This mode of action is called the Compton effect after its discoverer A. H. COMPTON. In the Compton effect an electron is ejected from an atom while the gamma-ray is deflected with a lower energy. Since the Compton interaction occurs only with the most weakly bound electrons and high energy gamma-rays, the binding energy of the electron in the hydrogen atom is negligible compared to the high energy ionizing radiation source. The scattered gamma-ray may still have sufficient energy to interact further by the Compton effect, the photo-electric effect or pair production; again emission of X-rays, an ionizing source and Auger electron usually accompanies Compton and extensive secondary ionization follows.