Fusion reactor Google Talks video
This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.LinkDr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal... until now.
Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television).
Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google's annual electricity bill? Come see what's possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.
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No.
But I'd enjoy being wrong :)
How do you know?
I'm sad to realize Bussard has died. When I first watched this over a year ago, I ferverently hoped that someone, somewhere would find the US$200M he said was needed to try the scaled up test.
I've lost track. Is anyone carrying the ball?
"Bussard" ... as in "ramjet"? Cool! "Google in spa-a-a-ace!"
Build a big machine and I'll believe it. Tokamaks were expected to easily scale up a few decades ago, as well. Until people started building bigger ones and finding instabilities much worse then equilibrium theory had anticipated.
Fusors have shown to be inherently incapable of producing energy (though cheaply generating low level fusion).
The new Polywells by Bussard claim to overcome the fundamental problems somehow, but at what consequences we don't know.
That said, it's probably well worth investing, say, 1% of the ITER budget on these alternative approaches, they are based on feasible physics after all.
Have you watched the video?
Indeed sad at the passing of Bussard. Quite apparent that he was one of those whose brain just kept going but the body didnt. Physics and engineering aside, as I dont understand most of it, he's a good story teller and humorous. Good video.
I watched both the Brussard talk and this other one presented Eric J. Lerner on their competing fusion technologies in their entirety.
I am no plasma physicist, but I had a few billion to invest in emerging technologies, I would back Lerner's focus fusion as opposed to Brussard's inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC). But watch both, earn a doctorate in plasma physics, and you decide which succeeds! ;) Regardless, I hope one or the other can go intro production soon.
thank you, I'll have to watch the Lerner next
Takuan @2: "How do you know?"
Overblown claims are always a bit of a red flag. pB fusion produces neutrons, just the same as cold fusion would if cold fusion wasn't just wishful thinking. If you create helium nuclei moving fast enough--which pB fusion does--you will get neutrons being created too. Not as many as conventional fusion, but 1% of a hell of a lot is still plenty.
1% is the usual threshold for calling fusion "aneutronic", but that's a marketting term, not an engineering or scientific term.
I dug in to Bussard's stuff a while back and came away unconvinced, but he's a lot smarter than I am so it's perfectly possible he's right and I'm wrong.
Have you watched the video?
i find this a fairly awesome use of plasma:
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage
it's a machine that eats garbage with plasma and generates a lot of energy, useful gas and glass. many governments own them, including NYC and japan, and the military has a few. i don't know why it isn't a bigger news item, though i have a guess.
i've even submitted it to boing boing, but they've never bitten, but it seems to have that "amazing mind-blowing use of science to get really efficient energy output" that boing boing likes without the wonky "completely free energy" taint that it's readers hate.
plasma incinerators have been around for a while. You may get some energy back but you still have to put net power in. A lot.
Good news everyone!
Farnsworth rocks.
Two points:
The company that Bussard set up to continue his work ( http://www.emc2fusion.org/ ) recieved funding from the Navy to continue his work. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard )
Also Bussard only estimated requiring a few million to build a scale model not US$200 million. $200M was his estimate for how much the first complete power generating fusion reactor would cost once the physics had been tested with the cheaper, smaller device.
So a few million to test out the physics seems like a no brainer to me. And I guess some peoplein the US Navy science funding system agreed.
Not to be bitter, but I suggested this url like over a year ago. I also suggested the Phun physics thing that was posted yesterday based on someone elses suggestion last week... I feel neglected :(
Sorry Cokeman. BB is a fickle vending machine. While accepting a lot of the change dropped in and spitting out the goods, oddly at times it refuses the crispest of bills.
Personally Id like to know where the follow up bit is that I submitted about the man who (with some help in part from BB) saved, through petition, his generational house from a highway project in South Carolina.
Takuan @10: Yes, I have.
Problems:
1) No discussion of thermalization of ions while in the well. He shows one slide with a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution on one side representing the thermal machines, and a delta function on the other side representing his machine. But the average ion undergoes ion-ion Coulomb scattering 1000 times prior to fusion. This has a tendency to thermalise the ions rapidly. I'd like to know how rapidly (this is the question I'd've asked had I been at the talk, I think.)
2) No discussion of beta limit theorem (google "migma" and you'll probably find docs on it.) This was a killer for other non-thermal configurations. It may not be relevant here due to the use of electrostatic trapping, but I'd like to see a discussion of it.
3) No strong theory or computational modelling results presented, so no basis for comparison of results to expectations. He says during the question they've been simulating things but that stuff is too complicated. Their basic problem is that they haven't hired me to look at the problem :-) (I know a little bit about transport simulation, including multi-particle codes and EM transport codes, which I've written for my own research.)
Then there's the biggy: three neutrons doth not a conclusion make. If you listen carefully the 10^9 n/s figure it is based on three neutrons detected during a pulse of 250 microseconds by a small solid-angle detector. Neutron detection is not entirely simple, and neutron detectors are susceptible to artefacts. Ergo, it is possible that the machine produced no neutrons at all, but rather was responding to the EM transient from the capacitive discharge driving it.
Scientists are hard to convince. He's got some interesting stuff here, and I'd love to work on it if there were money available. But I am still not convinced it's time to be talking about how to power the world with this stuff.
Then you agree possibility is present.
The eternal priority question: funding for Bussard's work, (more) funding for Tokamaks or funding for better ways to kill people between you and oil.
I was under the impression the US$200M was for a scaled plant that would unequivocally prove the process. You seem to understand the physics - certainly more than myself, just how good a chance do think there is here? Should sensible people be loudly agitating for funding?
The chance of success is significant.
The cost of failure is negligible.
I've argued in the past that if Bush had had America's interests at heart he would have responded to 9/11 with a goal of "American energy independence before the end of the decade". He could have invoked the Founder's distaste for "foreign entanglements" and drawn the line between America's dependence on foreign oil and your continual involvement in propping up foreign dictators like the House of Saud.
Ergo, YES: sensible people should be clamouring for all kinds of money put in to a variety of energy research, including IEC fusion. If I were setting the budget, I'd happly cut ITER funding by 10% to throw money at IEC, solar, wind, geothermal and battery tech. And I'd cut defence spending by a good deal more than 10%, and likewise throw the money at energy research, including conservation tech. The payoff in terms of lives saved and American security improved would be huge.
One thing from Bussard's video that particularily struck me: the vested interest of the big fusion/Tokamak industry (that ironically he helped create). Too many rice bowls being protected. There is money available,just not distributed.
Is there a petition established somewhere?
Yeah, but from the number of signatures I wouldn't be holding my breath.
As Bussard pointed out, there are people who could fund this stuff out of pocket change. Sad that they don't. You can donate to EMC2 at http://www.emc2fusion.org, but it is not clear what would be done with the funds.
One more signature.
Boingers: it's up to you
i believe i have uncovered a symbolic discovery of unlimited clean energy of using water via nuclear fusion upon palm sunday 2007- I have been shown many signs after this date-in the beginning it was two sticks for fire- now- i propose two electrodes for unlimited clean energy- it is energy which fuels a world for comfort-life-stability-coupled with laws from the heavens we have lived our lives- we are all messengers of god if we listen-we are communicated with thru our dreams-coincidental moments-etc- you would be lucky to have one handful in which you swear to be divinely inspired in your entire life-our time is a test and we are by far left alone in order to see how we help one another- do not expect the heavens to fix mans problems- it is the heavens who watch us fix our own- we have everything upon this magical blue planet- it is our duty as man to live up to our potential- my first name means peace- my last name is the father of Abraham-father of arab and jews- it is also the name of fire in the first religion of zorasterian to this day-in the beginning is a story of brotherhood between cain and able- in this age of enlightenment we shall be called together under god and see what the brothers of Issac and Ishmael do in the middle east- it is in the interests of all human beings to support its unification-as it is the desire all nations shall be under one God---IF WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN SOUNDS UNORTHODOX TO YOU-MY ROAD TRAVELED TO SOLVE THIS ENERGY CRISIS WAS UNORTHODOX-THE WEIGHT OF MY WORDS WILL BE FELT WHEN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY HAS UNDERSTOOD THE MIRACLE I HAVE UNCOVERED--TO NOT WALK ON WATER-BUT TO DELIVER IT FOR UNLIMITED & CLEAN ENERGY--- TIME WILL TELL-
solomon azar-
noblefuse.org
oh goody
It’s sad that so many people post without doing any homework and not knowing the subject.
The Polywell fusion device has been funded just enough to duplicate the W6 version and confirm the science of the idea. W7 has been built and first results are expected this summer.
See http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/index.php?sid=abd6c61bb86a8c26fcc2c08138d00c22
I know little more about the Focus Fusion device than the presentation to Google at http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-1518007279479871760
I know D.o.E from first-hand experience: it was pitiful. A classic case of Jerry Pournelle’s “Iron Law of Bureaucracy.” Even a school kid could work out that putting all your eggs ($12 billion worth) in the Science Cathedral called ITER, when even EPRI thinks that if it works it will not be commercially viable this century, is pretty stupid.
We need some better power source than those powered by fossil fuel now. We should be building nuclear plants (the modular pebble bed reactor looks good) while a solution is found to make fusion power practical.
I agree with what you are saying (particularly about pebble bed reactors) but you do realize that this post is many months old? That no one has posted a comment to it since February? Although it appears (truncated) in the Recent Comments column (which is where I saw it) I would be surprised if many people notice or read it.
Of course, I have been surprised before :)