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Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Nov 05, 2005 01:15 PM
from the fun-with-government-spending dept.
Power Science
Sterling D. Allan writes to tell us OpenSourceEnergy is reporting on a "far more feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion". Inventor Eric Lerner's focus fusion process uses hydrogen and boron to combine into helium which gives off tremendous energy with a very small material requirement. Lerner's project apparently only requires a few million in capital investment which is a far cry from the $10 billion being spent on the Tokamak fusion project.
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[+] Focus Fusion On Google Tech Talks 141 comments
Henning Burdack writes "Eric Lerner talks on Google Tech Talks about Focus Fusion, which would be a much cheaper and more feasible technology as a fusion energy source than any other current approach, based upon the dense plasma focus device. The technology will use hydrogen-boron fusion with direct induction of ion energy and photovoltaic conversion of x-ray emission, obviating the need of a steam-cycle and thus resulting in higher efficiencies. High temperatures of 1 billion Kelvin (100 keV) have been reached years ago. It only needs $2 million in funding and two years of research for a proof of concept, and maybe four more years for a prototype with positive energy output. In contrast to other fusion efforts it utilizes the natural instabilities of plasma instead of fighting them. Focus Fusion has been discussed on Slashdot before, and a patent application is also available, going a bit more into detail."
[+] Science: A Step Closer To Cheap Nuclear Fusion 404 comments
ewsnow writes "The Focus Fusion Society reports that the scientists and engineers at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics have finally built an operational Dense Plasma Focus device. While still at less than half power, they were able to achieve a pinch on their device. The small company that Eric Lerner started recently gathered enough funding to start a two-year study on the validity of his theory regarding fusion-inducing plasmoids. If the theory holds, the device will produce more electricity than it consumes. In contrast to the billions of dollars spent on Tokamak fusion (think ITER), LPP is conducting their research on a budget around a million dollars. Yet, if it works, it will provide nuclear fusion with much simpler equipment and much less cost. Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion have been discussed on Slashdot before."
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  • Isn't he the guy that wrote the book, "The Big Bang Never Happened"?

    • Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Informative)

      by tartrazine (893277) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:23PM (#13958360)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lerner [wikipedia.org]
    • Well, I don't think you should dismiss him because of that, because there's absolutely no reason to decide that nothing happened before a big bang, such as a big crunch.

      If it's impossible for information to be destroyed, then it's impossible for information to be created. Information just exists, and is manipulated. Therefore, (convinced in my mind at least), there is no "start of universe".
      • Maybe ... however that doesn't mean that the Universe isn't cyclic. For all we know, there have been trillions of Big Bangs, with an infinite number yet to go.
      • The only question to be asked is: "Can Lerner's fusion method be verified, and is it viable?"

        If it were free, sure.

        If it costs millions of dollars to verify, then there are additional questions to be asked to establish whether that investment is worth it in the first place when it could go to other research studies as well.

        • Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rei (128717) on Saturday November 05 2005, @08:09PM (#13960369) Homepage
          Why is it that slashdot's editorial process is so bad?

          * "The Tokamak project" - a tokamak is a type of reactor, not a specific project. The specific project is ITER.

          * "Open Source Energy Network". Yeah, that's either A) a prestegious indedpendent journal, or B) a news source that has reviewed such a journal.

          Fusion is a very complex topic, and this article doesn't even begin to discuss it. Currently, fusion research projects are divided between the "big guys", such as ITER and NIF, and the "little guys" such as sonofusion, focus fusion, and interial electrostatic confinement. The "little guys" are jealous (somewhat rightfully) that the big-ticket items get funding, and their more long-shot but cheaper concepts don't get the little money that they need.

          Lets back up a bit and discuss the basics. The critical forces that we're dealing with are electrostatic force and the strong force. Since you're trying to ram nuclei together, the electrostatic forces between the protons in the nuclei are going to make it incredibly difficult for you. Once you get close enough, however, the strong force (which only acts over short distances) takes over, and dominates. Thus, there is an energy barrier that you have to get over - the coulomb barrier. If your particles aren't moving fast enough, or are angled incorrectly, you just bounce off, or worse.

          Worse? Well, we're not just talking about nuclei - there are electrons, too. The longer you spend in the vicinity of electrons, the more likely you are to hit them. A high energy particle that hits an electron wastes its energy as bremsstrahlung. It's also possible to lose energy from the core through synchrotron radiation.

          By the numbers, it looks like it'd be almost impossible to do. Thankfully, you have to big things working to help you out. One, particles in the core do not all share the same energy level; in fact, they'll vary by orders of magnitude from each other. So, while most of your core will be well below the required energy level, a few particles will be very energetic. The other thing that helps you out is quantum uncertainty - basically, since the positions can be uncertain, you can effectively tunnel past the coulomb barrier.

          Even still, it's an incredibly difficult problem. Stars cheat - they have gravitational confinement, making the problem quite easy to keep a tight, hot core. However, for us, all of the energy of the particles (and new energy released by fusion reactions) is incredibly hard to keep close together.

          The energy barrier depends on what reaction your looking at. Dt-Dt fusion is pretty low; so is Dt-T. Fusion involving helium takes a lot more energy, and wonderful fusion methods like B11-P (you can capture almost all of the energy released) take a huge amount of activation energy.

          Inertial confinement, like ITER, uses strong magnetic fields and fast-moving plasma. Charged particles moving through a magnetic field experience a force perpendicular to the direction of motion and the magnetic field, called Lorentz Force. The interesting thing about it is that it seems to scale up well; the downside is that scaling up means massive devices. Things like B11-P fusion are really right-out for now because of how much you'd have to scale up. But there's good confidence that it will work.

          Inertial electrostatic confinement fusion involves spherical acceleration of ions in a near vaccuum. If they miss colliding with other ions, they just bounce outward then fall back inwards for another pass. There are few electrons in the fuel to waste through bremsstrahlung. The problems are getting density and stopping collisios with the inner coil that attracts the ions to the center. Whether it's possible to overcome is a big question. As a note, these are popular for amateurs to build - see "Farnsworth Fusor". Since the devices are inherently small, they would scale to B11-p fusion.

          Focus fusion involves trying to get magnetic vortices that are incredibly intens

          • Focus fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

            by elerner (928824) on Saturday November 05 2005, @11:42PM (#13961116)
            I'm replying to some of the hundred-odd posts on this topic. If you want to determine whether something is decent science or crackpot, there are right and wrong ways to go about it. A lot of these posts appeal to authority to determine if focus fusion is decent science, analyzing who I am, or even who people who talk about focus fusion are or who is on their board of directors. That's not the way to analyze scientific work. If it were, we'd still be back debating what the church says is the correct Aristotelian interpretation of Ptolemy--and we sure would not be doing it by Internet. The right way is to look at the scientific work and ask--does it make sense, and does it follow the scientific method? Sometimes that's difficult if the work is only presented in technical journals. But in this case, our work is both available in technical form (http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0401126 [arxiv.org]) and in layman's terms (www.focusfusion.org). Look at this work and judge for yourselves. If you're also interested in the Big Bang controversy, you can judge the layman's version at www.bigbangneverhappened.org or get more technical information from the download articles accessible there. (The July 2 cover story of New Scientist is a good introduction, too.) People on this list who call me a crackpot or less complimentary names have the simple obligation to point to some specific scientific errors that they perceive in my work. Otherwise they are not engaging in any sort of scientific debate and deserve to be ignored. A couple of basic historical facts need correcting. NASA did not cut off our funding because they were dissatisfied with our results. The whole program that was funding our work and many others, Advanced Propulsion Technologies, was zeroed out by the administration. More or less simultaneously all NASA programs that fund any form of fusion were also terminated. So this had nothing to do with our work in particular, but did indicate a general hostility towards fusion by the administration. Also, it would be wrong to describe focus fusion as that controversial among fusion scientists. (Unlike my cosmology work, which is controversial). Many fusion scientists think that this work, along with other alternative fusion approaches, deserves funding. But scientists don't make decisions on what is funded, administrators do. I've been at conferences of top fusion researchers in which practically not a single one supported the ITER project or thought that it could work. Yet that is the project that, for political reasons, gets all the funding. Finally, I want to address two technical points that seem to come up frequently. First, the safety of the focus fusion derives in part from the extremely tiny amount of fuel that is burned in each shot. The speck that is raised to several billion degrees is only a few microns to tens of microns across. So even when all the fuel, or nearly all, is burned, the yield will be only about 20 or 30 kilojoules--the energy a 100 W light bulb burns in a few minutes. It is only by pulsing the device a thousand times a second do you get 20 MW out of it. The much-cited PhD thesis from '95 that sought to prove that all advanced fuels like hydrogen-boron are impossible makes a number of assumptions that are not true in all cases. In particular, the thesis ignores the magnetic effect that decreases x-ray emission at the very high magnetic fields attainable in the plasma focus. The effect has been known for 30 years and is widely applied in the study of neutron stars, so it is also not controversial. But it greatly improves the prospects of getting net energy from hydrogen boron. Anyway, I urge every one to look at the material we present at www.focusfusion.org and judge it for yourself. Don't rely on "authority". That's not the scientific way. Eric Lerner

      • Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Interesting)

        by deglr6328 (150198) on Saturday November 05 2005, @03:05PM (#13958858)
        While it is unsurprising that someone who thinks "intelligent design" is a relevant criticism of real science also thinks the Big Bang is "just a theory" (said as if it had been merely dreamt up by a drunk on his way home from the bar last night), it is a huge HUGE tipoff to nuttery when a supposed astrophysicst rejects one of the most successful theories ever devised in all of cosmology. And when respected UCLA physicists start pointing out the glaringly obvious mistakes [ucla.edu] in said anti-big bang theories, well, that's pretty much when the house of cards comes tumbling down isn't it? No your comment is not insigtful in the least. Rather, it is an appeal to ignorance. Though if you realy do require a specific refutation of this focus fusion bullshit (and that's what it is so why mince words) you need only look to this 1995 doctoral thesis [mit.edu] by Todd Rider which effectively kills off any possiblity of nonequilibrium fusion reactions (such as Fusors and pyroelectric fusion devieces) of ever producing net energy. The Focus Fusion device even if it actually DID achieve the temperatures claimed (and no, it does not) would belong to this class of non-starters.
        • That thesis you quoted is powerful stuff and seems to rule such methods out completely. However how does this apply to, say a thermonuclear weapon in which the fusion fuel is inertially confined whilst fusion reactions take place. I seem to recall some hairbrained scheme for generating power from 'bombs' by letting them off underground and using the resulting heat to generate electricity. There was also Daedalus [wikipedia.org] which was supposed to travel to the stars using just such a method.

          Let me highlight the areas t

          • Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Insightful)

            by deglr6328 (150198) on Saturday November 05 2005, @06:47PM (#13959999)
            "Transient nonequilibrium burning systems [are ruled out] which try to produce enough fusion power before the particle distributions equiligrate (eg. ICF, bombs, and pulsed beam methods)."

            That is bizzare. I'm really at a loss to explain such a statement, though, IANAP. Obviously fusion bombs work and DO produce far more energy than they consume and ICF is capable of doing the same or this [llnl.gov] would not be currently under construction. I can't understand what he may have meant by such a statement. weird.
          • "If we were absolutely sure it were true, it wouldn't be called a theory, but rather a truth."

            Ahhh! Somebody has to shoot those worse than useless science teachers or imbecile media from which people get these ideas. There are an overabundance of people who think a theory is a concept that somebody came up with and a fact (or truth) is a theory that has been proven to be true. This is garbage. Science doesn't deal in facts. It's all models of how reality works. Newton wasn't wrong. His model works a

      • speaking of poisons... boron is a fission inhibitor by virtue of being a newutron absorber... aka a reaction poison.

        modern reactor emergency shutdown systems are usualy designed to drown the reactor core in boron to end the chain reaction immediately in the event of an "un-requested fission surplus"

        random fact for the day & Obligatory Simpsons quote all in one :)

  • Can any one say "Cold Fusion" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it is so simple and cost effective why do we not have it now if not yesterday.

  • Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by notpaul (181662) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:26PM (#13958372) Homepage
    From TFA:

    "The Dense Plasma Focus device is roughly the size of a coffee can."

    Size of a *coffee* can ... hmmm ... coffee ... coffee-makers ... *Mister* Coffee ...

    MR. FUSION!

    Yes! FINALLY!
    • Seriously though, how this small "coffee can" size device could hold a temperature above 1 billion degrees inside without melting. The copper will melt just above 1000 degrees. With a 1 billion degree plasmoid just couple of inches from the inner wall, how will the whole thing not turn into gas? I understand that there will be a vacuum created inside and there will also be hydrogen and boron gas flowing during the operation. The pulse will be at about 1 Mhz.

      The last time I checked there was vacuum betwee

      • I'm not smart enough to explain it, but I can give you some examples that show it's not totally insane. The inside of a CRT is something like 100,000F. But it doesn't melt the glass and then 3 nanoseconds later the faces of everyone watching it.

        • The inside of a CRT is something like 100,000F. But it doesn't melt the glass and then 3 nanoseconds later the faces of everyone watching it.

          It's like walking on coals. Coals get red-hot at about 600 degrees Farenheit, due to black body radiation. People can walk on them, though, because human flesh is much denser. (It also helps if you do it right after the morning dew, and it's a bad idea to linger.) The coals are hot but the total amount of energy isn't that high.

          It's a bit like having a very high voltag

    • Reverse Particle Accelerator (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CustomDesigned (250089) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:17PM (#13958596) Homepage Journal
      The coffee can sized device is very similar to a plasma rocket [space.com] engine. The rocket engine trys to keep the plasma symmetrical for nice controlled thrust. Focus fusion "snaps" the plasma filaments like a whip. At the tip, where a leather whip exceeds the speed of sound, the magnetic compression in the plasma is enough to ignite fusion. The plasma is then ejected in one direction at high speed, like the rocket engine. Ironically, the major problem plaguing conventional magnetically confined fusion is that the plasma "leaks" out in high speed jets. Both plasma rockets and focus fusion recognize that this can be a feature rather than a bug.

      The neat thing is that the reaction ejects beta radiation (electrons) in all directions, but ejects the alpha particles with the plasma in one direction. The actual fusion generator is the size of a refrigerator, with the coffee can near one end. The larger device captures the beta radiation with a shell around the reactor and has a target at the other end to collect the alpha radiation. The result - fusion reaction produces current directly! The next refinement *decelerates* the speeding alpha particles through a magnetic field, converting their kinetic energy to electricity before it heats up the target. That is the "reverse particle accelerator" aspect. Beta radiation ejected in the same direction as the alpha beam is "lost" and becomes heat at the target. Future refinements will make the alpha beam as narrow as possible so as to minimize the number of beta particles it takes with it.

      After the proof of concept, engineering challenges include materials to collect beta radiation without becoming dangerously radioactive, materials to collect alpha radiation (hopefully low speed after magnetic decceleration) without becoming dangerously radioactive, and shielding to stop the occasional neutrons (from impurities, and the random nature of nuclear reactions). Will also need to store energy to "crack the magnetic whip" to drive the reaction, and meter precise amounts of ionized fuel. I'm not convinced that too much fuel won't be dangerous.

      • Potential dangers for home fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CustomDesigned (250089) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:41PM (#13958735) Homepage Journal
        Assuming the proof of concept works, I can see a number of potential hazards:
        1. Magnetic deceleration coils fail. Alpha beam disintegrates target, and parts of your home beyond it. There is probably a way to do this on purpose to create a beam weapon. However, as soon as too many alphas start escaping, the device will lose power and stop working.
        2. Fuel metering fails. Too much fuel causes a meltdown. Should not create long lived decay products, so the mess can be cleaned up. Igniting too much fuel near or even in the fuel supply should *not* create an H-bomb, because all the material to be fused must be confined. The heat from igniting fuel will simply scatter any other fuel nearby. The necessity of ionizing the fuel first prevents cramming enough fuel into the plasma to create a bomb.
        3. Shielding fails, and device leaks beta, alpha, or neutrons. There should be gieger counters nearby to turn it off in such an event. Leaking alpha particles can result in a voltage difference between your home and the reactor, which could be hazardous. This can be measured and also trigger a shutdown.
        4. Fuel is contaminated with fusable reactants that produce many high speed neutrons. Again, need gieger counters with auto-shutoff. Just like you have CO alarms for your gas furnace.

  • Skeptical.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Duncan3 (10537) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:26PM (#13958375) Homepage
    Cheap, no long term radiation, efficient direct to electricity, sounds like everything we've ever dreamed of...

    And yet... not assasinated by the oil industry...

    So it must not actually work. Q.E.D.
    • Yeah, well if you follow the road past this project, the organizations involved aren't very 'mainstream'. The majority of the projects supporters appear to be free energy advocates (pesky law of energy conservation). This is scarily close to all the other slashtivements. The guy is looking for funding, doesn't really seem to have much in the way of scientific support, and is using a US Patent Officer (most intelligent people around) as his main public supporter. You'll notice on the site, and the sites it
    • Not surprising. Mr. Lerner is a well-known crackpot - having wack jobs like him running around detracts from the developmnet of real alternative energy sources, much to the benefit of the mega oil companies. It would be much more likely that he is being funded by the oil companies than assassinated by them.

      He is a perfect fit with tabloid web sites like slashdot.

    • So it must not actually work. Q.E.D.

      Q.E.D. = Quite Easily Demonstrated.

    • Cheap, no long term radiation, efficient direct to electricity, sounds like everything we've ever dreamed of...

      And yet... not assasinated by the oil industry...

      From article...Lerner's persistent quest to find other federal monies has thus far been unfruitful. "This administration does not want to fund any serious competitor to oil or gas,"


      Why assasinate when you can just cut off monies? Very effective and much cleaner than killing.

  • I'm suspicious (Score:5, Funny)

    by evil agent (918566) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:28PM (#13958387)
    As for possible accidents with the reactor, there is "not really anything that could go wrong," and, because of the way the reaction stops immediately, "there is [no possibility] for runaway." Lerner affirms, "It's 100% safe."

    Sounds like something Mr. Burns would say.

    • I'm susupiscious because they claim that high energy x-rays can't produce long lived radioactive waste. Apparently they haven't heard of photoneutrons. That and the plasma temperature for the H-B reaction is 10 times that of D-T, making it pretty difficult with standard materials. It looks like a viable research project though. My only concern with the researcher is that if this guy agreed to publish this article to a non-conventional journal to get more funding and awareness, then he's probably going t

  • Equal time for cranks? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:28PM (#13958389)
    Why does slashdot give time to cranks who purport to have achieve something revolutionary, but really have no idea what they're talking about?

    • Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So as to not offend anyone's liberal sensitivies. This sort of politically-correct, offend-no-one, every-opinion-is-equal sentiment is perfect for nutcases and crackpots to dig their claws into.
  • Wow. It even has the support of the 'Integrity Research Institute,' and all the resources of erols.com behind their website.
    Integrity Research Institute (IRI) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to helping establish integrity in scientific research, primarily regarding the physics of energy, whether it is in the technical, human health, or environmental area.

    Too bad NASA's funding funding for him dried up. What do they know about physics, any way?

  • Send in the Clowns! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:40PM (#13958432)
    far more feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion

    I recall when Cold Fusion was actually considered a possibility for essentially limitless clean energy that a bunch of environmentalist clowns arrived on the scene proclaiming that cheap clean energy would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. That, my Gawd, with cheap clean energy we would just end up with more people using up even more of the planet even faster. While my memory may have faded over time, a prominent name I believe was at the forefront of these claims at the time was Jeremy Rifkin.

    I certainly expect their reappearance any time now.

    • "When a man cannot be pleased nobody tries."

      And I certainly have no interest in pleasing Jeremy Rifkin or anyone like him. I thought once of buying him a pair of wooden clogs, like the ones a certain group of people used to throw into factory machinery.

      It doesn't seem occur to people like this that an unlimited power source would open up the entire solar system for exploitation. Regardless, countries like China and India are "using up even more of the planet even faster" without such an energy source,

  • Mmmmm... astroturf (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfengel (409917) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:41PM (#13958442) Homepage Journal
    by Sterling D. Allan
    Open Source Energy News -- Exclusive Interview

    I suppose occasionally major scientific advances are announced in press releases, but since 99.999% of the time it's somebody jumping the gun, I think I'll let it go.

    I do find it interesting that the article describes him as an "inventor" rather than a "physicist". Somehow when proposing a radically different model of the universe, the former always rings of "I was puttering around and I found something I didn't understand, therefore it must be both correct and completely novel."

    None of this is proof that he's wrong, but the crank-o-meter is pushing towards the red zone. Which is too bad, because apparently he's an extremely smart man with a lot of valid research to his name.

  • Cooks and crackpots (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eukariote (881204) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:42PM (#13958449)
    Some simple checks can prevent this sillyness from perpetuating. Bob Park's "What's New" column http://www.bobpark.org/ [bobpark.org] is an amusing and up to date reference for this kind of thing. Here is what he has to say about the "Integrity Research Institute" (the name alone should have raised a red flag): http://www.searchum.umd.edu/search?q=%22integrity+ research+institute%22&site=&btnG=Search+UM&output= xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ie=UTF-8&client= UMCP&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=UMCP [umd.edu]
  • They claim to know how much money they require for what?

    For all of the fundamental engeneering problems of hot fusion? I really doubt it.

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i_should_be_working (720372) on Saturday November 05 2005, @01:50PM (#13958489)
    Their method of heating the plasma to temperatures hot enough for fusion seems to be by using particles accelerated by magnetic reconnection. [wikipedia.org] (hmm.. that wiki needs love)
     
      Magnetic reconnection [pppl.gov] in traditional fusion reactors is seen as a bad thing because it shoots particles in unpredictable directions that often can't be contained by the confining magnetic fields. So it results in a loss of plasma density and also eventually puts small holes in the sides of the reactor.
     
    If these particles are that energetic it seems to make sense that they could be used to heat the plasma if they could be controlled. No idea if they are energetic enough to be used alone though.

    That magnetic reconnection thingy is also what causes the northern lights.
  • For those among you (including me) who have never heard about focus fusion, here is a link: focus fusion [focusfusion.org].
    It is not cold fusion, but one of the many alternatives [plasmas.org] to the tokamak. Although a tokamak is still seen als the best candidate for a earthly fusion reactor.
    Oh, nobody happens to have a job opening in plasmaresearch for a newly graduate?

  • If I trust the physics papers on the web (Score:5, Informative)

    by Frumious Wombat (845680) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:05PM (#13958555)
    The correct response to this article is,

    (a) yes, H-B fusion (aneutronic) is possible, but...

    (b) it requires very high temperatures, and suffers from a variety of energy loss mechanisms which make getting usable energy from it difficult. This is similar to when I was in grad-school, and everyone was whispering about Muon-catalyzed fusion, which turned out to be impractical for energy extraction as well.

    IANA(N/P)P (i am not a nuclear/plasma physicist), but the papers I skimmed suggest that you could use this method, mixed with a conventional Deuterium/tritium mixture, to get cleaner fusion and better burn rates. Of course, not being a physicist, it's possible that the journals I found the citations in are the physics equivalent of Journal of Pointless Chemistry.

    http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServ let?prog=normal&id=APCPCS000406000001000216000001& idtype=cvips&gifs=yes/ [aip.org]

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleUR L&_udi=B6TVM-3WN77X7-19&_coverDate=06%2F17%2F1996& _alid=331683658&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_ cdi=5538&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version= 1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fad383390465b806fd1 b90abff541fee/ [sciencedirect.com]

    Probable Translation: Another backyard inventor who can read enough of the literature to be encouraged, but not enough to admit the drawbacks.

    Secondary Translation: I canna' change the laws of physics, Captain.

  • Slashdot Needs a Science Editor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jpgrimes (15330) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:16PM (#13958594) Homepage

    As a scientist I'm dismayed by the number of people who always believe in science conspiracies (like here where he says the only reason he didn't get funding was the tokomak). It's hard to decide how useful this method really is from the article as it's not a science article, but I have some doubts.

    What people need to realize about science like this is that if he can make this work he will be lauded and made very rich. Although science does make mistakes, occasionally supporting wrong theories and such, overall it progresses by natural selection (and those who are correct get high end jobs because of it). I would love to disprove dark matter or dark energy because that would make me really well known. But yet I read about how the entire field of astronomy is so stuck on it that they won't look at other possibilities (but we do and they don't work with what we know).

    If this guy is correct he should be able to convince most other scientists in his field (which he hasn't been able to do). This isn't always due to science (some people can't communicate and sometime politics plays a role) but generally it is.

    I wonder how many theories have been posted on slashdot now that are just like this. Slashdot has been around long enough that someone could go back and look at the current state of these theories. How many are still, "waiting for that big moment" even after they go some funding. More importantly, I think slashdot should make more of an effort to put up articles when they show something has been disproved (like that article a few weeks ago arguing against dark matter in galaxies which used the wrong gravitational potential). Somebody with a science background should at least edit the original slashdot post so that people could get a better background before deciding that the future of energy production is safe.

  • call me a sceptic, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arkhan_jg (618674) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:17PM (#13958597)
    For a start, this is on opensourceenergy.org, which also hosts a number of articles on electromagnetic over-unity devices, i.e. the 'free energy' crowd. Not good company to keep if you want to be taken seriously.

    In addition, Eric Lerner is a believer in the plasma universe theory; he wrote a book on the matter called 'the Big Bang Never Happened', which apparently makes him popular with the evolution-denier crowd. Again, questionable associations.

    He's also criticised [aip.org] the peer-review scientific process, calling it open to fraud. Just unfortunate that peer-review has not been kind to his own research, I imagine.

    I'm no physicist, but it seems his process passes a short, extremely high current from a coffee-can sized copper electrode through a low-pressure hydrogen-boron mix.

    The current's magnetic field forms a small hot ball of plasma, a plasmoid, (without external magnets) and when the current's magnetic field collapses it induces an electric field that heats the plasmoid so much, it ignites fusion reactions that create more electrons & ions, which can be converted back into electricity via an advanced transformer that converts an ion stream to electricity.

    So basically, pass an electric current though low-density hydrogen-boron in a coffee can, and you get spontaneous fusion - so much so, you get over-unity? Somehow, it strikes me as a little too easy to be true.

    Shockingly enough, Lerner has yet to demonstrate over-unity, but that's because the government is so in bed with the oil-companies, they won't give him any money. NASA gave him some money, looked at his results, and dropped him.

    I won't call him a junk-scientist, but I think I'd like to see some peer-reviewed and repeated evidence of his results before I lend his theories much credence.

  • Integrity Research Institute (Score:5, Informative)

    by cohomology (111648) on Saturday November 05 2005, @03:07PM (#13958869)
    A teeny bit of fact checking is in order.

    The glowing praise in the article comes from the Integrity Research Institute,
    which doesn't even have its own domain name: http://users.erols.com/iri/>

    The web site lists three directors:

      Director 1: (also President and Chairman) Dr. Thomas Valone
          Physics, engineering, and teaching background

    Sounds good.

          Inventer of the Photonic Rejuvenation Energizing Machine and
          Immunizing Electrification Radiator

    what the fuck?

      Director 2: Jacqueline Panting Valone
            General Manager of M.A.M.S.I., a representative of several suppliers of
            microwave components and subsystems to OEM, military and commercial
            companies.

    Could have a solid technical background.

            Ms. Valone is also a strong advocate of holistic health, including
            electromagnetic medicine and is responsible for the Health programs
            of our Institute.

    Holistic health seems respectable. I am more than my symptoms.
    But "electromagnetic medicine?" Give me Maxwells Equations,
    not new-agey energy-fields-surround-us.

            In her spare time, she volunteered for The Hospice Program of Broward
            County where she assisted patients in their transition and helped family
            members cope with their loss.

    Very important work. She sounds like a good person.

            Ms. Valone is a doctorate candidate of Naturopathy at Trinity College of
            Natural Health and is certified through the College of Natural Health
            Professionals, CNHP.

    Never heard of them. What does this have to do with physics?

        Director 3: Wendy Nicholas

            EDUCATION

                  2001 Johns Hopkins University Rockville, MD

            * Continuing Education student in Telecommunications

    May be a wonderful, capable person. Why is she on the board of directors?

  • what a crock! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by delong (125205) on Saturday November 05 2005, @03:09PM (#13958881)
    This guy is a quack.

    Here's a hint:

    1. Publication-by-press-release
    2. Few to none serious scientific citations
    3. Brilliant technology that would change the world but for government conspiracy to keep him down
    4. known nutjob that is ignored by the scientific community

    We have a winner! He's a nutjob!

    I'm dying to see a working commercial fusion reactor too, but let's try to keep a healthy sense of scientific skepticism.

  • DUDE (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zebra_X (13249) on Saturday November 05 2005, @04:25PM (#13959292)
    This is the second article posted from "Open Source Energy". It is nothing but junk science.

    STOP POSTING THIS CRAP.

    This isn't news - or anything it's just junk science written up by people who manage to take other people's money [focusfusion.org] and waste it in the name "science".
    • What would those be then? From reading TFA it looks like a clean and efficient power source. He wouldn't think of sticking these in a neighbourhood if there was a risk to it.
      And it looks like it can be built as long as there's no "political" objection.
    • Why does this guy keep going to governments for funding? They have too many interests pulling them all over. Wouldn't it be better to strike a deal with an energy company? Go talk to Shell, or Exxon.

      I'm sorry but Shell, Exxon? That is the government.
    • I suspect he is a crock. I don't know enough physics to prove or disprove him wrong. For a present day physicist he doesn't have that much stuff published in scientific journals. I checked his publications on arXiv.org [arxiv.org] and he only has his paper talking about his new reactor and the other one how the universe is not expanding and some other one. Also claiming to build a "new" "clean" and "cheap" energy source that other scientists just couldn't figure out just sounds a little suspicious, if you know what I

    • Re:Of Plasmaks and Prizes (Score:5, Informative)

      by deglr6328 (150198) on Saturday November 05 2005, @02:15PM (#13958593)
      Wow Baldrson this must only be what, the 500th [google.com] time you've posted this nothing letter here as being something that "blows the doors off" the government's past projects in fusion energy? Goodness, are you perhaps hoping to get a better response here this time than you did when you posted nearly the exact same nuttery to the hyper-racist "Stormfront.org" where you apparently tried to tie the "inhibition of pioneering culture in the US" to..... wait for it.... yep THE JEWS [64.233.161.104]!? Hat's off to you! You truly are a first rate interweb whackjob!
      • The world economy could *not* handle unlimited cheap energy. Just as it could not handle unlimited cheap food. We are well on our way to a "service" economy, and there are very vested interests that want to see it happen.

        Not all "services" can be economically automated, even with unlimited cheap energy. Without centralized control of life's necessities (energy, food, housing, etc.) there would be no incentive for anyone to participate in the "service" economy. Without limits on those necessities, there

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