Focus Fusion On Google Tech Talks

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."

Re:Possible conflict of interest

[miletus]

What, because being banned from Wikipedia edits is the best criteria for judging someone's scientific credentials?

Re:Another Company...

[bombastinator]

agreed. The number is suspiciously low. It is small enough for private funding, however, which puts it deep into possible scam territory. If this has been around for a while and the guy is publicly looking for money it implies he has already been refused for a bunch of grants. If there are no refused grant applications, then it gets more creepy. The patent may be another sign.

IMHO anyone interested in investing in this guy who is not a university or reserch institute should be extremely careful. Like put a radio ankle bracelet on him careful.

Re:Possible conflict of interest

[creativeHavoc]

Whether this comment has merit right now doesn't matter to me right now. THIS is the reason I love reading slashdot. What other news aggregation site has members who can find stuff like that. First post no less. There is a very distinct intelligence difference here. On the topic itself: It seems energy research has started getting a lot more attention than even cancer research now. Cancer research reports have gotten to the point where you now only hear about it when they have actually done somthing. Energy research postings are still at the stage where they only need to talk about maybe being able to do somthing for it to be newsworthy. I wonder when this will change again, and what it will change to.

Re:Possible conflict of interest

[Bloater]

He's doing experiments on this now half funded by a university and has had funding from JPL for developing this as an energy source for propulsion until NASAs alternative propulsion budget was cut to zero.

BTW he was banned for reverting libellous material and attempts to imply that things like joining a political organisation make him untrustworthy (well, I suppose he was technically a politician, so maybe he was) and for bigging himself up too persistently - the latter only proves he's a self-righteous arse - so often a problem for scientists.

> author of alternative cosmology theory denying Big Bang

No he's not, the cosmology theory is by a nobel prize winning cosmologist. He wrote a book to publicise the theory.

> denial of quasar as blackholes

There is no evidence that they are black holes. They a big and dense. It is not known whether or not they have a large mass behind an event horizon entirely separated from the rest of the universe - we merely have no popular theory to establish that they are not black holes but that doesn't make them so. Assertions that they are and must be black holes and that alternative theories makes you a "DENIER" is far more crackpottish.

> life-long political activist

What does that have to do with his theories on the use of established fundamental quantum limits on bremsstrahlung and synchrotron radiation for sustaining plasma energy in a DPF plasmoid?

Yes, lets all stop doing science... Damn that science.

word to the wise

[Anonymous Coward]

These people invariably claim that their research has been suppressed. If we've learned one thing from magnetic fusion research in the 20th century, it's this: Fusion is Difficult. Believing that it's easy just leads to disappointment.

One factor of many: plasmas are prone to a host of instabilities, and 'stability' usually involves tradeoffs between one type of instability and another. So when somebody tells you "my plasma is stable", it should set off warning bells. The honest man will tell you the limits of stability.

As Artsimovich put it so eloquently in 1961, "Initial belief that the doors to the desired region would open smoothly at the first powerful pressure exerted by the creative energy of physicists has proved as unfounded as the sinner's hope of entering Paradise without passing through Purgatory. We do not know how long we will be in Purgatory."

We got into the Space Age by way of the Cold War, but what will push us into the Fusion Age?

Big Science effect

[5pp000]

I have no idea whether there's any chance focus fusion could work. But I do believe it has probably been a terrible mistake to have put all our eggs in the tokamak basket for all these years. When you don't know how to solve a problem, it's critical to keep exploring alternative approaches, especially if they're radically different. I would love to see substantially more funding for focus fusion, electrostatic confinement fusion, sonofusion, and even good old Pons and Fleischmann style cold fusion. The total would still be small compared to tokamak funding -- and who knows, maybe one of them would work out, or maybe we would learn something that turned out to be useful in the tokamak.

While there certainly are crackpots out there, I think we're too quick to dismiss ideas outside the mainstream, too eager to congratulate ourselves for knowing the truth already when we clearly don't know all of it. We need to cultivate more humility in the face of the mystery of the unknown.