Focus Fusion On Google Tech Talks 141
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."
Possible conflict of interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Now here he is introducing a project that requires millions of dollars in funding.
Ok, I'm a bit cynical, but this does look like a possible conflict of interest to me.
Re:Only 6 years away. (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed. Unfortunately Dr Bussard has passed away recently. However the project has funding again, and
apparently they are builing a new prototype, WB7.
There's a discussion site at http://www.talk-polywell.org/ [talk-polywell.org] .
Mike.
Re:Possible conflict of interest (Score:1, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Elerner [wikipedia.org]
Good comprehensive video... (Score:4, Interesting)
In a proper and decent world, men like Robert Bussard would be heroes to our children, and household names that have high schools named after them... his concept of a fusion ramjet, the Bussard Ramjet, from Known Space and other places... is still the only realistically viable idea for intersteller travel...
IANANP... would love someone who is to break this video and it's ideas down... would it work?
peace
Asked a Plasma Physicist About This (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, this guy is probably guilty of exactly what he accuses the rest of the fusion community of - he's fixated on his idea. He apparently won funding from the navy [slashdot.org], so there's a chance his group could prove me wrong, and I hope that they do, but I doubt it.
Exactly why this wont work. (Score:3, Interesting)
The tritium economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this a legitimate concern, or if someone has a working D-T reactor, one can breed enough tritium soon enough that one can launch a D-T reactor economy?
The other quesiton I have about D-T is since this produces lots of fast neutrons, will an industrial-scale reactor be an even bigger plutonium-breeding proliferation concern than fission power? Or are the neutrons the wrong energy for making plutonium? Or will the D-T reactors be so high tech that "other countries" wanting one will require so much support and supervision that breeding Pu on the QT is not a concern?
Re:Asked a Plasma Physicist About This (Score:4, Interesting)
And Bussard had responded directly to that issue:
Ions spend less than 1/1000 of their lifetime in the dense, high energy but low cross-section core region, and the ratio of Coulomb energy exchange cross-section to fusion cross-section is much less than this, thus thermalization (Maxwellianization) can not occur during a single pass of ions through the core. While some up- and down- scattering does occur in such a single pass, this is so small that edge region collisionality (where the ions are dense and "cold") anneals this out at each pass through the system, thus avoiding buildup of energy spreading in the ion population (Ref. 14).
In layman's terms, the Polywell design fuses ions faster than they maxwellianize, thanks to the ratio of time in core to time in edge. The full high level paper from Bussard can be found here [askmar.com].
You only need to maintain the non-maxwellian distribution long enough for the ions to fuse before they maxwellianize. Thermalization in the outer edge dominates the coulomb interactions from the core more than the collisions dominate the fusion rates. Those are the conditions that allow fusion to occur faster than maxwellianization. No magic, no violation of physics, just a beneficial design that Rider and Nevins both overlooked in their assumptions.
This view is the general consensus of held by physicist, not just my view.
And it's a very good thing that science isn't a democracy. There are many researchers who do not agree with the consensus. Some from MIT [mit.edu] and University of Wisconsin-Madison [wisc.edu].
Re:Asked a Plasma Physicist About This (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway I have read all the stuff I could find on his device and other ES confinment devices. I think the paper you want to ref is:
"The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion: Superperformance Space Power and Propulsion", Bussard, Robert W.,57th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2006).
This and all other "publications" of his do not explain anything. They just assert that some fact is correct, often in the face of other facts. No math, no explanation on other experiments, no justifications at all. Example in the above he claims the following: "giving DD fusions at over 100,000x higher output (at 1E9 fus/sec) than all prior similar work at comparable drive conditions (Ref. 3)." yet normal commercial neutron source fusors get 1e9 events per second wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and 1e8 are achieved at lower voltages and don't need high B fields, and also where are the error bars? Then there are scaling laws which are simply not backed up. In fact with everything I have read it appears that its made up.
And for the ions to fuse faster than they thermalise would require some black magic in terms of plasma density and thermodynamics and charge distributions, or he thought everyones data on fusion reaction cross sections is completely wrong (and thats arguing against a lot of experimental data from a lot of different places). And I'm assuming D T reactions. P B are 1000's of times worse.
You can't do physics without some theroy to back you up. You can't answer critics that use theroy that has shown to be a good model in similar situations without justifying why the model is not good in your case. Bussards work does not have or do that. Plain and simple.
And it's a very good thing that science isn't a democracy. There are many researchers who do not agree with the consensus. Some from MIT and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Electrostatic fusion is viewed as a black horse, but if you have a good paper on it, it will get published. We want to believe that it can be done. But you must back up your position and at least address known issues with proper exploration of the appropriate models. Just claiming your right and they are wrong is not science.