Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor 266
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.
Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
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".
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Which makes me wonder in awe at the scale of the previous oscillations. Perhaps the first few were nanoseconds in duration, and each successive oscillation gave the universe more "time" to develop, until finally we're here. I wonder whether creatures obtained intelligence in the last oscillation, and
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
There have been a number of books written about surviving the Big Bang. James Blish's Cities in Flight series ends with the protagonists competing with an evil Empire for the right to determine the course of the next cycle. Another excellent work is Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero", in which Earth's
Its a BIG hint... (Score:2)
How big are the odds that there guys is better than anybody else in 2 not very much connected fields?
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
* "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)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Wow, you completely turned around what the GP was saying. He said intelligent design was a case of prejudice.
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me highlight the areas t
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
Re:A Dialog (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:2)
The only question to be asked is: "Can Lerner's fusion method be verified, and is it viable?"
Damn straight there. Who cares is the guy is fucking loonball about one thing. Review his papers, if it looks good lets light the fucker and see what happens.
Re:Eric Lerner (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
Re:Can any one say "Cold Fusion" (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't see why though, since he only needs $1.5 - $2 million dollars. With all the money we throw at such horrible research, why the NSF can't throw $2 million this way is beyond me.
Who knows? Maybe it's literally too good to be true and scientists that know the lingo, know it?
Re:Can any one say "Cold Fusion" (Score:2)
From the article:
Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads ... (Score:5, Funny)
"The Dense Plasma Focus device is roughly the size of a coffee can."
Size of a *coffee* can
MR. FUSION!
Yes! FINALLY!
Re:Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads .. (Score:2)
The last time I checked there was vacuum betwee
Re:Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads .. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads .. (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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)
Re:Potential dangers for home fusion (Score:2)
You should be worrying about neutrons and gammas.
Re:Reverse Particle Accelerator (Score:2, Informative)
Absorbing betas will not transmute elements. Betas are simply high-energy electrons, and will land on a piece of metal and create a negative charge. Beta emission also can't really cause damage to anything other than eye tissue as it is absorbed by the top layer of your skin. It can cause burns but seriously anything will shield against beta.
Alpha is absorbed within 10cm in air and cannot penetrate your skin whatsoever. Alpha emit
Re:Reverse Particle Accelerator (Score:2)
Magnetic fields do no work. Period. They cannot, do not, never have, never will. Read any textbook about electrodynamics if you are curious. One I would recommend is that written by David J. Griffiths of Reed College.
Reason: Magnetic forces are always directed perpendicularly to the direction of motion. Work = F . d , where . means a dot product. Dot products (or inner products) are zero if the two vectors concerned (F and d) are perpendicular. d is the displ
Skeptical.... (Score:5, Funny)
And yet... not assasinated by the oil industry...
So it must not actually work. Q.E.D.
Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2)
He is a perfect fit with tabloid web sites like slashdot.
Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2)
Q.E.D. = Quite Easily Demonstrated.
Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2)
Re:Skeptical....SAT (Score:2)
Next you're going to tell me that SAT does not stand for Saturday Afternoon Test.
Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2)
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)
Sounds like something Mr. Burns would say.
Re:I'm suspicious (Score:2)
Re:I'm suspicious (Score:2)
(i.e. So what?)
Re:I'm suspicious (Score:2)
Burns: Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.
Still don't get it? Let me explain. Describing your system as "100% safe" is completely unprofessional and, frankly, delusional. If Lerner hasn't found something unsafe about reactor, then he hasn't looked hard enough.
Equal time for cranks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:2)
Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:2)
It depends on whether you view the slashdot readership as passive or active. On average slashdotters are smarter than your average bear, who better to suss out the truth of who is a crank or to pick up the kernal of a good idea and run with it? I know personally I've had several insights (sometimes from material in an unrelated endeavor) that I've been ab
Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:2)
Because... (Score:2)
Wow. They'll save the earth. (Score:2, Funny)
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)
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.
Re:Send in the Clowns! (Score:3, Interesting)
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,
Radical Special Interest Groups 101 (Score:2)
These types of groups only work when all of their members are out there demonstrating and mad as hell. If, for example, NRA members looked at a bill in the Senate which proposes to take away people's antitank RPGs and VX nerve gas and thought "Well, that isn't so bad. I don't use Bouncing Betty very much" the organization simply wouldn't have the same "pop." To them, anything whatsoever that infringes upon their pet issue is the end of the world. I'll bet there were a significant number of people who though
Mmmmm... astroturf (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
UNBELIEVER (Score:2)
Once again, Slashdot gets played... (Score:2, Informative)
This is Mr. Allan's personal website [sterlingdallan.com]. If the story itself isn't enough, you can judge Mr. Allan's credibility by looking at some the other websites he's founded and administers.
This is truly shameful.
Cooks and crackpots (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cooks and crackpots (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if this is such promising stuff here then why has it been collecting dust for the past three years? Perhaps our local plasma experts can wade through the technical data in the above mentioned paper and enlighten the rest of us.
Business plan? (Score:2)
For all of the fundamental engeneering problems of hot fusion? I really doubt it.
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
site with more information (Score:2)
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?
Re:site with more information (Score:2)
Yes. It is important to understand the meaning of the maturity level of a field of research.
One the one hand, there are projects that seem like good ideas based on theoretical analysis. They appear to hold promise, but all the steps in the theory are not rigorously supported.
Then there are mature projects, where most aspects of the science have been studied and verified. All sorts of problems that were not evident initially
If I trust the physics papers on the web (Score:5, Informative)
(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/GetabsSer
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleU
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.
Re:If I trust the physics papers on the web (Score:2)
Re:If I trust the physics papers on the web (Score:2)
Slashdot Needs a Science Editor (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Slashdot Needs a Science Editor (Score:2, Informative)
When someone states $200,000 to $300,000 to make a 20 megawatt generator, I just fall down laughing. You can't make a 20 megawatt transformer for probably 10-100 times that price, let alone the cost of the atomic "process equipment" and ion beam to electric current conversion.
There may be no "radiation" of dangerous particles or left over radioactivity, but shielding everything and everyone within site from X-Rays is going to also cost a lot.
This guy is looking
Re:Slashdot Needs a Science Editor (Score:2)
Sincerely,
The State of Kansas Board of Education.
PS: You're all going to burn! Burn, I tell you!!!
call me a sceptic, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:call me a sceptic, but... (Score:2)
While I will remain skeptical of Mr. Lerner's claims until they're reproducible (whether in a reputable lab or in a home energy reactor I can buy at Home Depot), I don't think he's claiming to have an "over-unity" machine here. Every other time I've seen that phrase used, it's in reference to a con
Maybe, maybe not (Score:2)
Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:2)
Extending patents to 50 years would soon ensue, and it would grandfather in the cheap fusion patent, no doubt.
No, the energy companies don't assassinate people who can do this stuff, they buy them up and exploit it. I have doubts that they've ever needed to so far.
Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:3, Interesting)
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
From a Thermodynamic perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
A Billion Degrees! Are you kidding me. Alright, lets use the good old First
Re:From a Thermodynamic perspective (Score:2, Informative)
Integrity Research Institute (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:Integrity Research Institute (Score:2)
Nonetheless. . . (Score:2)
Indeed. However, this is not to say that ALL approaches to this type of healing are invalid. For instance, Acupuncture employs electromagnetics in order to have its effects, (effects which are well documented and undisputed). --The need
Re:Integrity Research Institute (Score:2)
what a crock! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:what a crock! (Score:2, Insightful)
His ideas about government conspiracy are also spot on. Look at the US government. One conspiracy after another - and the biggest one revolves around oil reserves, and was sold on the next biggest one - WOMD.
I have no doubt that Dubya's team of neo-conservative swindlers and murder
DUDE (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
Several Billion dollars really isn't that much (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Byproducts (Score:2)
And it looks like it can be built as long as there's no "political" objection.
Re:Securing funding (Score:2, Troll)
I'm sorry but Shell, Exxon? That is the government.
Re:Securing funding (Score:2)
Frankly, I believe that if more countries made securing titty a national priority the world would be a happier place.
But the reality is this: whatever new technology for power production is introduced (unless it is so cheap and simple that it can be built in a garage and runs off tap water) will be owned (lock, stock and barrel), by the energy incumbents. They will spend any amount of money, buy all the laws (and lawmakers) necessary, in order to make sure it goes down that way
Re:Securing funding (Score:2)
If someone could make this work, they would beat out the energy Cos and become "rulers of the world" until someone figured out the specifics and posted them online... Like you state, someone is going to run this at some point, unless it is really simple and really cheap.
We apparently have hundreds of years of coal and natural gas, so why worry?
And we can make synthetic polymers from bio feedstocks (Cargill / Dow) it just costs too much. Pretty much anything from clothing fiber to hard plastic, from what I
Re:Securing funding (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about hydrogen (Score:2)
You take the excess energy from the fusion and split water to get the hydrogen. The hydrogen+boron11-> 3x helium + energy. The reaction would produce way more than enough energy to split measily chemical bonds for hydroge
Re:What about hydrogen (Score:2)
Re:What about hydrogen (Score:2)
Re:Of Plasmaks and Prizes (Score:2)
I just attended a talk on Tokamaks and ITER by one of the major guys working at a Tokamak on the west coast somewhere. It really gave me a lot of interesting information -- namely, that they hold a lot of promise. The US recently rejoined ITER, an international collaberation between China, Russia, Japan, the EU, France, and (I hear) soon India. [iter.org]
The goal of ITER is to construct a large Tokamak, and after that, a demonstration of the use
Re:Of Plasmaks and Prizes (Score:2)
Doesn't it make sense that government project managers would portray their technology as something that requires enormous scale and many years? They'll be retired with a fat pension by the time they are proven wrong -- if anything can be "proven" in an environment of politically volatile funding from year to year. They can always claim that they just weren't given enough money -- just like NASA does with the Shut
Re:Of Plasmaks and Prizes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Of Plasmaks and Prizes (Score:5, Funny)
no one ever called you a person who has done real work.
Re:Congressman Packard (Score:2)
People who lie and breath for a living are generally considered oxygen theives, not workers.
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
All he has done was to create a minor magnetic "pinch" in which the hydrogen was burned, but the boron contaminated the reaction, making it appear that it is a "cool" fusion.
Bottom line, he replicated a pair of h
Re:Let's self fund this (Score:2)
1. *nutshell42 vanishes for a year
2. Almost there just a bit more funding, another $50 perhaps and we will solve all energy problems and make lots'n'lots of money, really. 3. Rinse. Repeat.