A Spark of Hope for Fusion

What a colossal waste of resources it is to develop another fusion reactor when we have one well situated and ready to be put to use--the Sun.  Why re-invent the wheel and than try to build something that can use that wheel. We already have the wheel. We only need to make use of it--the Sun.
The problem is not energy generation but rather energy utilization. The Sun provides earth with more than enough potential energy for our use today and in the foreseeable future with the cost being only the price of converting the solar energy into usable energy be it electrical, mechanical, thermal etc.
At the same time, the use of the solar energy would contribute to a reduction in the Sun's heating of Earth.
Once the fusion reactor is "perfected" by these lab rats, there will still be the present problem of converting the nuclear energy.
If the trillions being invested and to be invested in developing a fusion reactor were spent to build devices to convert the solar energy, fossil fuel utilization would sink like the Titanic. 

Actually, about 2-10, depending on what you count. Distinct from the approaches mentioned above, though with family resemblances to Bussard's work, the Focus Fusion group ( http://focusfusion.org ) has just received enough current and ongoing funding to do a couple of year's intensive work (about as much as a toroidal research group would spend in a few hours, $1.2 million) which should have a proof-of-concept reactor doing better than break-even with micro-burst pB11 (proton-Boron11) reactions (at about 330/sec., within a hollow anode cylinder smaller than your thumb). With its shielding and electrical housing, etc., the whole rig will be about the size of a home garage, and output about 5MW continuously, with a few days down time once or twice a year for servicing and re-fueling. No waste or stray radiation or radioactive components generated, and output should be nicely profitable at about ¼¢/kwh.

Within 10 years, licensed factories should be turning out thousands of generators on every continent, to be trucked and installed wherever desired.

The consequences will be electrifying. World-wide. Long before your toddler finishes high school, or maybe even grade school.

And one truly wonders why an all-out, Manhattan-Project like effort is not already being funded. The ITER project is more than 10 years away from something that sort of resembles a viable model for a commercial reactor. What the US should do is start pumping tens of billions every year into our own crash fusion program  – NOW. Then we can license it to ITER after we pass them up.

Another alternative is make this into an “X-Prize” project. Offer 100 billion to the first team that creates a system that can sustain and do N% above breakeven.

Dr. Orbis

You have it right!  Now can we convince our leaders that we need fusion?  We should follow Sir David King's advice given in the NEW SCIENTIST April 10, 2004 "Fast Forward to Fusion"

In the book “The World is Flat” Tom Friedman asks for a vigorous plan to counter global warming.  He suggests the Apollo moon landing program as the model for an energy development program.

This note is to alert you to the publication of my book “Global Warming Can Be Conquered” (ISBN 07 414 426 8 X). This book answers Mr. Friedman’s request. 

In the book I justify the need for, and outline an ambitious plan for a new energy infrastructure called the Renewable-Fusion-Hydrogen (RFH) Energy System.  This system offers TOTAL elimination of the emission of fossil carbon by 2050. It is NOT the 80% reduction by 2050, currently under discussion.  The 80% reduction in carbon dioxide may slow warming but is inadequate to protect the biosphere for more than a few decades.  RFH Energy System has the potential to push critical warming off for several centuries and in the interim provides all nations with energy independence.   

My goal is to develop world wide interest in implementing the RFH Energy System.  If you think the RFH Energy System makes sense please help me promote it by encouraging everyone you know to support its implementation. You can help by simply forward this note to everyone on your contact list, or if you buy the book lend it to others. 

We must commence dramatic reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide within the next few years.  If you have an alternate plan, promote it and if it is better than RFH energy I will help promote your system.  We need to act! 

You can review a brief outline of the system on my web site at:

www.endtoglobalwarming.com

You can send me a note at my e-mail address lowilliams@msn.com 

or place one on my blog at:

http://energyindependence.home.services.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

You can buy the book “Global Warming Can Be Conquered” (ISBN 07 414 426 8 X) from the publisher for $19.95 at: www.bbotw.com 

What if Bussard daisy chained his electrostatic confinement units? Then, he could attach secondary magnetic bubbles as exhaust valves to each section in the chain. These exhaust valves, if opened and shut quickly enough, can allow enough energy to escape for heating water, but not so much that you melt the hardware or blow the whole compund into the sky. Having a greater number of valves increases the ammount of energy you can harvest from an individual reaction, boosting effiecieny. Also, by dissipating energy this way, you are pacing the rate of energy buildup at the same time that you are harvesting the energy, thus reducing the the average ammount of energy required for containment at the end of the cycle.

Next, if you use the pulse fusion technology described in this article to generate the reactions, you gain an extra ammount of control over the system. This part of the process will allow you to pace the initial energy generation. And, since both technolgies are dependent on electricity, you can connect both elements in serial. By doing that, when an electrostatic confinement bubble in the chain fails, the circuit is broken and the pulse-generated fusion reactions discontinue immediately. Of course, if the bubble failed during a reaction, which is the most likely case, you might not have a power plant any more....

I'm sure that leakage flaws in the bubbles would be a serious problem, too. You would have to do some very rigourous quality testing on every production unit before using it to build a reactor. That could be done done with much weaker radient energy sources, than actual fusion, though.

It sounds like you haven't read any of the material available on IEC fusion. First,in reality fusion has nothing to do with temperature. Fusion cross section curves top out at high velocities--Monstrosities like ITER, which use temperature to increase average particle velocity to the highest part of the cross section curve, do indeed have confinement problems with hot, neutral plasma.

The whole point of IEC is limiting the majority of the plasma to a highly charged cloud of electrons in the center (acting as a virtual anode). Then you get the fuel particles  (a minority of the plasma) to the required velocities by electrostatic acceleration from the virtual anode. There's much less problem confining electrons with a magnetic field than a neutral plasma.

lschuber

Explosions? Are you sure you are talking about nuclear BOMBS and not reactors?
The whole point is to contain plasma and the products of the reactions.

And we already use neutrons in fission reactors, and guess what, they work! They are trapped by water that turns to steam, that spins turbines that spins a generator that creates electric power. Also, advanced fuels will not have neutrons.

gary7

The reason why no one is really interested, is because Dr.Bussard didn't give the papers detailing his work. Without those, we have nothing but a few non-scientific (as in not going into the scientific details) papers hazy of details to base an opinion. Definitely not enough for the attention of scientific community or governments.
It's not so much as media silence as "the dude is still working on it".

And the paper isn't as surprising either, stuff like this take months to write, and Dr.Bussard has allot of data to work out.

garygromet

Photovoltics are only good as secondary power source. They can greatly cheapen the bills, but they are incapable of supplying the civilized world alone.

And photovoltics may actually be the best option, others are increasingly more ineffective, which is bad considering that the top a photovoltic cell can archive is 40% (in laboratories mind you, not in commercial use).

Beyond that, solar power is only continuous in space, while on Earth the 1/3 or more of its power is gone due to atmosphere. Solar cells are also very expensive and rather fragile.

Oh, and Earth gets allot of sunlight, enough to power the world? Well only if you place solar panels all over the Earth's surface, including cities, farm fields and oceans. They take allot of space, space that can much more useful purposes, like farms of woods.

The main problem with solar is that its a diffuse energy source, that and the fact that it has many practical problems.

The only waste of money and time I see is trying to tap into an immensely diffuse energy source with ineffective tools at the expense of land, at a price that not even the most richest countries in the world can afford, to get a little energy that can be several times gained by a few grams of plutonium.

Beyond that, repeating what you already said will make you more look stupid. Are you stupid?

rhapsodyinglue

Dr.Bussard is a nuclear physicist, over 60 years old, worked for various respected offices and companies in the USA, and he too worked on the Tokamak. If he doesn't know, then neither does the guys trying to run that white elephant called ITER.

All the problems you mentioned are the problems of ITER, not z-pinch or IEC. Injecting fuel is the easy part, the parts necessary are in your cathode-ray-tube TV or monitor (if you still have one), which "heat up" the fuel more then enough, enough even for p-B11 fusion.

And building the "metals" isn't the problem, its putting in enough lithium-6 and li-7 to cover the wall and generate tritium. Also, with more advanced fuels, neutrons won't be a problem (as there will be little to none neutrons to speak of).

zippo

If one condition of the fusion doesn't work, then there will be simply no fusion. If the reactor fails, then there is no fusions, just hot plasma, which is relatively easy to dispose of.
If confinement fails, you'll get super-hot plasma that will burn the chamber walls, perhaps a bit more, but that's it. If there is a leakage then it will won't work in the first place or if there is a leakage midway, then the air will cool down the plasma. There might be a reactor fire, perhaps some radioactive elements that goes into the building's air, but the power plant won't blow up sky high (in fact, there is no nuclear reactor that could by the nuclear reaction alone, at Chernobyl it was the graphite reacting with water).

This is a reactor, not a bomb. Know the difference.

As for being hungry, well, I'm not the only one. Guess what we will run out, and what we will be forced to use? It's not berries and wine.


Oh, and let me recommend this site: http://www.fusor.net/
People are making fusion reactors in their basements and garages below 3000$.