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The European Union has approved a UK proposal for a £500 M experimental fusion reactor. The project will be one of the new-fangled HiPER reactors, which uses a focused Petawatt laser to initiate a fusion reaction within a small pellet of fuel.
Fusion fuel, for those who don't know, is just deuterium, which can be made cheaply from sea water, and the only waste product is helium, which is inert and, frankly, in demand for industrial use. The plant is building on successes at an American military project that is expected to produce more energy than it consumes within the next five years.
That will be a first for fusion power, and possibly a first step toward a world of plentiful, pollution-free power. The British plant will use a less expensive method for generating power in roughly the same way. Experts are saying that, if this pans out, commercial scale fusion plants could be going online within 20 years and producing the majority of the world's energy in less than 50.
As always, fusion promises a great deal. I can't help but feel that it's worth every penny we throw at it, but I'm not placing any bets on a fusion-powered future just yet.
Via Times Online
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written by EV, September 04, 2007
I have inside info that is very reliable and multiply confirmed that validates the above story. I am not at liberty to say more. Expect a public announcement from the Navy in the coming weeks.
Reads just like a stock scam.
Reads just like a stock scam.
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written by weee recycling, September 04, 2007
I'm intrigued to find out more about this. Can anyone point me in the right direction, please...
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written by Darius, September 04, 2007
The project was canceled by the Navy do to budget cuts but the word is out that it will be founded again which if true is a very good news. This is a Polywell Fusion Reactor in a very interesting ground breaking design.
You can read up all you want at this forum
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/
and at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
You can read up all you want at this forum
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/
and at wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
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written by Darius, September 04, 2007
In the early 1970s Dr. Bussard became Assistant Director under Director Robert Hirsch at the Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division of what was then known as the Atomic Energy Commission. They founded the mainline fusion program for the United States: the Tokamak. Later, in June 1995, Bussard claimed in a letter to all fusion laboratories as well as to key members of US Congress, that he, along with the other founders of the program, supported the Tokamak not out of conviction that it was the best technical approach but rather as a vehicle for generating political support, thereby allowing them to pursue "all the hopeful new things the mainline labs would not try".
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written by Joel, September 04, 2007
Fusion gets that much more difficult if you only use deuterium. Difficult enough that they had trouble doing so for weapons, let alone reactors.
Most designs that I've seen also burn a particular isotope of lithium, which is converted to tritium when it absorbs neutrons from a deuterium-tritium reaction.
I hope that the Bussard reactor works, but personally I'm working in laser-driven fusion, and I agree it's quite difficult.
Most designs that I've seen also burn a particular isotope of lithium, which is converted to tritium when it absorbs neutrons from a deuterium-tritium reaction.
I hope that the Bussard reactor works, but personally I'm working in laser-driven fusion, and I agree it's quite difficult.
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Here is a better bet:
Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion
It has been funded:
Bussard Reactor Funded
I have inside info that is very reliable and multiply confirmed that validates the above story. I am not at liberty to say more. Expect a public announcement from the Navy in the coming weeks.
The above reactor can burn Deuterium which is very abundant and produces lots of neutrons or it can burn a mixture of Hydrogen and Boron 11 which does not
The implication of it is that we will know in 6 to 9 months if the small reactors of that design are feasible.
If they are we could have fusion plants generating electricity in 10 years or less depending on how much we want to spend to compress the time frame. A much better investment that CO2 sequestration.
BTW Bussard is not the only thing going on in IEC. There are a few government programs at the University of Wisconsin and at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana among others.