Reply To: Barack Obama on Energy

[Rezwan]

First of all, does it violate any known laws of physics, in which case it’s really a science experiment.

That’s a strange statement. Science experiments are things that violate known laws of science? In any case, this was not a reference to focus fusion. The ideas behind it don’t violate laws of physics. The dpf does achieve fusion. The question is – can it be tweaked to achieve net energy with the modifications suggested by Lerner et al.

I think the Google folk are referring to the ever receding success line for fusion. A promising idea appears, but then as you get closer to making it happen, you discover that it’s much harder to do than you thought. This has occurred with the mainstream fusion community, laser & magnetic fusion. There is the risk of it’s occurring with the dpf. When they say here:

Fusion and cold fusion, for example, are both areas where we felt that we could not develop enough expertise. Furthermore, the amount of money that would be required to make real progress was prohibitive: if we put $10 million into something, well in a couple years they’d need another $50 million, and a couple years after that they’d need another $200 million and so on.

Cold fusion is superfluous. This statement applies to mainstream fusion. This is a problem faced by all fusion researchers.

Check out “Sun in a Bottle” – the definitive unrelenting, unyielding criticism of fusion research. I think the folks at Google read it. Oddly, the biggest problem the book sees with fusion research is the “wishful thinking” of fusion scientists. This, itself, bothered the author most of all.

Fair warning to not promise anything with focus fusion until AFTER the successful completion of proof of concept experiments.

But that book was interesting. Lots of paradoxes. We want to try to do on earth, what the sun does, without the mass. Pretty cheeky. Scientists who try to do this are derided as “wishful thinkers” and con artists for asking for money to try to do something very difficult. This is the mainstream folk I’m talking about. And, of course, the mainstream isn’t working with boron-proton fusion – which is an order of magnitude harder. So what does that make focus fusion?

[Actually, it makes focus fusion pretty interesting. The book is all about how scientists are failing while trying to stabilize and control the plasma (containing a sun in a bottle, of the title), while focus fusion is about leveraging the plasma’s own instabilities. It doesn’t violate any known laws – not much is known, actually. But because not much is known, this approach may turn out to not work, either. We can’t guarantee everything, and we can’t know until, of course, the proof of concept research is done.]

This book, rips fusion research to shreds and practically calls for the tarring and feathering of fusion scientists. However, at the beginning of the book, it says “In the long term, fusion is the only option.” However, by the end of the book, the author is so hopeless that he just seems to settle for fission energy.

This attitude toward fusion research is a real barrier to progress. Because the problem is so hard to solve, folks are not willing to apply resources to it, and just hoping for a miracle some time in the “long term”. If not wishful thinking, it’s wishful denial.

The fusion community needs to overcome this stigma. Perhaps by comparison to other things. For example, how much money has been spent to find a cure for cancer? And has a cure been found yet? How much is finding a cure for cancer worth? And, along the way of finding a cure, haven’t we learned that eating oranges and exercising is a good idea? Likewise the quest for fusion may take some work. Are we prepared to do that work? Is it worth it? And can we consume less energy and develop alternative energy sources along the way? Why do people single out fusion as “pie in the sky”. Curing cancer is also pie in the sky. We all get old and die. Why are we wasting money on that? Whatever reason you come up with – it should be similar for fusion.

The book was unfair towards fusion – because really, I see so much waste and fraud in other fields, and the fusion guys – they’re trying to solve a problem. Some of them crack under pressure, a few have been fraudulent – but not more so than any field. The quest marches on. Why isn’t it a priority? Possibly because we have plenty of energy in the US, and our military is fine at controlling access to oil. The people who would really benefit from energy – the rest of the world, have more immediate needs and no means to fund it…and so forth.

You know – we need a strategy meeting to talk about fusion perceptions. That should be the next meeting. Let’s set something up.