Reply To: Bill Gates

[Glenn Millam]

Just to second Reswan’s comments, solar and wind power demand very high capital costs for the machines and the real estate necessary to harvest enough energy to meet global needs. Also, not all sites on the planet are good for each technology.

Hydro power is pretty limited; in the US most of the sites for hydro are already being utilized (unless you feel like damming places like the Grand Canyon). Other countries with hydro power in their energy arsenal have ran into similar problems. Add to that the silting that results in the man-made lakes that provide the power, you’ll find that hydro is a limited solution with a limited life span. The silting reduces the lakes water-holding capacity, eventually reducing water pressure to the point of being uneconomical.

Of the three, wind is the most promising, and we should be doing more of it than we are, but it has its problems too, as I previously mentioned. It would be great in South Dakota. It would suck in NY state.

Focus fusion power is fusion, not fission. No uranium or plutonium. It does not use radioactive fuel, instead it fuses non-radioactive fuel at super-high temperatures. Because of this, it is worthless for producing a thermonuclear weapon. It produces almost-zero nuclear waste, most in the form of x-rays. It generates electricity directly, thus giving the best (theoretical) power generation/fuel consumption ratio of any technology ever invented. The fuel, plain hydrogen and boron, is so plentiful that the Earth itself has about a billion years of it, and as the technology can also be used to power engines for spacecraft, in a billion years I am sure we can figure out how to get even more just from the local solar system. And to top it all off, a reactor can fit into a building the size of a garage.

What this adds up to is this: permanent, clean, environmentally friendly, super-cheap energy that can be made in huge quantities wherever you want it. No more fossil fuels, no more Yucca Mountains, no more Global Warming. Also no more people dying because of heat, cold, lack of water, and lack of food, because with unlimited power, you can do miraculous things. This is why this project is so important.