Reply To: FUSION Power for SHIPPING [] NO Co,Co2 Emission;No Oxgen Depletion ;NOx is absobed[]No Damage to Environment.

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote:

I’m trying to sift from what you write the answer to my question: “what is to be gained with public support and awareness?” It is very hard to sell a concept to the non-conceptual public, or to businesses. You, and to some extent Rezwan, seem to be prepared to have the Society batter its brains out trying to do both. For what? Eric’s research will or will not succeed. If it succeeds, it will be easy to attract potential early adopters to fund $3-5Million worth of engineering refinement.

My motivation: “Eric’s research will or will not succeed.”

If it does not: We still have a lot of work to do. The concept of aneutronic fusion is interesting to me. It may be harder to achieve. Eric may be on his proverbial first light bulb. It may take two more, five more, 700 more attempts. We may go through this two years and not achieve it, but get a better understanding.

In any case, the concept of aneutronic fusion is inherently compelling. Clean nuclear energy. One way or another, it must be achieved. Part of my drive for public support is to get people to see that this is a door we (humanity) need(s) to batter down – something that human ingenuity must be applied to.

That’s why the focus of educational outreach is both on the concept of aneutronic fusion and on the issues around fostering innovation and experimentation in key areas, even if it seems too difficult. Or impossible.

It’s like that Sufi tale:

The Mullah is looking around outside his house.
A neighbor stops and asks, “what are you looking for”?
“I’ve misplaced my keys.”
So the neighbor helps him look. Now they are both looking around in the street.
“So, around where did you lose them?”
“In the basement.”
“The basement? Then why are we looking out here in the street?”
“There’s more light here”.

Right now, aneutronic fusion is in the basement of human consciousness. We’ve only got a handful of people trying to crack it. Everyone else finds it too difficult, so they’re up on the street rummaging around energy dead end compromises like oil and hydro and conservation and nuclear fission.

This frustrates me. Aneutronic fusion is the “holy grail” of energy. So we need to get busy. It’s the true energy challenge of our generation, and I don’t see us putting the appropriate amount of attention into it.

Clean, cheap, abundant energy forever. Won’t happen by itself.

So, my motivation is that I’m in this for the long haul. The outreach and education is insurance – encouragement to keep making it happen. If Eric doesn’t get it right away, I still want people working toward it.

But, ideally, Eric will crack aneutronic fusion in the next two years with the DPF and his innovations.

That brings us to scenario 2. Success! Fusion age! I’m not sure how well humanity will handle it. I have a bit of fear about the whole transition.

At least we all need some warning, and some time to think things through. This is the other motivation for outreach: to lessen the shock a bit. By the time it happens, I want people to feel it’s long overdue. As it could happen in 2 years, that’s not much time.

Also, I’m just trying to wrap my own head around the possibilities. Which makes this all speculative thought experiment.

In a sense, this is naive. Human ability to predict anything is sketchy, at best. The black swan that would be unleashed with fusion – well, these meager attempts to contemplate it seem pretty weak.

So, two contrasting motivations based on the outcome of success or failure.

Interesting thoughts! Are you familiar (I am somewhat sketchy on them, though I’ve read a bit of their material) with the Bussard Polywell steady-state confinement attempts to do p-B fusion? I believe they’re working with a $10m cheque-book in hand or SLT, and have made claims of being ready to go into production in about 10 years. I don’t personally believe steady-state fusion can be sustained with human-scale containment, much less aneutronic steady-state. Some version of the nano-pulsing FF uses seems to me to be the only feasible way forward.

Brian H.

P.S. Here is Polywell’s budget projection:

EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation has been formed as a charitable research
and development organization in frontier energy technologies with emphasis on fusion.

Fusion R&D;Phase 1 – Validate and review WB-6 results:
1.5 – 2 years / $3-5M

Fusion R&D;Phase 2 – Design, build and test full scale 100 MW Fusion System:
5 years / $200M

Successful Phase 2 marks the end of fossil fuels