Fantastic news.

[Torulf]

The International Academy of Science would like to congratulate Dr. Robert Bussard and his team at Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation for winning the 2006 Outstanding Technology of the Year Award!

http://www.science.edu/nPX
http://www.science.edu/TechoftheYear/TechoftheYear.htm
http://www.science.edu/TechoftheYear/Finalists/Fusion/Fusion.htm

[Transmute]

I would not say it fantastic news. No my rejection of joy is not because this fusion technique has several inferior point to what DPF fusion could be, but because Dr. Bussard is in a jam for funding and is so close to proving (or disproving) a working fusion reactor, so close yet so far, $200 million so far, god why is the world so unfair?

[DaveMart]

It’s a bit much when the American Academy of Sciences says that this is the ‘only’ fusion reactor design which uses boron and doees not emit radiation – they don’t seem sufficiently well-informed to carry out their responsibilities.
Could someone please give me a run-down, which may also help other people without great echnical expertise, of focu fusions advantages over this technology?
Regards,
DaveMart

[Transmute]

DaveMart, assuming both technologies actually prove or are made feasible, DPF fusion has several advatages: a DPF could be much smaller… well at least ligher at anywhere beteen ~5-30m long, but only ~2m wide at the reactor and only ~.3m wide at the decelerator ends, Bussard’s inertial confined reactor would be about the size of a 50MW light water fission reactor or very roughly 10m by 20m cylinder (not including sheilding or steam turbines). Bussard’s ICR relies on conventional steam carnot cycle cooling and power generation which is far less efficient (only 30-40%) then what DPF fusion claims with direct linear decelerators of 60-80%, also steam turbines are claimed to be more expensive then linear decelerators. Price tag are claimed to be $.5M for a DPF fusion plant at 5MW and $200M for a 50MW Bussard’s ICR. Bussard’s ICR has the advantage that it is up-scalable with power outputs anywhere beyond 50MW (but not smaller as the reactor would end up energy negative) this is not much of a advantage as you can just make a array of DPF fusion reactors to compensate. Bussard’s ICR also has the advantage that it is much closer to reality if the data Bussard presented is true: so of both of these technologies DPF fusion is theoretically better, but Bussard’s ICR is more likely.

Refreance: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

[DaveMart]

I probably misunderstood, but I thought that Bussard was saying on the video that the actual reaction vessel was only 2.5 meters across – of course the advantages you mention of the direct conversion by a linear accelarator of energy is accurate as against steam conversion, and the ff would have the advantage of being operable at for les than 50MW.
Regards,
DaveMart

[DaveMart]

Yeah, the actual reactor is 2.5-3 meters across:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=bussard+fusion&spell=1
The good news seems to me to be that as soon as someone decides to put money into either focus fusion, or the bussard process, then a lot of other people are going to start thinking that perhaps they should try the alternative – so IMHO this actually increases the chance of raising funding for focus fusion – another opportunity to break the funding logjam.
Regards,
DaveMart

[Transmute]

DaveMart,

That the size of the polygon electrostatic/magnet container, you have to include the walls of the vacuum or support structure. Removing everything but the actual reactor device its self and a DPF fusion reactor is the size of a coffee can (at least that what the people of this site claim). Still I would love to see any aneutronic fusion work.

[DaveMart]

Here is the transcript of the lecture by Bussard:
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf
There is discussion of it on the forums here:
http://fusor.net/board/index.php?site=fusor&bn=
Apparently Bussard has provided sufficient technical info so that others may readdily copy his work.
You also do not necessarily need to use a steam generator to get power from it:
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/school/InterStellar/Explorer_Class/Bussard_Fusion_systems.HTML
I am very interested in the evaluations of the technically able members of this forum – it’s all magic to me! 😉
Regards,
DaveMart

[Torulf]

The Bussard system is more limited than DPF. It

[DaveMart]

The Bussard system is more limited than DPF. It

[Transmute]

Well the problem is that Bussard reactor is spiting out fusion products in all directions, or at least in the six directions permitted by the holes in the toroid magnets of the polygon electrostatic confinement device, so to use a direct converter you would need at least six decelerators sticking out of it like a giant jackstone, or a very large magnetic funnel to aim the particles into a smaller number of decelerators.

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