Magnetized target fusion

[Breakable]

Discover Magazine – Dark Horse Fusion Lab Might Win Race

[AaronB]

That was a great article, except they forgot to mention our project. But I have to agree with the premise of the article, that a dark horse fusion lab might win the race.

[tcg]

Since I am a subscriber to Discover Magazine, I read this article when it first came out. Immediately, I sent a letter to the editor suggesting that there were other, unmentioned “dark horse” projects which might have better chances of achieving success. I highlighted LPP and the progress to date, but it was not printed, and there was no response. There have been other letters to other persons and institutions with the same, subdued result.

I have come to the conclusion that in this game achievements often don’t matter — not routine fusion of Deuterium for over a year, not one billion degrees, not steady progress. In the Discover article, paragraphs 4 and 5 unintentionally reveal a critical fact about this game that might need some consideration.

The Tokamak will cost $20 billion, NIF has already burned up $3.5 billion, but Glen Wurden’s project weighs in at less than 4 million, and even though he thinks he has a fair chance at success, he resists any comparisons with the larger projects. The unconscious attitude expressed here points to an important fact.

From birth Americans are trained to evaluate everything in terms of money. The more it costs, the better it is. In this process, they confuse value with price. Talking to friends investing in the stock and commodity markets has uncovered a great reluctance to buy anything when the price is down because “cheap” is disreputable for them. They prefer to buy when the price is high because they think they are buying value. These people will also tell me that “buy low and sell high” will make money, but they can’t do it, and they loose money consistently.

Therefore, the Tokamak is a “great” project because it is “worth” $20 billion. This great wad of probably wasted money will attract more money until the project collapses. So where does that leave LPP?

I believe that LPP has sparse funding not for reasons based on technology, but more on psychology. Potential funding sources would take a look and ask “how much is it worth”. The stream of cash gets the blood flowing for these folks, not a stream of helium nuclei. And so, LPP has sparse funding because the funding has been sparse. How to break out.

This is the part where I am bound to get yelled at, the Machiavellian part. I feel that a measure of cleverness in a a good cause should at least be considered. . . .

If the impression could be given that funding is sufficient, even abundant, it would probably attract more attention than if net electricity had been produced. The perception of fund raising ability could incite more, a technique used all the time in the business world. If a measure of exclusivity was exercised, it would be like ringing Pavlov’s dinner bell. Much care would be necessary, but nothing breeds success like the impression of success.

I have been somewhat reluctant to post this comment. I know that many readers would think that such psychological warfare should be beyond those interested in advancing science, but we are swimming with sharks here, and not with guppies.

[zapkitty]

Unfortunately all that happens then is that the sharks who make money off of sharks raising money thank you for eliminating the middleman and take you darker than black with clever, clever fundraising instruments… while eating you alive and telling you that things are going swimmingly.

And they won’t be lying in that regard… things will indeed be going swimmingly… for them.

[Rezwan]

Aside from being unethical, I don’t think it’s necessary. You can be up front about the uncertainty and yet gain support for fusion – See post on Tyson and the need to make stuff up to advance research.

Meanwhile the Discover article shows how easily fusion scientists turn off any potential funders. Glen Wurden, the guy with the “Dark Horse” concludes with:

If someone tells you we’ll have fusion energy in three years, that is not going to happen. Even if you want to solve the energy problem in the next 30 years, fusion is not the answer, and I say that as a fusion scientist. If you want to solve it in the 50-100 year time scale, yeah, I think it is the answer. I like to ask other physicists, ‘How many miracles do you need for your concept to work?’ There isn’t a single concept that doesn’t need an engineering miracle or two or three. Not one. But if you can count the number of miracles on one hand, you might say your concept is viable – you only need one handful of miracles. That’s where fusion research is: How many miracles do you need?

I’ve talked to Glen about this. He’s not saying that fusion won’t work – but that it’s not the solution to the energy crisis, because that’s a short term problem. Energy crisis is happening NOW, and fission is ready now. Fusion’s going to take some time. They may get LIFE and ITER to work in some decades – but it will be very expensive. And he’s not sure if his own MTF will ultimately work. But he’s dedicating his life to getting it to work.

By and large, this is what fusion scientists are like. They are committed to solving this issue, but pretty humble about it.

In contrast, the public, Congress, everybody else, just wants their reactor, now. And they’d like someone else to pay for the research, and they don’t want to bother with speculative ideas. All have a vague idea that it’s really expensive, so they don’t see the merit of small donations and small projects.

We just have to keep working at building a fusion-funding culture. Build a respect for the problem, and help people see themselves as explorers supporting exploration rather than consumers of the finished energy product. Also break down the larger fusion endeavor into smaller, affordable projects.

Footnote on Wurden’s predictions. Last year I called and spoke with him about that paragraph. He was pretty firm on the idea that the energy crisis is a short term problem and he recommended fission. For fusion you need long term commitment. Then he critiqued NIF and explained what they were up against to extract useful energy. At the FPA conference, after listening to Michael Dunnes’ presentation on LIFE, it seemed that a lot of Wurden’s criticisms were answered. And indeed, I caught up to Wurden and Dunne talking about it afterwards and Wurden was acknowledging that the LIFE team may actually be on to something. But he left it at: “Send me those papers. Show me the data”. Or words to that effect. This was thrilling to me because it suggests that LIFE may actually have a commercial reactor in 20 years.

And that could raise confidence in the possibility of fusion. Confidence, let’s face it, has been lacking. With confidence should come more interest in trying other approaches. If it’s doable one way, it may be doable, cheaper, others. A win in any fusion effort will lead to more exploration – to an improved fund and investment-raising environment.

But even the NIF guys are careful to say, “Either it will work, or we’ll discover some interesting physics.” Something that the public, Congress, investors, just don’t like to hear.

[Aeronaut]

I agree with tcg’s basic premise, and will extend it to my conclusion that we need to develop the infrastructure of companies that will profit enormously by supplying and servicing a mass market for garage-sized fusion generators which can power villages, at prices that almost any business can afford. The political clout of that much of the economy is enormous- and could be more than enough to overcome that of the old-line energy special interests and the greenies who clean up cleaning up after the staus quo. The longer the timeframe, the surer the balance of power can shift, until it reaches the tipping point.

[Matt M]

It appears to me that several different dark horses may have successful concepts. But, the ability to control, concentrate and optimize the plasma is going to be the key to achieving Net Power.

[Author]

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