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Sent to Aaron the 30 second video this morning (10/19), composed from Eric’s presentation. Storyboards/slides don’t have emotional charge. Your entry will be shown/voted on by millions of mostly non/semi-technical people you can only reach emotionally. Also, you can only introduce and “pound in” one idea effectively in 30 seconds, so I’ve chosen:

Focus Fusion: The Fastest Route to Cheap Clean Energy

and the “how:” It concentrates energy to produce fusion. (I know this is a simplification of a simplification).

Trust this is helpful!

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Not that I know of :coolsmirk:

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Thank you for your effort! 🙂

I think Eric Lerner or someone from his staff is the right person to fine-tune it and to decide about the video.

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The best promo video is Eric Lerner’s Google Tech Talks video – I can create a 30 sec version of it with his permission / guidance.

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Thank you for the explanation.

Is it possible that they haven’t reported any progress for six years because of having a strategic partner in a large aerospace company which could use their technology for high-kinetic energy anti-missile beams? They do claim to have this “strategic partner in a large aerospace company.”

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Sorry but I’m not a plasma fusion scientist. Please explain.

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You might want to check out Electron Power Systems – they seem to have a similar approach to FF.

http://www.electronpowersystems.com/

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This just in from SlashDot:

+– ——————————————————————+
| Cool/Weird Stuff To Do On a Cluster? |
| from the whose-merest-operational-parameters-i-am-not-worthy-to-c|
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 24, @19:09 (Supercomputing) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/24/221246 |
+——————————————————————–+

Gori writes “I’m a researcher at a university. Our group mainly does
Agent Based Modeling of interdisciplinary problems (think massive
simulations where technology, policy, and economics meet). Recently, we
managed to get a bunch of money for a High Performance Cluster to run our
stuff on. The code is mostly written in Java. Our IT support people are
very capable of setting up a stable cluster that will run Java perfectly.
But where’s the fun in that? What I’m trying to figure out are other,
more far-out and interesting things to do with this machine

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I don’t see why it would not apply, based on the proposed allocation here: http://www.science.doe.gov/ascr/INCITE/

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Rezwan – thanks for the follow-up. Looks like this might be some good old-fashioned “FUD marketing” from Toshiba and Co. until they can actually deliver.

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The only corroboration of some substance I could find is on Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galena_Nuclear_Power_Plant

which puts the place of the first US installation in Galena, Alaska around 2012. Toshiba would provide the whole system free, bringing the cost of operation down to around 10 cents/KWh.

Toshiba may have the 4S ready for sale now; the cost and length of getting it licensed in the US could account for the 4-year delay. They can find other, much less restrictive markets in the meantime. However, it doesn’t look like they can produce electricity at 6 cents/KWh. Neither can focus fusion till it goes into production.

I’ve come across another approach, called the “Microfusion Electricity Generator,” at:

http://www.electronpowersystems.com/

I’d like to hear your and other members’ take on it.

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That means the government can keep secrets much better than we are led to believe…the noise “proving” it couldn’t be done was overwhelming.

Either way, we have the track record, i.e. the Manhattan and Apollo programs, so if we just declare we’ll have a working fusion energy plant in 4 years and put enough money behind it, everybody would believe it.

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I’m sure it’s not a question of “if” but “when” focus fusion or similar fusion technologies become feasible and commercialized.

There is a psychological component everybody seems to miss and which makes us pay $100/barrel of oil. “Everybody knows” we’ll have abundant and cheap energy in 20-30 years. If we were able to declare NOW that in 3 years we’ll have a working, commercializable fusion plant, it would change the psychology / dynamics of the marketplace. Reagan’s “Star Wars” didn’t have to succeed right away (we have it now, 20 years later) it just had to change perceptions. It did and communism is dead, for all practical purposes.

As soon as we announce a working fusion technology we’ll have cheap energy again, end inflationary pressures, and stop financing global terror.

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Society also builds a tax structure on products and services and that’s especially true for gasoline and other oil-based fuels. So an abrupt switch to truly cheap and inexhaustible energy sources, such as fusion, could result in massive losses of tax revenue, unless a corresponding $N/KW hour tax is made “part of the package.”

As far as being concerned about bringing the whole world up to advanced-world standards of living at the outset, we might want to go by the technology adoption curve. That means early adopters will (have to) be well off for practical reasons. That leaves, for focus fusion, regions like North America, Europe, Japan/S.Korea/China and Australia, if we want to accelerate development and commercialization, as I think we must. In business I always “overplay” competitive threats, to stay ahead come what may. So I’d strive to beat Toshiba’s claim of 5 cents per kilowatt hour and at least triple the funding to gain time too. I realize it is easy for me to “at least triple funding requirements” when we don’t even have the original funding in place. Maybe asking for “too little” to develop such a profoundly significant technology is a handicap, while 30 – 60 – 100 million would actually be taken seriously?

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The history of technology is full of “good enough” solutions becoming dominant. Toshiba’s (or anyone else’s) reactor doesn’t have to be perfect, i.e. it can produce some radioactive waste. Other countries (France, Japan, etc. come to mind) safely reprocess and/or dispose of radioactive waste. Nuclear power in the US, even with the overzealous regulatory burden, is cheaper than most other energy sources, so I wouldn’t dismiss the claim of 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Even if it were 10 cents, it will be available next year.

I’m all for a perfect solution like focus fusion. I just want to make sure it has a chance. It won’t if it takes 10 years to develop and commercialize. The days are over when we can take our sweet time….

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