[Ivy Matt]

I’d love to see Bill Joy invest in fusion startups, particularly LPP, but he seems to have a thing for stealth investments. How would we know?

I wonder how much he’s researched fusion as a potential energy technology—hopefully he knows about more than just ITER and NIF. Still, he made no mention of nuclear fusion in the interview, so I’m not terribly optimistic.

Oh, and the announcer failed to mention vi. Must be an Emacs fan.

[Ivy Matt]

It was my understanding that the Polywell is not an ignition device which, as I understand it, means that the reaction never becomes self-sustaining, but must be sustained by the constant introduction of new ions and electrons into the device.

[Ivy Matt]

Update:

http://www.nwse.org/node/283

The Intel Northwest Science Expo was held yesterday. The students’ project, “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Focused with Electrostatic Focusing Lenses”, was chosen as a finalist for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held in Los Angeles, May 8-13. I still haven’t been able to find any details on the project beyond what I’ve posted so far.

[Ivy Matt]

Regarding the indie documentary angle:

http://www.137films.org/

Just a thought. They’re about to wrap up a documentary that will supposedly take an objective look at cold fusion. They’ve also done a documentary on Fermilab that was picked up by PBS.

[Ivy Matt]

There’s an interesting thread on fusion safety concerns in the Talk-Polywell forums.

[Ivy Matt]

I wouldn’t spend money for this game, but I was curious enough to do a few searches to see what I could find about it. The good news is that, yes, it is possible for you to develop fusion power. The bad news is that the technology appears to be the tokamak only, and apparently you can’t start building working reactors until around 2100. I’m not an expert, but I’d call that rather pessimistic.

[Ivy Matt]

Henning wrote: It’s a chance, not a detriment.

I think it could be either. Or neither. In my opinion, the main thing this situation has to do with nuclear fusion is that it’s a rather dramatic demonstration of what happens (and doesn’t happen) when you turn “off” a nuclear fission reactor, especially when the cooling system fails. One might be inclined to think that, because fusion requires ridiculously high temperatures (or kinetic energy of particles), that it’s even more dangerous than fission, and that a hypothetical fusion reactor will take longer to reach a safe state after shutdown than a fission reactor would. This event could be a chance if it helps more people to comprehend phrases like “critical mass”, “fissile material”, and “chain reaction”, and to understand why they don’t apply to nuclear fusion.

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[Ivy Matt]

I’m of several minds about the events going on at the Fukushima plant. Mostly I’m just dismayed at the number of things that could go wrong actually going wrong. At this point I just hope that none of the reactor core material actually finds its way to the ground, or into the ocean.

One thing that seems clear to me is that the drive to expand nuclear fission, which has been quite strong in recent years, is bound to lose steam (sorry about that ;-)) in the near future. Nuclear fission advocates will argue that the lesson to be learned from this is that we need to replace our aging nuclear power plants with newer, safer designs. There may be something to be said for that argument, but I don’t expect them to win it, as I expect public opinion regarding nuclear power (of any sort) to cool considerably.

So, where does that leave fusion? First of all, I’m not sure how effectively one could spin these events. The word “fusion” has come to mean many things over the years, but the kind of fusion we’re interested in here is nuclear fusion. And, yes, this type of fusion does produce radiation. Of course, so does the power source that solar power advocates would prefer to harness. Anyway, my point is that I think honest attempts at education will be more useful than attempts to avoid scary words like nuclear (having to do with the nucleus of an atom) and radiation (particles or electromagnetic rays emitted from energized atoms).

I think I should also point out that nuclear fission power has at least one clear advantage over nuclear fusion power: it exists. Nuclear fission can suffer a serious setback, but that’s probably not going to help nuclear fusion much if it continues to fail to reach breakeven. The only way it will help is if numerous bureaucrats and/or investors have a serious epiphany that now is the time to devote large funds to fusion research, and I’m not too optimistic that will happen just because of what’s going on at Fukushima.

All that said, controlled nuclear fusion, if it can be efficiently harnessed to provide electrical power, has clear advantages over controlled nuclear fission, and I think it’s important to get that message out. Michio Kaku compared the reactor core of the Fukushima Daiichi I plant to a car without brakes. Perhaps one could compare a fusion reactor to a car with its emergency brake always engaged. Nuclear fusion research may be long and frustrating, but the difficulty of sustaining the reaction is a clear benefit when it comes to safety.

Still, one has to expect that the safety mechanisms of any proposed fusion power plant design will be scrutinized carefully in the wake of Fukushima. Perhaps we should ask (and answer) the difficult questions first before the bureaucrats do.

[Ivy Matt]

The most significant points to me were:

1) The article for Physical Review Letters is currently being worked on, and will hopefully be submitted this month. It will discuss high ion energies and the evidence that the fusion neutrons are coming from the plasmoid.
2) Testing with hydrogen-boron is hoped to begin sometime this summer. (Given the delays so far, and what remains to be done with deuterium and nitrogen, I had expected this to happen no sooner than the fall. I still half-expect it to take that long, at least.)
3) (As reported by zapkitty:) Once hydrogen-boron is being burned, it sounds like we won’t hear much publicly (at least concerning specific numbers) until LPP is ready to publish.

I don’t recall hearing any updates on the status of the FF-1 upgrade, or specifics on what testing will be done in the next few months before the switch to hydrogen-boron.

[Ivy Matt]

zapkitty wrote: why pB&j and not D+D…

I believe that question was actually about why not p+Li7, p+F, or D+T. Lerner didn’t mention it, but tritium is rather difficult to get hold of, as it’s a highly-regulated (and dangerous) substance. Of course, you can always produce it yourself. But either way, it doesn’t make sense to use tritium for fusion research unless you have no hope of achieving breakeven with D+D, and you’re quite confident you’re close to breakeven with D+T. Even the tokamak people almost never use tritium in their experiments. After ITER is complete and well-tested (which should be some time between 2026 and never), then they’ll start using deuterium-tritium fuel.

[Ivy Matt]

I think Fusion Community is the best fit, even if these students were off most fusion researchers’ and enthusiasts’ radars until now. I don’t know that I’d call their device a contender until we know more about it (which I’m hoping will happen in a month). It’s achieved fusion on three occasions, but so can Farnsworth fusors, and most people don’t regard the conventional* Farnsworth fusor as a contender for break even.

*Funny how time (or familiarity) changes perspectives. Joan Lisa Bromberg in her 1982 book referred to Farnsworth’s device as “exotic”.

[Ivy Matt]

I would suggest that an aneutronic contender should be a device of which at least one physical iteration has actually been built and tested, and that reasonable extrapolation of the results of such tests suggests that at least the D+He3 reaction is feasible. Or, if that is too strict, at least a simulation of the device, or some sort of mathematical calculation, should demonstrate its potential feasibility. I would also suggest, particularly given the current paucity of threads in this particular forum, that it might be best to create a new thread to introduce each aneutronic contender and allow us to consider each one separately.

[Ivy Matt]

A few more details on the students’ device may be found here and here. According to those sources, it is a cylindrical device composed of plastic and aluminum. It receives its energy from a wall socket. It apparently electrostatically focuses a hydrogen beam at a target of frozen deuterium. I suppose it would be categorized as either beam-target or inertial confinement fusion. Given that the phrase “inertial confinement” appears in the title of their project, I guess I’ll go with ICF. The device has achieved fusion on three occasions so far.

The students won first place in the electrical and mechanical engineering category of the Beaverton Hillsboro Science Exposition, and will be going on to compete at the Intel Northwest Science Expo on April 1st.

An interesting note: one of the students was inspired by the movie Iron Man to develop his own fusion reactor.

[Ivy Matt]

vansig wrote: what’s the smallest of these reactors that produces greater than break-even?

From this article:

According to Levi, the input electrical power to ‘ignite’ the device was about 1250 watts for five to ten minutes. It was then reduced to about 80 watts, equivalent to the power consumption of the control unit.

So, if I’m not missing anything, even a 100-watt reactor should be over break-even if you run it for a day or more.

vansig wrote: can an individual buy one today?

No. Whether Rossi has investors and/or customers at this point is unclear, but according to this interview, the first customers will probably be industrial corporations. I would imagine the devices (or something) will be made available for purchase to select customers sometime between Defkalion’s announcement (probably in March) and the October deadline for the delivery of the first device.

vansig wrote: what is the parts list and cost?

The patent application describes the basic device. The interview linked to above mentions a price of $2000 per kW for the device. However, there are apparently some catalysts needed for the device to work whose nature has not been disclosed by Ing. Rossi.

vansig wrote: physical size and mass?

From the first article I linked to in this post, the mass is 30 kg, mostly from lead. I’m not sure of the exact size, but photographs of the device can be seen here and here. Tabletop fusion indeed—if it is fusion.

zapkitty wrote: They claim they are awaiting patent protection before proceeding.

If Ing. Rossi wants patent protection he will have to disclose more than he has disclosed so far.

EDIT: Changed patent application link from Rossi’s site (which now brings up a 403 error) to WIPO site. There’s also a US application here.

[Ivy Matt]

http://pesn.com/2011/02/14/9501766_Rossi_catalyzer_clarity_interview/

Rossi estimates an energy price of around 1¢ per kW/h using his device. Assuming it is actually shown to work, and work consistently, and that he is right about the cost, it would certainly be competitive with existing technologies.

According to Rossi the first 1MW devices are already under production in the US (by his own Leonardo Corporation, based in Bedford, New Hampshire), while Defkalion Green Technologies, based in Athens, Greece, will manufacture the first devices for the European market. Defkalion is supposed to make some sort of announcement, apparently in March. Rossi has set an October deadline for the delivery of the first device.

Well, I suppose we shall see what we shall see.

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