Fusion quest goes forward (EMC2 Fusion News)

[Zachstar]

Emc2 Fusion's Richard Nebel can't say yet whether his team's garage-shop plasma experiment will lead to cheap, abundant fusion power. But he can say that after months of tweaking, the WB-7 device "runs like a top" - and he's hoping to get definitive answers about a technology that has tantalized grass-roots fusion fans for years.

With $1.8 million in backing from the U.S. Navy, Nebel and a handful of other researchers have been following up on studies conducted by the late physicist Robert Bussard before his death last October - studies that Bussard said promised a breakthrough in fusion energy.

Nebel, who is on leave from Los Alamos National Laboratory, picked up Bussard's mantle at Emc2 Fusion Development Corp. in Santa Fe, N.M., and is trying to duplicate the results that were reported from the last machine Bussard built. The WB-6 device supposedly worked by setting up a high-voltage electrical field that was configured in just the right way to get ions slamming into each other, creating a fusion-fueled plasma.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/12/1136887.aspx

[Zachstar]

1. For those wondering what the heck is EMC2 fusion.

http://www.emc2fusion.org/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606 (Old video prior to refunding)

As ITER will likely not work well and even if it does will not even start test runs for quite possibly another decade. We must look at alternative projects. In my view this is the best. Because it is as close as we have gotten to clean fusion yet. And without the problems of heat fusion these plants will be MUCH safer.

[lapfog_1]

5. Thanks for the video link

When I worked at NASA Ames in the 80's and 90's we sponsored these type of "tech talks" and attracted any number of interesting scientists, some famous and most not, good to see Google continuing this Silicon Valley tradition. One of the most interesting talks I attended was one given by Richard Feynman. Overflow crowd, it was one of his last talks in his life, and he told stories about lock picking at Los Alamos and a bit on his time on the NASA Challenger panel and some on physics.


I wonder if the people in the audience at Google (especially the ones dumping out early) have any idea that they were talking to one of our last physics legends... Bussard ramjet! I read about that when I was a teen and reading every SciFi book I could lay my hands on. Jesus.

I have/had given up on fusion riding to the rescue as in my lifetime, it just doesn't seem to be getting to a place where we could even think about commercial application. There was that brief flurry of interest when the cold fusion scam/mistake/? from the Univ. of Utah in 1989... but then it drifted back into the "big science... billions of dollars... no progress" pigeonhole in my mind.

The Google founders should have walked in and handed him a check for $50M.

One of them (Sergey Brin) just announced that he is spending $20M or so for a ride to the space station next year. Funding Bussard might get him a tourist flight to Mars in 25 years... along with all the other things (save the planet from global warming / economic stability / food production / etc etc) that cheap clean fusion would bring about. Sigh.

[Zachstar]

8. Sadly Bussard has passed away but his legacy does live on.

Ask any trekkie what the glowing thing on the tips of the nacelle is on the Enterprise. They will tell you instantly it is a Bussard collector. And even tho the ramscoop wont work it did install interest in spaceflight in the hearts of millions.

Cold Fusion left a very bad taste in the mouth of the public that only success with this can break. Even tho cold fusion has been proven to work now (Just not enough for power generation yet) It still a barrier that I hope will be destroyed.

The Navy is funding EMC2 research now. And they are damn smart to do so! What do you think makes railguns work? To lob an earthquake round hundreds of miles will take on hell of a charge. And you may need to do it going REALLY fast. (Can't do that when you have to run a generator) Also the skyrocketing cost of fuels is causing Navy bills to skyrocket.

Phase 1 is about to be complete. And the fury of the political candidates and the net will QUICKLY urge the Navy to quickly fund phase two. Trust me when the peer review team publishes their report there will be activity ALL OVER the MSM and Blogs.

[madokie]

2. it'll be good when and if it happens

I'll not be holding my breath in the meantime though

[Zachstar]

3. I am

Because of the way oil prices are growing I do not think we have time to get effectively on any other source before it becomes extremely difficult. Even for Obama.

I do not like the idea of even MORE coal plants going online while we fiddle fart with other tech.

[Zachstar]

4. Kick

[Vogon_Glory]

6. From Little Things

I am one of those liberal arts majors who has watched various spokespeople pop up, talk about the glorious potential of fusion power, then watched them sink out of sight again for decades now. The fusion plant designs depicted in popular science magazines were always these huge, hulking things that looked hideously complicated and expensive. What was even more scary were secondary reports that electric utility honchos were willing to build them, but mainly to use them for boiling water to run steam turbines.

I've long wondered if the RIGHT way to go about making fusion power practical would be to use the laws of nature to develop something far smaller, far cheaper, and far more practical.

Still, I've been disappointed for over thirty years. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the Emc2 guys to come up with a real-life "Mister Fusion" table-top fusion reactor.

[Zachstar]

7. The goal is not Mr. Fusion its normal sized reactors that small cities can run.

And this is not a hit emotions and run fusion project. The aspects leading to this point have been in work for decades now. So this isn't anything new.

And yes normal heat fusion does involve boiling water so you already know what a collosial waste of fuel that will be for such as ITER.

EMC2 however has a goal of Pb11 which is likely a decade away but will mean direct to current with very little neutron production.