Fusion, eh?

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Hmmm, : http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_announce&key=1143684406

Look at what dude wrote it, yes, that's the real Robert Bussard, of Bussard ramjet fame. I wonder if this is on the level?

[SirPhilip]

Hmmm, : http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_announce&key=1143684406

Look at what dude wrote it, yes, that's the real Robert Bussard, of Bussard ramjet fame. I wonder if this is on the level? At a lousy attempt to understand what he's saying in English, it looks like "progress", but not "eureka!". Any real progress in practical fusion propulsion is startling, though.

[Dragon]

If he's right and it can be done for $100 to 200 million that sounds like small change when set against the USA's need for energy (epsecially when you consider where a lot of that energy has to come from in the form of oil). I bet the Chinese would be interested too ...

[Matabiri]

I'd be interested in knowing the operation - inertial confinement (if that's what it is) systems are very tricky to get running continuously and to remove the power from, which is why magnetic confinement in tokamaks is generally preferred. I'd like to know how he's solved those problems.

[Soapy Sam]

After working since 1987, they made unexpected discoveries in spring and summer 2005 and had a unique machine running by October, then ran out of money?

And they can build an operational demonstration fusion reactor for $200 million in 4-6 years?

Call me a sceptic, but this sounds awfully like many another "we're on the brink of free energy" scheme.

Yes, Bussard's name lends it more credibility than most such schemes, but just a minute- has anyone actually seen a Bussard Ramjet operating either?
(From an appropriate distance).

Still , it would be nice if he called Bill Gates. Micro$oft need a new killer app.

[trvlr2]

Here's another:http://singtech.com/

I haven't the background to check it out, but it +seems+ woo-ish.

Oh, that these claims were true!

[MRC_Hans]

Their company is called EMC2?
They have the solution to oil shortage but are out of funds?
It doesn't make sense to create a downscaled demonstration model, for economical reasons?
All they need is 200m?

What's that alarm I hear in my head?


OK, benefit of doubt and all that: Maybe they're sincere, but then might I suggest that whoever have reviewed their results so far were somewhat less sanguine about the potential of the project?

Hans

[Jimbo07]

Wow! My little university's little Tokamak got a brief (if somewhat disparaging) post.

I didn't read too much commentary on the status of ITER...

[Cyphermage]

Hmmm, : http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_announce&key=1143684406

Look at what dude wrote it, yes, that's the real Robert Bussard, of Bussard ramjet fame. I wonder if this is on the level?

Philo T. Farnsworth, the television guy, invented a "fusor" a long time ago. It's basically a sphere, with a charged electrode in the middle, which is placed at a high enough potential that the kinetic energy of hydrogen ions reaching it is equal to their kinetic energy at fusion temperatures. This is called "electrostatic confinement fusion."

It has only one tiny problem, and that is that no one knows how to shield the center electrode well enough to prevent the hydrogen plasma from contacting it, and getting quenched.

So I would assume he's serious. That doesn't mean, of course, that $200 million later, he's going to have something that works well enough to be used as a commercial power generator. A lot of people have tried to fix the fusor, and so far, they have not met with any success. Farnsworth worked on it for 30 years, and didn't get it to work well enough to be useful.

[Curnir]

That Farnsworth guy would be the same one as Fry's relative in Futurama, right?

[Jimbo07]

You're thinking of Hubert J. Farnsworth, who dreamed of inventing a "finglonger."

:D

[Curnir]

Ahh that's the one.

[Cyphermage]

That Farnsworth guy would be the same one as Fry's relative in Futurama, right?

I've never watched Futurama, but here's an article that appeared in Analog by one of Bussard's colleagues which explains their approach.

http://torsatron.tripod.com/fusor/fusor.html

[MRC_Hans]

So I would assume he's serious. That doesn't mean, of course, that $200 million later, he's going to have something that works well enough to be used as a commercial power generator. A lot of people have tried to fix the fusor, and so far, they have not met with any success. Farnsworth worked on it for 30 years, and didn't get it to work well enough to be useful.

Sounds reasonable. So the real story is not that funding was pulled just as they were on the verge of a break-through, but that they could no longer convince the sponsors that pay-back was anywhere near. Actually, that version makes much more sense ;).

Of course, now they are hoping to find sponsors that are easier to convince (=more credulous).

Hans

[SirPhilip]

Sounds reasonable. So the real story is not that funding was pulled just as they were on the verge of a break-through, but that they could no longer convince the sponsors that pay-back was anywhere near. Actually, that version makes much more sense ;).

Of course, now they are hoping to find sponsors that are easier to convince (=more credulous).

Hans Remember that the best shams, be they personal or technological, are corruptions of legitimate things. The truth is the present energy industry embracing being hugely downsized or going out of business entirely and not attempting to derail any fell-swoop solution defies the reality of greed today. It's equally important that legitimate channels for innovation and funding be protected. If I actually invented something that would put Exxon and everyone else out of business, you think I wouldn't be majorly paranoid?

In Bussard's case, three issues:

1) Can the device be proved theoretically, or at least on strong, independent assumption to work, that would merit persuing the idea.

2) If not, can the investment be established in a way that, if unsuccessful, Bussard would not personally benefit.

3) Failing theoretical and independent qualification, could a small-scale device be fabricated for considerably less, and why not.

[Meffy]

That Farnsworth guy would be the same one as Fry's relative in Futurama, right?
I've been assuming Professor Farnsworth's name was chosen as a tribute to the 20th-century inventor.

[gfunkusarelius]

i find it amusing that they claim to be able to tackle such a complex, revolutionary issue, but he gives such a loose estimate on budget...i mean, 100-200 million? indicates they have no real idea what they are up against. imagine if i did the family buget that way.

[MRC_Hans]

Remember that the best shams, be they personal or technological, are corruptions of legitimate things. The truth is the present energy industry embracing being hugely downsized or going out of business entirely and not attempting to derail any fell-swoop solution defies the reality of greed today. It's equally important that legitimate channels for innovation and funding be protected. If I actually invented something that would put Exxon and everyone else out of business, you think I wouldn't be majorly paranoid?

In fact I think you would be majorly rich and not at all in need of investors, but in need of a big stick to fight them off with.

The big oil companies are facing the end of their business, and even without that, what would entice them to not embrace a new clean, politically correct energy source, in favor of dirty, tricky, and investment-heavy oil? They would be scampering to get in on it, and in that contex, a few hundred million would be pocket money.

In Bussard's case, three issues:

1) Can the device be proved theoretically, or at least on strong, independent assumption to work, that would merit persuing the idea.

2) If not, can the investment be established in a way that, if unsuccessful, Bussard would not personally benefit.

3) Failing theoretical and independent qualification, could a small-scale device be fabricated for considerably less, and why not.

1: Apparantly not, otherwise he would say so, and probably patent the stuff.

2: In theory, yes.

3: He says it is not economical because it will not be competitive with existing energy. .. Which is perfect BS, because if it could produce at all, he would not have difficulty finding investors.

So, I think the inescapable conclusion is that whether he is sincere or not, he is much farther from being able to deliver than he claims.

Hans

[Soapy Sam]

In fact I think you would be majorly rich and not at all in need of investors, but in need of a big stick to fight them off with.

The big oil companies are facing the end of their business, and even without that, what would entice them to not embrace a new clean, politically correct energy source, in favor of dirty, tricky, and investment-heavy oil? They would be scampering to get in on it, and in that contex, a few hundred million would be pocket money.


Absolutely. There are no Oil Companies anymore. They are Energy Companies.

[Almo]

What bugs me is it sounds like a 419 scam. "We had it, lost funding that week, and now just need a small kick of $150 mil."

[SirPhilip]

In fact I think you would be majorly rich and not at all in need of investors, but in need of a big stick to fight them off with. The big oil companies are facing the end of their business, and even without that, what would entice them to not embrace a new clean, politically correct energy source, in favor of dirty, tricky, and investment-heavy oil? They would be scampering to get in on it, and in that contex, a few hundred million would be pocket money. I'm not well-read on the politics of the energy industry, but If this is actually the situation, then wonderful.


1: Apparantly not, otherwise he would say so, and probably patent the stuff.

2: In theory, yes.

3: He says it is not economical because it will not be competitive with existing energy. .. Which is perfect BS, because if it could produce at all, he would not have difficulty finding investors.

So, I think the inescapable conclusion is that whether he is sincere or not, he is much farther from being able to deliver than he claims.

Hans Then 2) would be the most viable option. I could think of a lot worse things to invest 200 million in, and a famous, respected name backing it does lend it credibility in a certain sense. I'd shell it out if I had it. I doubt a prominent career scientist is going to commit career suicide by dropping a bomb like this (no pun intended) without merit. If it does turn out to be the real thing, the offhand "Does anyone care?" will certainly go down as one of the more humorous events in human history.

[SirPhilip]

Dr.Bussard,

Your recent change of position have charged and heated discussion up on the JREF forums. If you'd aren't busy
performing other meaningful work, we'd love if you'd divert your energy for a short period of time to drop-by and
throw weight into the discussion.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1718115#post1718115

I'm positive,

Philip Malandrino

:p

[Cyphermage]

3) Failing theoretical and independent qualification, could a small-scale device be fabricated for considerably less, and why not.

Fusors are easy to make, and have even been manufactured commercially as laboratory neutron sources. There's no reason you couldn't build one as a high school science fair project. They're just overengineered vacuum tubes.

The hard part isn't making a fusor which emits neutrons, it's making one which puts out more energy than it consumes. Bussard claims to have solved a number of engineering problems which theoretically limit the efficiency of the fusor. These include keeping the plasma from touching the cathode, and finding something to do with the electrons you strip off the hydrogen atoms, since separating the ions from their electrons over any great distance against their enormous electrostatic attraction is not possible.

A breakeven fusor is a very complicated engineering problem, and as with all such things, the devil is in the details.

Can Bussard take existing computer codes used for modeling magnetic confinement fusion, and model his proposed device on a supercomputer, and demonstrate it to work in simulation?

If he can do that and pass peer review by leading plasma physicists, then I'd say give him the money. If his plan is to just continue to build fusors, and try to fix what's wrong with them, then I imagine he will tinker his way through any new round of investing the same way he's tinkered through prior rounds.

[Scott Haley]

The ITER project is a effort to build the largest fusion plant ever. Scientists are confident that if a donut-shaped reactor is large enough, it will produce a lot more energy than it takes to run it. The governments of the United States, Russia, Mainland China, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union are contributing resources. It will be built in France, and they plan to have it completed in 2016. You can read about it at http://www.iter.org/

[Meffy]

Mmm... donut... D'OH! The only fusion reactor left with sprinkles has pink icing.

[Scott Haley]

"You can see by the color of the flame that this was a particularly sweet donut..."

"No! This is not happening..."

[SirPhilip]

Dear SirPhilip!:

I have read the threads on the Randi forum, and they are all intent and I am sure well-menaing. However, I have not been able to "log in" on this forum so am writing to you instead. Perhaps you can post this note as a reply and commentary to some of the issues raised by your forum correspondents.

First, what we have achieved in our rather unexpectedly good tests of last November 9 and 10th was an output of DD fusion at about 10 kV, at B fields of 1300 G, in a 30 cam dia device (WB-6) run in a pulsed mode from big capacitors, with a fusion rate of about 1E9 /sec. This works our to be about 100,000 x higher than the data of Hirsch/Farnsworth at similar well depth and drive conditions. The test duration was only about 0.4 masec, but since the electron lifetime is ca 0.1 microsec this is steady-state to the plasma particles. We had neither the money, nor the cooling, nor the power supplies, nor the controls to run this small device steady-state, which is what we need to do, and what requires us to build the full-scale device.

This was a direct result of discovering something during late Spring/ early summer tests of WB-5, which was a closed boc machine, like the early HEPS of 1989. What we discovered was - in hindsight - elementary; it was that indeed God is in the details, and the detail of particular importance is that no metal surface penetrated by B fields must occupy more than about 1E-4 to 1E-5 of the total surface available to the recirculating electrons. If this dead fraction is larger, there is NO hope of net power from any such machine. AND, it is essential that the device be recirculating, i.e. that the electrons can circulate out and back through the cusps all over the machine. Of course, this is obvious; but in 15 years no one saw it, not Hirsch, not our consultants not our opponents, not our staff, and not me.

It is consistent with the need for electrons to recirculate about 100,000 times before being lost to collisions with structure, to yield net power.

Please remember that our device has the property that the electron flow and losses are decoupled from the ion flow and fusion generation. Power balance depends on suppresssion of the electron losses, which are derived from the energetic electron injection that forms the gridless negative potential well that traps the ions.

When we figured this thing out, in summer 2005, we quickly designed and quickly built WB-6, using only conformal (with the B fields produced) coil cans, so that no B field uniquely penetrated the cans, and then placed the coils in a special array so that no corners touched (this latter is a long topic having to do with local B fields, and loss of WiffleBall trapping due to line cusp effects at the corners, etc, etc, and is the baisis of our final patents on this thing). It IS the details that make or break the device. And this particular set of details absolutely dominates the performance.

Anyway, we ran the device in October, for beta=one tests, to confirm transport scaling laws, and then in early November to test for fusion output. And, happiness, indeed, three tests on 9 November and one on 10 Novem,ber gave the results mentioned above. The next day, 11 November, we tried it again, but magnet coil motions induced by repeated testing had moved the coils enough that an insulation spot had worn away inside the cans, and the device shorted and blew up one leg, with the full cap discharge. Having no further funding, we had to start shutting doen the lab the following Monday!!! Irony?

As to our funding -- our USN contract still exists, and still has about $ 2M authorized in it. However, year-by-year funding was NOT provide for FY 2006, so that we knew we had to close down early in 2006.. What saved us was Adm Cohen (CNR) who put another 900 K into the program to try to get us down the road to where we DID go, and then we had to quit. It was not a cutoff of OUR funding, but the entire Navy Energy Program was cut to zero in FY 2006, and we were a part of this cut. The funds were clearly needed for the more important War in Iraq.

So, as we cut down, we managed to save the lab equipment, by transfer to SpaceDev, which hired our three best lab people as well, and we are still trying to get the missing $ 2M restored and put into our existing but unfunded contract. IF this happens - which is improhable, given the politics of this election year, and the non-visionary people in Congress - we will redo WB-6 with an improved and better version (WB-7) which should give 5x more output, and run about 50 tests to quiet dissent. AND we will convene a review panel of very high-level and internationally distinguished people to spend about 6 weeks going over this to recommend for or against proceeding sith a full scale demo.

This may or may not happen. If it does, I have little doubt as to the panel recommendation, as the data and insight from WB-5/6 is just too clear. We really have solved the last engineering physics problem that has plagued our work for 12 year s or so. Yes, there is much left to do, iespecially in controls and diagnostics, but these are predictable things not dependent on beating the Paschen curve.

And we still have to develop some reliable e-guns and i-sources, again predictable enginering that costs both time and money, but not new physics.

Why a full-scale demo? Because the system scales oddly: Fusion output goes as the 7th power of the size and Gain goes as the 5th power. Thus there is very little to be gained by building a half-size model; it is too weak to give anything definitive about power production or gain. And our tests were always at about 1/8 to 1/10 scale of the full scale demo. We told the DoD from the beginning that the real program would cost about 150-200 M, since 1987, and they all knew this. However, since the DoD has no charter to do such work, and the political realities were that a big DoD program would attract the ire and power of the DoE to kill it, it was never funded beyond about 1/8 the level required.

So we did what we could and finally DID prove the physics and associated engineering physics constraints, scaling laws, etc, albeit at 1/8-1/10 scale. So what? Doubling the size will not tell us anything we don't already know. The next intelligent and logical step is to build a machine big enough to make net power. And THAT is the same 200 M we have quoted to the DoD since the beginning.

As for energy companies "stampeding" to support us - It is clear that a view like this is ignorant of the reality of energy companies. There is only one thing the oil cvompanies want, and that is to sell oil, and more oil. So long as the fields pump, the oil companies will squeeze. They have NO, absolutely NO interest in anything new, ins spite of all their foolish ads in magazines for wind mills and solar-PV roofs. It is all just show and tell. I know these guys, and there is no way they would support anything that might get in the way of oil. The only way to stop oil, from their view, is when it does run out. And then they''ll go for deeper drilling, new fields, Gulf geopressure gas, LNG, etc, etc, and keep raising the price, until finally foolish solar and windmills become competitive.

And we are paying the equivalent of $ 500/bbl oil costs. But Exxon and Halliburton are getting richer all the time.

Yes, we would like to build the demo plant, and yes, it will cost about 150 (DD) to 200 M (pB11), and who knows if any investor singly or a group can or will come up with the money. One of the biggest obstacle is the world-wide tokamak lobby, which perpetuates the fraud that Hirsch, Trivelpiece and I foisted on the country in the 1970's when we started the big tokamak ball rolling.

Magnetic confinement fusion is a misnomer, as magnetic fields can NOT confine a plasma, only constrain its motion towards walls. The entire history of the MagConf program has been to reduce transport to neo-classical (not turbulent or instability-driven) losses. And THEN the machines are all inherently and inevitably huge and cost too much and make too much power to ever be economically useful --- as the utilities have been telling the AEC/DoE for 30 years. No matter, the global tokamak program provides jobs for hudreds of thousands of people in many countries, and is a safe place to put political pork funding, simply because it IS NO THREAT TO OIL - it won't ever work, but it sounds good to the untutored public..

As for us; our company still exists, but we will not likely run any demo program - that will be up to others to carry it on, if we all get the chance. Meanwhile, my objective is very simple. I detest the energy stranglehold of our companies on our people, and am going to try to give our idea away at the soonest possible moment. To anyone, anywhere, who might want to undertake its development. And we'll be happy to help in any way we can, if a serious interest develops anywhere in the world.

I think the US, UK, France, et al are lost causes, because of theri commitment to the failed tokamak effort, as is probably Germany, and maybe others, too. China may be a possibility, as it is quite independent even though part of the ITER mess, Russia may be considererd, and countries like Spain, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, and others may logically have an interest.

I believe that the survival of our high-tech civilizations depends on getting off of fossile fuels ASAP, and - if we do not - we will descend into a growing series of "oil wars" and energy confrontations that can lead only to a huge cataclysim. Which CAN be circumvented if only we build the clean fuison machines in time. Our patents are in final form, and I am giving a paper in the Fall, and trying to get a large technical description together for a major paper by summer. We shall see.

One final word: Actually our device is really not a variant of Farnwworth/Hirsch, but of Elmore/Tuck/Watson who propeosed the inversion of Farnsworth/Hirsch long ago (ca. 1967). Their problem was the interception of circulating electrons by grids - we removed the grids and replaced them by B field insulated coils - thus our "grids" are the coils themselves.. And we do know how these work, at last.

Good luck to all of us.

Cheers, RW Bussard

Whatever the situation, It's quite an honor to correspond with someone featured in one of the most interesting chapters of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. :)

[AWPrime]

Nice detailed reply.

[Meffy]

Thanks to Mr. Bussard for the response and to SirPhillip for asking. I lack enough physics to evaluate the competing schools of thought, so will have to wait and see tests and demonstrations. I'm hoping the coming decades will see developments that will rock those %$#@ oil companies back on their heels.

[Cyphermage]

Thanks to Mr. Bussard for the response and to SirPhillip for asking. I lack enough physics to evaluate the competing schools of thought, so will have to wait and see tests and demonstrations. I'm hoping the coming decades will see developments that will rock those %$#@ oil companies back on their heels.

Excellent reply by Dr. Bussard.

He's right that there's a lot of pressure to throw all the eggs in the ITER basket. Government scientists who even mention alternative fusion schemes wind up in big trouble with their agencies, and funding for research is non-existent.

If he wants to give his knowlege away, perhaps he could write the definitive book on fusor engineering. That would place the information in the public domain, and anyone who wanted to pick up the ball later could do so.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

Well, that's just cool. :)

I can't read Soapy Sam's mind, so maybe he was serious, but why not actually ask Bill Gates to fund it? Ol' Bill is an uber-philanthropist. He's given almost half of his fortune away. Sure, it's a tax write off for him, I'm right along with the cynics there(because I'm one too) but that still tells me he has a huge heart: because he wouldn't be taxed *that much* that he wouldn't be better off hanging onto it. I just might fire an e-mail off to Bill Gates, if I can find his actual e-mail address(a long shot, indeed: because I can imagine Bill would get lots of hate mail if his e-mail was widely known).

[SirPhilip]

Well, that's just cool. :)

I can't read Soapy Sam's mind, so maybe he was serious, but why not actually ask Bill Gates to fund it? Ol' Bill is an uber-philanthropist. He's given almost half of his fortune away. Sure, it's a tax write off for him, I'm right along with the cynics there(because I'm one too) but that still tells me he has a huge heart: because he wouldn't be taxed *that much* that he wouldn't be better off hanging onto it. I just might fire an e-mail off to Bill Gates, if I can find his actual e-mail address(a long shot, indeed: because I can imagine Bill would get lots of hate mail if his e-mail was widely known). Saving the world from disaster on the JREf forums, one post at a time. :p

[Cyphermage]

Well, that's just cool. :)

I can't read Soapy Sam's mind, so maybe he was serious, but why not actually ask Bill Gates to fund it? Ol' Bill is an uber-philanthropist. He's given almost half of his fortune away. Sure, it's a tax write off for him, I'm right along with the cynics there(because I'm one too) but that still tells me he has a huge heart: because he wouldn't be taxed *that much* that he wouldn't be better off hanging onto it. I just might fire an e-mail off to Bill Gates, if I can find his actual e-mail address(a long shot, indeed: because I can imagine Bill would get lots of hate mail if his e-mail was widely known).

It probably needs to be funded by someone who doesn't remember the demise of the INESCO Riggatron.

[Hindmost]

Inertial Electrostatic confinement fusion machines have been around for a long time.

The amout of fusion by confining the plasma with this method has not been viable. It consumes much more power than it can produce. A much higher plasma density would be required that is just not possible with this type of device as I have seen it in the past. The fusion rate of 1 E9 per second is common with these machines.

I was surprised that the D-D reaction is referenced in Bussard's response. The D-D fusion reaction has a much higher reaction temperature than the D-T reaction. About 100 times if I recall.

The amout of money Bussard is requesting doesn't seem that much to accomplish a full scale test--considering what our govt spends. The whole thing doesn't seem right...just about the time a breakthrough is achieved, he runs out of money.

glenn

[rjh01]

I put the response in Microsoft Word and ran a spell check. Produced several spelling errors. I would have thought a scientist would have put a letter through a spell checker before sending it out.

There is only one thing the oil companies want, and that is to sell oil, and more oil. So long as the fields pump, the oil companies will squeeze. They have NO, absolutely NO interest in anything new,

Oil companies know that we are getting short of oil and they should be looking at alternatives. I query if this was written by Mr Bussard at all.

[Cyphermage]

I put the response in Microsoft Word and ran a spell check. Produced several spelling errors. I would have thought a scientist would have put a letter through a spell checker before sending it out.

The world is full of smart people who spend their entire lives trying to make the Next Big Thing, and don't.

Let's just remember the guy for the Interstellar Ramjet, and move on.

[AWPrime]

I put the response in Microsoft Word and ran a spell check. Produced several spelling errors. I would have thought a scientist would have put a letter through a spell checker before sending it out
Not all scientists are english teachers......

[infornography]

Well, that's just cool. :)

I can't read Soapy Sam's mind, so maybe he was serious, but why not actually ask Bill Gates to fund it? Ol' Bill is an uber-philanthropist. He's given almost half of his fortune away. Sure, it's a tax write off for him, I'm right along with the cynics there(because I'm one too) but that still tells me he has a huge heart: because he wouldn't be taxed *that much* that he wouldn't be better off hanging onto it. I just might fire an e-mail off to Bill Gates, if I can find his actual e-mail address(a long shot, indeed: because I can imagine Bill would get lots of hate mail if his e-mail was widely known).

Your best bet would be to try to contact the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (the charitable foundation that they formed). I would imagine they get a lot of requests as well and this may or may not be as tax deductable as your standard charitable donation but it might be worth a shot.

[Apollyon]

Paul Allen might be a better bet than Gates. He funded Scaled Composites for the X-Prize and likes to invest in relatively speculative, high-tech ventures, particularly those that have the potential to be world changing.

[Cyphermage]

Paul Allen might be a better bet than Gates. He funded Scaled Composites for the X-Prize and likes to invest in relatively speculative, high-tech ventures, particularly those that have the potential to be world changing.

That's an excellent suggestion. Allen has a vision of using his vast fortune to make the cool things in Science Fiction a reality.

He funded the winner of the X-Prize, and he has startups going in a number of fields, including artificial intelligence.

He also created the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame at the Seattle Center.

The problem with fusion is that it has been ten years away for the last 50 years. Everytime we think we have an engineering model that covers all the bases, some new fly in the ointment emerges.

It's gotten to the point now that when someone says they know how to make a nice little 500 MW fusion reactor that can be stamped out like cookies in a factory and mass produced, there is a great deal of skepticism and even some giggling in the audience.

I do think a fusion startup is going to be a hard sell, even with someone as willing to fund new technology as Paul Allen. These things always end up by running out of money just as the great "breakthrough" is made, and only needing another $150 million or so to get the thing to work.

[Apollyon]

Before tipping off Paul Allen or anyone else, Bussard's response should probably be analyzed in here some by those who understand the physics behind his claim. My high school physics term paper 30 years ago was on fusion but that's about as far as my knowledge of the subject goes. From what little I do understand, I remain highly skeptical.

[Jimbo07]

Not all scientists are english teachers......

But they do have to write publishable papers...

[AWPrime]

But they do have to write publishable papers...
Which they might takes months for writing them.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I put the response in Microsoft Word and ran a spell check. Produced several spelling errors. I would have thought a scientist would have put a letter through a spell checker before sending it out.

Uh, maybe he was in a hurry(it's not his job to reply to people on a random internet forum) and forgot? Can't scientists forget to do something?
I forget to run some of my stuff though spell checker sometimes, and I'm quite into having words spelled right; but it seems I'm not quite as anal about it as you.

[rjh01]

He sent a long reply. That takes some effort. It was not done in a hurry.
This is one red flag. There are just so many things wrong. None of them conclusive, but put together it would be foolish to be a supporter.
1. How do we know that he is who is says he is?
2. When it comes to raising money he can do anything we can do and better. We have nothing to gain to support him.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

He sent a long reply. That takes some effort. It was not done in a hurry.
This is one red flag. There are just so many things wrong. None of them conclusive, but put together it would be foolish to be a supporter.
1. How do we know that he is who is says he is?
2. When it comes to raising money he can do anything we can do and better. We have nothing to gain to support him.

Indeed he did. If it is nothing but a scam, what reason did he have for giving the, highly detailed, reply to a forum of skeptics? Surely a scam artist would know their reply would get ripped a new one if it really wasn't legit?

We don't, right now, but if indeed we made the effort to seriously help to get him funding we'd make damn sure it really is him.

Maybe, this isn't a given.
We have nothing to gain by helping poor, starving people in other countries, yet some people do. Why?
Anyway, I'd say working fusion(asuming it panned out) would be a gain for us, even if we didn't get rich off of it. As you say, oil is running out, so, what are we going to use after it's gone?

[JustinThyme]

My university had a tokamak too. My understanding was that the physics principles are sound, it's just been a shortage of engineering capability for the past several decades, and continues to be now. It's also my understanding that shrinking the device makes the problem harder, not easier... that larger tokamaks are fundamentally easier to deal with (ie, the engineering margins are more forgiving, in a field where you take every advantage you can get).

Since I'm kinda new here, is the general feeling of the forum that fusion, as a principle, is woowoo, or just the latest guy to run up claiming (again) to have done it with today's technology?

[rjh01]

Indeed he did. If it is nothing but a scam, what reason did he have for giving the, highly detailed, reply to a forum of skeptics? Surely a scam artist would know their reply would get ripped a new one if it really wasn't legit?


He would know that not many people would know how a commercial fusion reactor would work. Sure we can say the obvious things will not work, but this is far more complex.

I doubt if he would know much about us. That takes a lot of effort and time.

All I am saying is to proceed with extreme caution.

[Cyphermage]

My university had a tokamak too. My understanding was that the physics principles are sound, it's just been a shortage of engineering capability for the past several decades, and continues to be now. It's also my understanding that shrinking the device makes the problem harder, not easier... that larger tokamaks are fundamentally easier to deal with (ie, the engineering margins are more forgiving, in a field where you take every advantage you can get).

Since I'm kinda new here, is the general feeling of the forum that fusion, as a principle, is woowoo, or just the latest guy to run up claiming (again) to have done it with today's technology?

The problem with fusion is that everytime we think we understand it, and know how to design a reactor that exceeds breakeven, some previously unseen feature of the physics manifests itself.

We had great fusion confidence in the 60's, and built reactors, and discovered microinstabilities. We've discovered many other things since then.

I wouldn't be suirprised at all if ITER finds some new issues after it's built.

So fusion isn't woo. We know all the basic fusion reactions, their ignition temperatures, and their yields. Fusion works wonderfully in thermonuclear weapons.

[Apollyon]

We've slowly been overcoming the problems inherent in fusion. Japan's JT-60 has come close to the break even point and recently maintained a fusion reaction for a period of @ 28 seconds. That may not seem like much but it's a pretty significant leap and demonstrates that the principle itself is sound; it's just a matter of our technical capabilities catching up to principle.

Just remember that in the not too distant past, men flying through the air in machines or going to the moon was considered woo as well. We will get there with fusion. The problem is and always has been a lack of funding. We've been apathetic in the past because we had what seemed to be an abundance of fossil fuels that were available cheaply. There was not a lot of motivation to fund the large projects necessary to develop fusion. With ITER that's all changing...finally.

[Meffy]

We've slowly been overcoming the problems inherent in fusion. Japan's JT-60 has come close to the break even point and recently maintained a fusion reaction for a period of @ 28 seconds. That may not seem like much but it's a pretty significant leap and demonstrates that the principle itself is sound; it's just a matter of our technical capabilities catching up to principle.
This reminds me creepily -- the fur on the back of my neck rose, in fact -- of the beginning of the first book in Jack Chalker's "Flux and Anchor" series. I couldn't stomach his plots long enough to get through but I do remember the brief description of the first "punches" into whatever the flux source was... and I'll bet Chalker based it on the fusion work that had been done up to that time (mid- to late 1980s?) or similar real-world physics work.

[Cyphermage]

This reminds me creepily -- the fur on the back of my neck rose, in fact -- of the beginning of the first book in Jack Chalker's "Flux and Anchor" series. I couldn't stomach his plots long enough to get through but I do remember the brief description of the first "punches" into whatever the flux source was... and I'll bet Chalker based it on the fusion work that had been done up to that time (mid- to late 1980s?) or similar real-world physics work.

Well, once someone does it, everyone will be doing it. But before it is successful, there are lots of people who try it and give up.

The X-Prize was the same way. Now we have commericial spaceships and spaceports being built all over the place.

Of course, public enthusiasm may wane a bit after the first few flaming wrecks.

[omegatron]

It has only one tiny problem, and that is that no one knows how to shield the center electrode well enough to prevent the hydrogen plasma from contacting it, and getting quenched.

Bussard claims his device uses magnetic fields to create a spherical shell of recirculating electrons, and the electrons act as a virtual electrode for the ion chamber.

i find it amusing that they claim to be able to tackle such a complex, revolutionary issue, but he gives such a loose estimate on budget...i mean, 100-200 million? indicates they have no real idea what they are up against.

He says $150M for a D-T reactor or $200M for an aneutronic p-B11 reactor. He's not being wishy washy. It depends on whether you want neutron radiation or not.


1: Apparantly not, otherwise he would say so, and probably patent the stuff.

He has patented it. I believe 4,826,646 and 5,160,695, among others.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=4826646

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=5160695

(I'm not allowed to post links. Aren't spam protection measures ridiculous? It's extremely irritating to work around.)

Can Bussard take existing computer codes used for modeling magnetic confinement fusion, and model his proposed device on a supercomputer, and demonstrate it to work in simulation?

He says that there are too many variables to do efficient simulations on computer. They have simulations for startup, but not steady state.

1. How do we know that he is who is says he is?

We don't, although it's consistent with things he's said elsewhere. If not him, why would someone write about what he's actually doing but include misspellings?

My university had a tokamak too. My understanding was that the physics principles are sound, it's just been a shortage of engineering capability for the past several decades, and continues to be now.

Bussard says exactly the same thing.

Tokomak scientists say that IEC reactors will never work, and it's just a matter of engineering and a few billion more dollars before Tokomaks work. Bussard, who helped get Tokomaks started, says they will never work, and it's just a matter of engineering and a few million more dollars before IEC reactors work.

They both have credentials, and I don't know the advanced physics, so who should I believe?

It's also my understanding that shrinking the device makes the problem harder, not easier... that larger Tokamaks are fundamentally easier to deal with (ie, the engineering margins are more forgiving, in a field where you take every advantage you can get).He says the same thing about IEC reactors.

He summarizes the whole mess in his lecture at Google, if you haven't seen it.

ht tp://vi deo.goo gle.c om/vide oplay?docid= 1996321846673788606

The big problem that I've heard of is Todd Rider's papers, which say that IEC fusion can never reach break-even "without circulating a prohibitive amount of power relative to the fusion power". I don't know what that means really (the electrons Bussard is circulating around through the magnetic fields?) but apparently it pounds the nails into the IEC fusion coffin. Yet Bussard claims it's still a viable technique, and I've seen a few people say that Rider's paper doesn't apply to the method he's using. I'd love to see Bussard rebut Rider's paper. I haven't seen that anywhere.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cluster=7593394092257962635
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cluster=14365216228545048361

And a glimmer of defiance:

http://www.fusor.net/board/download_forum.php?bn=fusor_general&site=fusor#N1164 224519

The X-Prize was the same way. Now we have commericial spaceships and spaceports being built all over the place.

Is that sarcastic?

[Schneibster]

Seems that there are a few little "thises and thats" y'all might want to make sure you're aware of.

First, Philo T. Farnsworth invented the television camera. Yep, that's right- Farnsworth's invention was used up until CCDs came on the scene in the 1980s. So the fusor wasn't the only thing he ever invented. In fairness, elements of both Farnsworth's and Zworykin's designs were used- but you should also be aware that Farnsworth won a lawsuit against RCA, primarily based on the fact that a schoolteacher of his was able to reproduce a drawing he had made when he was in school that captured the essence of the operation of the cesium television camera tube. The royalties didn't make him rich; after all, how big a market is there for million dollar television cameras?

Second, the IEC design Bussard has developed from Farnsworth's (and, by the way, Hirsch's- and therein lies another interesting tidbit) fusor has several important improvements over the original design, the very latest of which Bussard's company (yes, there was a company, yes, they were funded by DARPA funds, yes, they were getting money from the US Navy up until 2005, and yes, an Admiral in the US Navy thought the work was important enough that he authorized enough money to keep them going until April of 2006, even though the money had run out because the US military had to pay for Iraq and Congress wasn't authorizing raiding Social Security for it any more) completed early this year. No scientific papers have been published because the terms of the government funding contract prohibited it. Thus, the designs have not undergone peer review; however, they were not Dr. Bussard's designs alone, but the designs of a group of nuclear physicists and nuclear engineers working together on a US government funded project, for a company that held the patents. So stop talking about Dr. Bussard like he's Joe Blow, or a mad scientist in a basement somewhere. That's not what's going on here. He was the principal investigator for a defense contractor. It's extremely likely now that the government has let the contract lapse that the papers will be published, and we'll have some serious meat to chew on fairly shortly published in the professional literature. Dr. Bussard apparently also owns the patents (and no, they're not applications, they're US patents, registered with the patent office, with, you know, numbers and like that). (ETA: I've just found that a prior poster has given the patent numbers. Hopefully that will help.)

Third, you should all be aware that the interstellar ramjet concept is by no means Dr. Bussard's claim to fame, particularly not among the US fusion research community. Dr. Bussard was Assistant Director (and Dr. Robert Hirsch- yes, Hirsch of the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor- was Director) of the Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division of the old US Atomic Energy Commission- the predecessor of today's Department of Energy- the Secretary of the DoE is a member of the Cabinet of the President of the United States. Together, Hirsch and Bussard oversaw the birth of the US fusion research community in the 1970s. They are the ones who pushed the Tokamak, and got $18 billion from Congress for it; in essence, they are the reason ITER even exists (and for those not paying attention, ITER was finally ratified by all the signatories just last week- they'll be building it in France). Really, people, this guy AIN'T Joe Blow- he's one of the founders of fusion research. There may not be anyone alive that knows as much about fusion as Dr. Robert Bussard. Certainly there are very few if any who have done as much to advance research into it, both administratively and personally.

Fourth, several unique features of his latest design make it very much worth looking into:
1. It appears that to avoid the problem with the electrode in the middle one must construct a system that presents a "virtual anode" (Dr. Bussard's term) at the center. Apparently, the means to do this are quite simple: use electrons to surround and contain the plasma; they form the cathode. If you can't see why Dr. Bussard would call the center of this a "virtual anode," you should probably study Maxwell's equations a little while. It seems pretty obvious to me.
2. To avoid losses among the electrons, one must have an even number of faces surrounding each vertex of the magnetic coils one must use to control the electrons (yes, of COURSE you use a magnetic field to control the electrons- how do you think Farnsworth came up with the thing in the first place?). This is because magnetic poles come in pairs: north and south. If they are not matched around the vertex, then the electrons (and the plasma) can escape, and energy will be lost. If the number of faces around the vertex is odd, you can't have north-south-north-south... and so forth. They won't be matched- there will be an unmatched pole. Dr. Bussard came to this realization rather late, if I understood correctly; it sounded like perhaps not until 2002 or later. This also seems pretty obvious, and just the sort of thing a whole bunch of nuclear physicists would stare straight at and completely miss.
3. The last key to the device is that the electrons cannot come into contact with the metal of the windings; if they do, they will be conducted away and lost in eddy currents. This was what Dr. Bussard was working on when the funding ran out, and he managed to complete a prototype that proved it. This is apparently the answer to Todd Rider's objections.
4. If Dr. Bussard's calculations are correct, there are two scaling factors involved in this type of device: the power output scales as the seventh power of the size, and the power gain as the fifth power of the size. Therefore, there is a "smallest" size below which there will not be net power output.

Hans, where did you get information that he doesn't intend a small prototype? In fact, he explicitly states that he does, and that he needs about $2 million for it. It will be larger than his previous ones, so that he can test the scaling factors and confirm the minimum size of a working, net power output device. If his calculation of the scaling factors is correct, it will then require between $110 million and $200 million to build a working device that will make net power.

Reading the original article by Todd Rider makes me nearly certain that Dr. Bussard is very aware of it, and has been struggling with the last sentence of the abstract for quite some time: "In order for IEC systems to be used as fusion reactors, it will be necessary to find methods to circumvent these problems."

It looks legit to me. Not to mention the fact he appeared in front of the staff of Google (they have these "tech talks" every so often- I think maybe they're competing with Microsoft, they do that too) and gave a pretty thorough talk about it, a few weeks back. This guy is the real deal, for sure- the real question is, will his idea work? Only time will tell.

[erich]

I thought your readers would be interested in looking at these energy technologies:

Aneutronic Fusion: Here I am not talking about the big science ITER project taking thirty years, but the several small alternative plasma fusion efforts.

There are three companies pursuing hydrogen-boron plasma toroid fusion, Paul Koloc, Prometheus II, Eric Lerner, Focus Fusion and Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems

Vincent Page (a technology officer at GE!!) gave a presentation at the 05 6th symposium on current trends in international fusion research , which high lights the need to fully fund three different approaches to P-B11 fusion

He quotes costs and time to development of P-B11 Fusion as tens of million $, and years verses the many decades and ten Billion plus $ projected for ITER and other "Big" science efforts.



Also:
The Navy Heats up "Cold Fusion" with Use of CR-39 Detectors in LENR Experiment:

Extraordinary Evidence - "Cold Fusion"

The field of low energy nuclear reactions, historically known as cold fusion, has never had simple physical evidence of the claimed nuclear processes to physically place in the hands of doubters.

Until now.

Scientists at the U.S. Navy’s San Diego SPAWAR Systems Center have produced something unique in the 17-year history of the scientific drama historically known as cold fusion: simple, portable, highly repeatable, unambiguous, and permanent physical evidence of nuclear events using detectors that have a long track record of reliability and acceptance among nuclear physicists.

Using a unique experimental method called co-deposition, combined with the application of external electric and magnetic fields, and recording the results with standard nuclear-industry detectors, researchers have produced what may be the most convincing evidence yet in the pursuit of proof of low energy nuclear reactions.

New Energy Times, issue #19
"Extraordinary Evidence"

I would have put in links , but it won't let me
Regards,
Erich
Erich J. Knight

[Schneibster]

I've had a look over Prometheus, Focus Fusion, and Electron Power Systems. I consider the last two relatively promising; I'm not so sure about the Prometheus system. But I agree with the assessment that these need to be researched; all three are pretty good ideas, with more than just plausible explanations of how they should work. Mr. Seward in particular has done quite a bit of work in the lab, and has used the principles behind his idea in other contexts with some success.

[ceselb]

If anyone is interested, here's a nice 90 minute google techtalk given by Robert Bussard. From nov 9th 2006.

EDIT: Since I'm apparently not trusted enough to post links I had to put in in the title instead.

[omegatron]

Bussard mentions two papers in the Google talk. The first is a summary, and the second is going to be many pages and much more detailed, he claims. The first was published in October and is now available online:

"The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion: Super-performance Space Power and Propulsion", Robert W. Bussard, Ph.D., 57th International Astronautical Congress, October 2-6, 2006

ht tp://askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf

It goes into more detail than other things I've read. He seems to counter Rider's objections around pg. 13, though I'm not an expert and don't understand the objections fully. Bussard is certainly convinced this will work. It also contains some nice photos of the machines (they are actually full-resolution digital camera pics; you can copy and paste them out of the PDF to see full-size).

The only bad thing that sticks out to me is his shoddy presentation. The post on this forum has lots of spelling errors and not-quite-there grammar, and the graphs in this paper are completely illegible. They look like photocopies of photographs of photocopies. I look at them and I am forced to say "what was this person thinking??"

But I agree with Schneibster; there are a lot of arrows pointing to "legit" and only a few pointing to "crazy old man". He's not the only nuclear physicist who's been working on this for the last 10 years, and I don't think the Navy hands out millions of dollars in research money to any old kook who shows up claiming he can make a viable fusion reactor.


Edit: I can't post a link. The "You are only allowed to post URLs (e.g. *************) to websites after you have made 15 posts or more." thing is supremely, utterly retarded.

It's 2006; there are, in fact, ways to prevent spam that don't prevent well-meaning people from contributing. Who do I complain to to get this ridiculous thing turned off?


Edit: I also noticed this article which summarizes the Google lecture:

ht tp://askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/Should%20Google%20Go%20Nuclear.pdf
ht tp://askmar.com/Fusion.html

[Schneibster]

Thanks omegatron. Keep posting; before long the restriction on posting links goes away. It's some relatively small number of posts.

[rjh01]

You need to have 15 posts before you can post links. I cannot find a reference for you (thanks to the search facility not working properly). You can start a thread here (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=16&page=1&sort=lastpost&order=desc) but I must warn you the answer will be no.

The reason is to stop people posting links to spam.

[omegatron]

The reason is to stop people posting links to spam.

I'm aware. But it's a bad way to prevent spam because it prevents real people from contributing links, too.

I know it's probably just built into the forum software, but it can be turned on or off, and it's particularly bad to have it turned on.

For instance, a better idea would be to allow as many links as desired and just hide them by default. If other users want to see the links, they can click something extra to have them generated, which prevents linkspam and pagerank skewing. Then if the user has been "vetted" as a real person who is making genuine contributions to the forum, the links will be unhidden.

(Notice this is only my 3rd post. I have to make 12 more before I can contribute links. I don't really intend to be a regular of this forum; I just wanted to discuss this particular topic. I don't think I should be penalized for that.)

[rjh01]

It is OK. You are allowed to say just about anything. It is amazing what people get away with around here. About the only way to get into trouble around here is to do it deliberately. If you want to discuss this issue further suggest you go to forum management (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=19).

[ttch]

The wonderfully unreliable "PESwiki" (a "free energy" online encyclopedia) has a new page on Dr. Bussard and co's work (http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Inertial-Electrodynamic_Fusion_Device). It references his November Goggle video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606) and his recently being honored with the "Outstanding Technology of the Year" award for 2006 by the International Academy of Science, for his "Inertial-Electrodynamic Fusion Device".

By the way, this "International Academy of Science (http://www.science.edu/)" is a completely different organization from the "International Academy of Science (http://www.international-academy-of-science.org/)" mentioned in an article in the real Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Academy_of_Science) suggests that that the latter organization is probably not that notable. It does host a couple of conferences -- and it gives honorary memberships to Nobel laureates.

But IMHO, the former organization is even less notable. E.g., check out the founders. Check out the other "nominees".

(Also by the way and also IMO, it ain't technology until it has actually been built and shown to work.)

[PixyMisa]

The recent reports on Bussard's work raised several red flags with me (particularly the scaling factors he claimed), and that paper just makes things worse. Long on jargon and speculation, but short on experimental results. Pretty pictures of the device, and plenty of generalisations, but what few diagrams are presented are illegible.

Add to that his rant about the oil companies, and you end up with a lot of arrows pointing at "crazy old man" and none pointing at "will actually work". "Legit" is a different question. I believe that Bussard is honestly convinced this can be made to work; I just think he's wrong.

[Schneibster]

Bussard's discussion of the way that ions inside an electromagnetic containment show gyromagnetic jumps failed to show you why size is another key to scaling? I suggest that you might want to take another look at this. Do you not see why spacing of the magnetic elements is important, neither too far nor too close, to avoid arcing yet not allow escape paths for the electrons?

Furthermore, having watched the desertron get killed, I have absolutely no question that results are not part of the determination of funding for scientific projects. The LHC at CERN is about to put Europe at the center of nuclear research for the first several decades of this century- if the ITER being placed in Grenoble had not already done so. Had the desertron been built, we would ALREADY KNOW what we are not going to find out until this year at the LHC- and don't be surprised when "American ingenuity" ceases to be an item of conversation. We're not investing in it. It does not surprise me in any way that funding for a speculative power project should have been cut in 2005 and 2006- they are, after all, having to pay for this stupid Iraq business, and they are, after all, politicians. It surprises me that you are surprised.

I don't know for certain this is the big one- but if anyone's going to find a big one, it's gonna be Bussard. The man's credentials are impeccable- as previously mentioned, he and Hirsch, the co-inventor of the Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor, the original IEC fusion device, were the two top honchos on the original AEC fusion project that resulted in the tokamak research. You can't really get credentials much better than that. It's kind of like having Einstein tell you that he has had a breakthrough and thinks he might have a unified field theory- maybe he's a crazy old man, but are you really not gonna sit down and have a serious listen?

Bussard may have pissed a lot of people off by telling them that he and Hirsch chose to push tokamaks because they looked like something that politicians were already familiar with; too bad. Having watched the mongolian cluster f88k that has been taking place in the US government (it's almost to the point that I put quotes around that word), do you question whether he was right, and that they wouldn't have got it and there would have been no funding at all?

Let's say it again: the people with the money aren't the people with the smarts. Technical education in the US is on the decline. The fundies are teaching cretinism- err, creationism- in the schools in flatland states that start with vowels. The "American Experiment" has fallen victim to a bunch of PR flaks who convince people they should do what the rich people tell them to. Look at what they've done with Global Warming. Tell me that this collection of idiots can be relied upon to fund the 90% of research that has no military or economic purpose, to get the 10% that does. I seriously doubt you are that credulous. I sure as hell ain't.

Give him the money. Stand or fall, the principles of the device are relatively straightforward- and if it doesn't work, we'll learn more for the next try. It has to work one way or another- I am still aghast that they are building ITER. It is, IMO, a colossal waste of money- other than the engineering talent it will engender. But you'll notice that engineering talent will all be French. The Americans will all be Cretinists- err, Creationists. How useful.

[pvt1863]

Interesting article, but I am skeptical. I highly doubt this is a scam, but I have a strong suspicion that he is exaggerating his success and underestimating difficulties that lie between where he is now and where he wants to be. He is claiming to be on the verge of a breakthrough that could define this era of science, so I doubt he would have trouble finding funding if there weren't still some signifficant questions about whether or not the project can succeed.

The key is to watch the scientific journals. See how this is recieved by his peers and if they can reproduce his results.

As a member of the energy industry, I feel I should point out a misnomer that seems to be flowing through this thread. The term "energy" is very broad -- almost too broad to be useful. When economists or politicians talk about energy, they are talking about everything from the gas that runs your car to the fuel used in power plants to the logs in your fireplace. The term is so expansive, many energy sources do not directly compete with others.

This is the case when talking about fusion and oil. In the US (and most industrialized nations), oil used for energy is used primarily for transportation and heat. Oil was once used for electricity, but utility companies stopped using it because the prices are too volatile. Fusion, if it is successful, would probably be employed exclusively for electricity production. We will not (in out lifetimes) see fusion reactors on cars or installed in homes for heat. As a result, oil companies are probably not concerned with fusion in the least because it doesn't compete with their product. At the same time, utilities that make electricity are not concerned with oil. The only competition that can exist is inderect competition through electric heat and electric cars, but the problems with those are not where the electricity comes from.

Finally, don't judge a scientist or an engineer for spelling or grammar mistakes in informal writings. I'm surprised and pleased he took time out of his day to answer an email by someone from an internet forum. I don't see why we should expect him to take more of his time to check for spelling errors.

---

On a second readthrough, I noticed his paragraph about oil.

"As for energy companies "stampeding" to support us - It is clear that a view like this is ignorant of the reality of energy companies. There is only one thing the oil cvompanies want, and that is to sell oil, and more oil. So long as the fields pump, the oil companies will squeeze. They have NO, absolutely NO interest in anything new, ins spite of all their foolish ads in magazines for wind mills and solar-PV roofs. It is all just show and tell. I know these guys, and there is no way they would support anything that might get in the way of oil. The only way to stop oil, from their view, is when it does run out. And then they''ll go for deeper drilling, new fields, Gulf geopressure gas, LNG, etc, etc, and keep raising the price, until finally foolish solar and windmills become competitive.I had missed this the first time through, and I kinda wish I had missed it the second time also. His credibility has gome way down in my book. As I pointed out above, most of the energy companies that produce electricity don't touch oil at all. He says that those who say he would find supporters are ignorant about energy companies. In reality, it is he who is ignorant. As I pointed out above, most energy companies that make electricity don't touch oil at all. An electricity-producing utility would be very interested in this work if it has promise. He's making excuses about why they aren't interested. His need to interject politics and slander those who would support him makes me believe more and more that he is greatly (and perhaps knowingly) misrepresenting his work.

[Schneibster]

I think there are a couple of problems that you didn't take into account in that analysis. I don't deny what you say; let me be clear. It is a fair assessment, those missing pieces aside.

The first missing piece, IMO, is the cold fusion debacle. Nobody who is holding the kind of money that is needed for this sort of project is capable of actually determining whether the technology will work. They just don't have the training. If they did, they wouldn't have the money. They'd be physicists like Bussard is. So they have to judge based on incomplete criteria; and you don't get a lot of money by taking crazy risks (or anyway, the vast majority of people who have a lot of money didn't). They look at cold fusion, they think about it, and they go, "Mmmmmmmm.... nawww."

The second thing I think you've overlooked is that the basic machine, the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor, works, and has worked for many years. The problem isn't to make fusion. The problem is to increase the efficiency to get net power output. And Bussard's company figured out all the tricks needed. Here they are:
1. You have to get the same number of magnetic north poles as south poles in order to contain the electrons. If you lose electrons, either you lose containment or you lose energy (depending on whether you replace them or not).
2. The electrons can't touch the metal parts of the magnetic containment; if they do, you lose energy.
3. You have to prevent arcing.
4. You have to prevent eddy currents.
They didn't have to figure out how to make fusion; it already does that. That's the easy part. The hard part is keeping your energy budget low enough to make sure you get net power. And the points above are all key to that. They only figured out the first two at the end.

One last point: unless I use the term "energy company," when I say energy, I mean watt-seconds; if I meant power, I said power, and I meant watts; and if I meant force I said force and meant newtons.

[Big Al]

One last point: unless I use the term "energy company," when I say energy, I mean watt-seconds; if I meant power, I said power, and I meant watts; and if I meant force I said force and meant newtons.

I must admit, Scheibster, it grinds my gears, too, when people conflate power, force and energy. Or when people talk about a force field as if it can exist independent of an actual force.

On the Bussard front, I raised an eyebrow at the spelling and grammar, but it does look like proper physics from my educated-layman's viewpoint. I do recognise several of the concepts as valid in the application. I think this may indeed be Dr. Bussard.

However, some things imply to me that mayhap he doth protest too much:


The didactic claim that tokamaks will NEVER work. If it's that cut and dried, why are so many scientists and engineers wasting their time, their reputation and public money on projects like JET and ITER? If it's so obviously a dead end, aren't these scientists willingly and selflessly committing professional suicide by shackling themselves to this albatross?
The oil angle. The idea that big science is deliberately driven by unseen govermnent controllers down routes that leave us beholden to the oil-producing nations. I believe that Bush, Blair, Merkel, Chirac et al would jump at the chance to flip the bird to the oil barons in the Middle East. After all, look at how France puts so much money into fission reactors - doesn't it make sense to assume they are doing what they can to reduce their dependency on foreign oil?
The little accident just at the most critical juncture. That honestly sounds just like Joe Newman - who'd love to persuade us he's another maligned and misunderstood prophet. This accident just seems a little too inconvenient.
Dr. Bussard has been working on this since 1983, but he has nothing to show for it after 23-24 years - at least nothing that convinces the authorities to loosen the purse-strings any more. This reminds me of Fleischmann and Pons (both respected scientists) and the cold fusion débacle. They, too, said tokamaks were a dead end, that the oil companies were trying to suppress their work. They did get funding, and lots of it, but there never seemed to be any worthwhile results.And they had a convenient power cut just before some important third-party verification. I'd love to believe, but I'm not convinced yet.

[PixyMisa]

Bussard's discussion of the way that ions inside an electromagnetic containment show gyromagnetic jumps failed to show you why size is another key to scaling? I suggest that you might want to take another look at this. Do you not see why spacing of the magnetic elements is important, neither too far nor too close, to avoid arcing yet not allow escape paths for the electrons?

Sure. But if he's claiming that it scales with 7th power of the diameter, then either he's wrong or he's building a bomb.

Realistically, he may have a process that scales with the 7th power of linear size, but the difficulty of sustaining that process may scale with the 6th power, or the 8th. There's little reason to think that a process that can't produce any energy on a small scale will prove to be practical on a larger scale.

Now, if he actually gave us his experimental results and his equations, things would be different. But he didn't. The paper that was linked to was rubbish. Whatever the reality of the device and the experiments conducted, the paper itself was rubbish.

Furthermore ... surprised.

You're mixing up fundamental and applied research, where the applied research has immediate and enormous financial return if it works out. No comparison.

I don't know for certain this is the big one- but if anyone's going to find a big one, it's gonna be Bussard. The man's credentials are impeccable

It's not his credentials that I care about, its his results, and he hasn't shown any.

Give him the money.

Shan't.

Stand or fall, the principles of the device are relatively straightforward- and if it doesn't work, we'll learn more for the next try. It has to work one way or another- I am still aghast that they are building ITER. It is, IMO, a colossal waste of money- other than the engineering talent it will engender. But you'll notice that engineering talent will all be French. The Americans will all be Cretinists- err, Creationists. How useful.

:confused:

[Big Al]

This is a guy who's famous for inventing something that, so far, has only graced the pages of science-fiiction novels.

Bussard is a bit like Freeman Dyson: lots of people see him as a visionary genius, but nobody can name an actual, practical invention or scientific theory.

[Almo]

What bugs me is it sounds like a 419 scam. "We had it, lost funding that week, and now just need a small kick of $150 mil."

I was reading this thread thinking it was new, and just came across this. My first thought was, "Did someone spoof me?" Now I vaguely remember writing it but... still. It's a weird feeling.

[Almo]

Seems that there are a few little "thises and thats" y'all might want to make sure you're aware of.

...

It looks legit to me. Not to mention the fact he appeared in front of the staff of Google (they have these "tech talks" every so often- I think maybe they're competing with Microsoft, they do that too) and gave a pretty thorough talk about it, a few weeks back. This guy is the real deal, for sure- the real question is, will his idea work? Only time will tell.

Thanks! Very informative. Sounds reasonable to me.

[Schneibster]

Sure. But if he's claiming that it scales with 7th power of the diameter, then either he's wrong or he's building a bomb.Ummm, you'd better read that part again. You missed that it's total power that scales as the 7th- net power output scales as the 5th. And I don't know that he maintained it scales forever. It doesn't have to, to work.

Let's think about how this thing works. It's pretty straightforward.

What you do, you make a strong potential well, and then you dump in fusible ions. When the fusible ions try to escape, they have to escape the potential well- and they can't.

How dense does the fusible medium have to be, and how strong does the potential well have to be to make it that dense, and how does that interact with size?

Hmmmnnnmm, well, you get at least a cube-law interaction with size.

So what else do you have to figure in?

Well, let's see; ideally, you can create your potential well with static electricity. So that means that you don't have to put energy in, except a certain amount for "start-up," if the machine is a perfect electron trap. Now, we all know that's not possible, but how close can we get? After all, we don't need to actually have the electrons themselves enter the reaction; we just need them there to provide the potential well. Well, electrons, they orbit- and keeping them trapped in a magnetic field sounds like the way to go for that. So what we do, is we make a magnetic trap for the electrons, and then we do everything we can to reduce the number of ways the electrons can escape from the magnetic field. For example, we make sure that the number of north poles and south poles is balanced, so that there's no way for the electrons to escape; every time they come out, there's the way back in, if they follow the field lines. And we make sure that none of the electron cloud touches the metal of the magnets; if it does, it will not only escape, but it may well burn big holes in things, starting with the magnets.

Now I don't know about you, friend, but I came out of an EE education with a lot of knowledge about electronics, but a less-than-stellar understanding of magnetics. It wasn't until I started putting the education to use in power supply design that I found out how important magnetics is. Most EEs, even today, don't know a great deal about this stuff, unless they intend on specializing in power supplies or audio speaker design. And I've talked to quite a few physicists, and most of them admit that aside from knowing how magnetism works, and where to look up the equations, they don't necessarily understand a great deal about how to apply it. And those are the two education paths I'd expect to give you the most knowledge in the field.

So a physicist trying to make a fusion machine had to spend ten or fifteen years finding out just how magnetic fields work, and how to use them to contain electrons without losing any. Big surprise. Not to me, anyway.

And here's the final piece: guess how magnetic and electric fields act in space? Ever hear of the inverse-square law?

Oh, and by the way, you DO know that fusion is probabilistic, right? That is, you can't just slam a couple atoms together and assume they're gonna fuse every time, right? You gotta be prepared to do it several times for each atom if you're gonna get anything out of it. So how do collisions at the center of the potential well, scale as the linear size of the magnets?

Gee, let's see:
1. We got square law, from the fields.
2. We maybe got two separate square laws, because it's not the magnets that contain the fusibles, it's the magnets that contain the electrons, and the field from the electrons that contains the fusibles.
3. We got cube law, because we're expanding the linear size and talking about volume.
4. We got fusion as a probability in each interaction; and what we're doing is increasing the density and the containment until that probability is high enough that we get power out of it.

So, now, that's enough to go on with; I'll tell you for free there are a couple other things in there that I haven't mentioned, and I know for sure you haven't considered (because if you had, you wouldn't be going down the path you are). Now you tell me, how precisely do you expect the power output to vary with the linear size of the magnets?

Good luck. From what I've seen so far of your physics knowledge, I expect I'll hear back from you... oh, 'long about the time hell freezes over.

Realistically, he may have a process that scales with the 7th power of linear size, but the difficulty of sustaining that process may scale with the 6th power, or the 8th. There's little reason to think that a process that can't produce any energy on a small scale will prove to be practical on a larger scale.Oh, really? Then why build giant Tokamaks, like ITER, which you were questioning my views on below? Have you even twigged to the fact that you're talking about two square laws and a cube law, just in the simple physics of linear dimension and field variation over spatial extent? Do you perhaps think they haven't built little Tokamaks? There's a nice google for you. I bet I can find at least two small Tokamak experiments that haven't yielded any net power at all, in under thirty seconds. :D I should warn you that the last person who challenged such a statement of mine won't talk to me anymore because I proved conclusively s/he was an idiot.

Now, if he actually gave us his experimental results and his equations, things would be different. But he didn't. The paper that was linked to was rubbish. Whatever the reality of the device and the experiments conducted, the paper itself was rubbish.As a scientific paper reporting his results? Yes, you're correct. OTOH, that's not what it was written to be, was it? So I'd say this is indicting someone you disagree with, on the basis that they didn't do something they weren't trying to do. Which is not a particularly good logical procedure for figuring out whether it's plausible or not.

And it appears that he's not nearly as interested in publishing his results at this point as he is in drumming up some support for this thing. Given a choice, I'd probably choose as he has; after all, if he hits it out of the park, who the hell cares what he published? The man will be universally famous. And he hasn't got a lot of time left. Do you really want to give it to the Chinese before we have a chance to play with it?

You're mixing up fundamental and applied research, where the applied research has immediate and enormous financial return if it works out. No comparison.No, actually, I'm not- it was the US Congress that mixed them- and the funding for them- up. And I'm surprised you didn't spot that coming- looks like you got a blind spot.

It's not his credentials that I care about, its his results, and he hasn't shown any.Well, neither has the Tokamak. So what the hell are we still doing THAT for?

You DID notice that one of the goals of ITER is to make net power output, right?

[Schneibster]

This is a guy who's famous for inventing something that, so far, has only graced the pages of science-fiiction novels.That would be aside from being the deputy director of the fusion research effort that has given us every US Tokamak ever built. The director of which was the inventor of the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor that Bussard's design is based on. But of course, thatdoesn'thaveanythingtodowithfusion, right?

Bussard is a bit like Freeman Dyson: lots of people see him as a visionary genius, but nobody can name an actual, practical invention or scientific theory.I'm not going to even answer this. If you know little enough about Dyson to make this claim, you are incompetent to comment on either Dyson or Bussard.

[Fluxcapacitor]

Wassup?

I'm new to this forum, and I have been following IEC fusion for a few years now after reading Farnsworth's biography. After looking at the recent post with Bussard's comments and his polywell patent, I thought it might be fun to try modeling magnetic field configurations with FemLab software. His last attempt was with 4 coils in a cube arrangement. I assumed that the coil fields were aligned to point inwards. Referring to my hosted image, since symmetry allows the computational domain to be a 1/8 cube the far corner is at the center and the 3 outer corners show the outer cusp fields produced parallel to the coil centerlines. In the corner facing the viewer the so called "funny cusp" possibly appears showing the return field paths for recirculating charged particles. It may be that any structural metal parts intersecting these field lines may have caused the losses Bussard claims to have recently minimized. Maybe a picture really is worth a thousand words?

Flux

[tonybarry]

I thought to advise forum members of a new site to discuss polywell fusion. Since the Forum Gods have not allowed me to post links directly, I offer it with some trepidation in the old-fashioned spelt out format, hoping that this does not bring down the wrath of Holy Old Klono Himself upon me*.

www dot strout dot net/info/science/polywell

Joe Strout (who is hosting the page) is a software engineer responsible for much of REALbasic and all of Meshwork. I offer this link of my own volition, and am not connected with Joe in any way.

*Klono was the deity of choice for Kimball Kinnison, the Grey Lensman of E.E. (Doc) Smith's classic SF series. This particular god had so many teeth, horns, hooves, and sundry other parts that "he was much more satisfying to swear by than any other deity" Kinnison knew.

Regards,
TB

[Soapy Sam]

www.strout.net/info/science/polywell (http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell)

[trvlr2]

Welcome, Tonybarry.

Here's your link: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

If you've followed this topic, good on yer, if not, it is amusing to look for all of them. I believe that there may be old threads.

[trvlr2]

Slippery Sam! Been on too many oil rigs!:D

[Schneibster]

Not bad. Interesting discussion developing on the theory forum about whether Rider's results apply.

[INRM]

The one thing that bothers me about a fusion reactor is that if containment failed the thing would go up in a huge thermonuclear explosion.

If built far enough away from cities or populated areas, I'm for it. I just don't want there to be a new terrorist target on the list, and I certainly do not want to subject entire towns and cities to the risk of disappearing under a mushroom cloud

Tony L

[RecoveringYuppy]

No. Containment failure would mean an immediate end to the reaction in all current designs.

[Schneibster]

It's difficult for me to imagine a design in which a thermonuclear reaction that is usable for power generation on the surface of a planet could explode. For that matter, the reaction proposed here is p-B11, which does not produce neutrons; so there's not even any radioactive material to deal with, either in the fuel or in the products. Fusion reactors, at least as we understand them now, are far safer than fission plants.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yeah. The only "designs" that seem to have any risk of runaway are the cold fusion concepts that claim that certain metals can catalyze a reaction. But you have to be awfully generous to call any of those concepts "designs".

[Schneibster]

Well, first, cold fusion isn't thermonuclear. ;)

[RecoveringYuppy]

It probably isn't even fusion.

[Schneibster]

I don't think I'd quibble with that statement at this time.