It's the 21st Century. Where's My Fusion Reactor? by Dennis Peterson

Cool to see fusion put forward. There was an article in the Boston Globe today suggesting that the MIT effort has run into funding challenges. Here's a blog post about the article: http://americansecurityproject.org/fusion-energy-climate/2013/fusion-program-at-mit-is-ending/

Hello Guys, We ought to take all these fusion ideas and put them under one roof. That is: 1. Cross fire fusion 2. Tri Alpha Energy 3. Polywell 4. General Fusion 5. Reverse Field Pinches 6. Focus Fusion 7. LENR 8. Fusors 9. The Lockheed Effort 10. Beam Fusion 11. Ect.... You get everyone together at one conference and have them rip each others ideas apart. The top new fusion ideas can rise to the top. Fusion is really hard. Nobody has the great solution and your goal should be to get as much help as possible and be as open as you can be.

Thanks! I've added a more specific action plan, with the bulk of the new material starting at the end of the What section under the subhead "How to get there in time," followed by new material in the Who, Where, and Cost sections. There are also some new references, and minor changes near the beginning. To make room, I've removed material on molten salt reactors, which are covered by several other proposals.

Great detail on current experiments. Prize approach is interesting, focus on small-scale projects is novel.

I agree with the judges. This proposal does not give specific actions. What are we trying to fund? This plan extends existing efforts, but that does not solve the problem. Dennis has covered some new ideas. That is great. This fledgling community needs this exposure; we do need the attention of bigger players like MIT. Pay attention: we are here, we are not going away. Cash will always help – But, it is not what we need now. We need to build a community. We need to educate the average person. They need to understand fusion as a possible solution. Next, we need to try some new ideas. Of the 20 brand new proposals, there are probably 3 or 4 solid ideas. Good ideas are as transparent as possible. They do not hide from the public behind quantum theory, proprietary knowledge or jargon. They welcome scrutiny – not just from ivory tower academics but also from the common people. We want plenty of onlookers; it is the best way to find fusion energy. Fusion research is undergoing a shift and I believe we are just seeing the beginnings of this. NIF has failed. After 30 years of marching down this path, we have found a dead end. NIF sucked money away from alternatives. It gave researchers a groupthink mentality. That was dangerous. It silenced internal criticism. It also drove public opinion away from alternatives. That was fine when fusion was limited only to professionals. But this has changed. Today, a 14 year old kid can fuse the atom in his basement. Fusion can be done by the common man. This speaks volumes. It tells us that fusion power will come from simpler, cheap, smaller machines. We will see what happens next.

I'm curious as to why you think the smaller projects will be more successful though? Personally I think the Stellarator (i.e. W-7x) is the best approach as due to advances in heating methods the plasma current is obsolete for heating now, and by getting rid of it as in the Stellarator we can get rid of many instabilities. Furthermore the Stellarator is a steady-state device, it doesn't have to be cycled like the tokamak. Chen reaches much the same conclusions in his excellent book An Indispensable Truth, which I absolutely recommend you read if you haven't already. However, you are entirely correct that the smaller projects should receive funding - in the Manhattan Project both the Uranium and Plutonium routes were pursued simultaneously because it was believed that failure was not an option. The energy crisis (and climate change) pose a far more dangerous threat to human life than Japanese Zeros ever did and our response should reflect that.

Great discussion.

Here is the plan for Polywell research (if we had the cash): 1. Make a simulation of the Polywell. 2. Benchmark the simulation by getting it to duplicate experimental results (WB6) 3. Use dimensionless numbers to explore the wide operating space, here are some examples: A. Electron/Ion Ratio B. Electric field strength/Magnetic field strength C. Beta Ratio D. Ion Temperature/Electron Temperature E. Magnetic field by cloud/applied field F. ect... 4. Break the space into modes of operation. The fusor has three modes. The polywell may to. 5. Build a small polywell and operate it in the best mode. 6. Attach a direct converter on one side. 7. Measure power in and power out. Run continuously. Try and find break even. 8. Ship product. This is the approach the Wright brothers would have taken. The navy may have completed several of these steps already. If we could use what they know, we will not have to repeat their efforts. We already know a couple of key points: 1. The polywell will likely face ion injection problems. 2. Many more electrons will be needed than ions. 3. Electrons must recirculate as much as possible. 4. More vacuum improves operation. 5. Moving the electron emitter farther away will speed up electrons. 6. Stronger magnetic field makes deeper, better wells. 7. Higher electric field makes deeper, better wells. But, this effect is limited. 8. The rings are designed so the magnetic field is uniform in all directions. We also know from the Lawson criteria that we will need to abide by the following equation: Power = (Fusion - Conduction - Radiation)*Machine Efficiency Each term points us in a direction. Reducing conduction losses means curved magnetic fields, shielded surfaces and smooth rings. It means designing the machine so plasma can move without hitting anything. Reducing radiation means plasmas with two temperatures: lots of cold electrons, a few hot ions. Efficiency means using direct conversion, smaller machines and lower the input power. There are a couple of other rules I would add: 1. The experts can be wrong. Man can fly, fusion power is possible. 2. The innovators will need a new view. 3. Get a partner. 4. Get as much information as you can and question everything. 5. Connect with a network of people. 6. Use the simplest model - add complexity later. 7. Base conclusions on the evidence. 8. Have a sharp eye. 9. Get into arguments. 10. Get accurate data. 11. Be causal about it. 12. Nobody will believe you. 13. Expect your story to be wildly inaccurate in the media. 14. Publish everything - both formally and informally. 15. Admit if it fails - be open about failure. I have laid much of this out before: http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-it-works.html http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/simulating-wb6.html http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/startup.html http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/an-ode-to-fusioneer.html http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-physical-basis-for-polywell.html http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/inventing-impossible.html

Excellent Research, the key question is: why isn't fusion funded? Last weekend, I met a Massachusetts senator at local charity event. I asked the Senator a question about Hydrogen Fusion research funding at MIT, which had been cut again because of sequestration. The Senator commented that the Department of Energy does not want to fund fusion research. I followed up by asking independent fusion research team Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. Their response was DOE has a policy of not funding their type of fusion research. MIT’s research lab is top in the nation and cannot get funding while small independent teams won’t apply for grants. The Department of Energy Portal doesn’t list fusion! Doesn’t this contradict the Obama administration’s “all of the above” focus on energy? This is an incredible turn of events, and a travesty of science. If we continued investing in fusion energy research during those prior decades, we could have had fusion by now. The think tank American Security Project (ASP) has proposed a $30 Billion / 10 year project to achieve fusion energy and argues this would create whole new industries similar to the semiconductor revolution. The list of prior ASP Board Members includes Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. Their white paper can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/1gymGCd $30 Billion dollars over ten years would jumpstart this technology. Other countries may also decide to increase their investment, thereby accelerating the phasing out of carbon fuels. The production of oil, natural gas and coal limits the energy available for civilization. The socioeconomic powers that control or “own” these fuels keep their grasp on the spigot of energy for mankind. It is a carbon fuel colossus that powers our civilization and poisons our planet. These socioeconomic powers killed off fusion long before they started to deny Global Warming. The science and engineering required to achieve fusion energy is well known and understood. Check out this article on Slashdot: http://bit.ly/VE3lU0 Refining small amounts of seawater, which is plentiful, creates the hydrogen isotope fuel. Hydrogen fusion energy is distributed power. The number fusion reactors in operation are the only limit for fusion energy available for mankind. With more machines generating power through fusion, the less need for carbon fuels. After the patents expire, the technology become royalty free and open source, reducing the cost. Compare that to oil fields that can generate fuel, and revenue for owners up to 50 years or more. Fusion is an interplanetary power source, and it’s stable, unlike renewables. Renewable energy’s incredible energy capture potential can help counterbalance the release of energy from civilization into our environment. With chemical power, mankind reached the moon. With fusion power, we will reach the planets. Some day, the fuel for our interplanetary civilization will be skimmed from the upper atmosphere of hydrogen giants. My research on fusion was for a science fiction book I am writing called TimeArc, a cautionary tale of time travel, a compelling tale of global warming. My background includes 30 years in High Tech. My first experiences with computers were paper tape and punch cards. I see many analogies between the transition from Mainframes to Distributed Computing and the transition from a carbon-based economy to one that relies on infrastructure based energy sources like solar, wind and fusion. The oil industry acts like IBM when mainframes dominated the computer industry. The only reason why hydrogen fusion energy hasn’t replaced carbon fuels is the lack of political commitment. We need the political will to promote fusion research and shepherd a new generation of clean energy for mankind. This could be a greater feat for mankind than President Kennedy’s commitment to land on the moon. If we had invested in fusion earlier, we could have fusion by now and we would be phasing out carbon fuels for mankind. We need to invest in fusion now! Promote the American Security Project (ASP) proposal for a $30 Billion / 10 year project to achieve fusion energy: http://bit.ly/Zpevt8P. The attached file is a hyperlinked, extended version of this document. It can also be downloaded with the following link: http://bit.ly/1bteOeu Frank Paine

Hi Alex! You may remember my 2011 Colab entry advocating LFTRs and IFRs. I'm still a supporter of both, and in fact had a short section on molten-salt reactors in this entry, until the judges needed extra detail on something else and I had to remove it for space. I also advocated advanced fission in an entry this year under the Fossil Fuel Sector category (see Fossil-Free Hydrocarbons). There are several reasons I'm advocating fusion research in addition to fission. The main one is that while fusion has more technical risk than MSRs, I think it has less political risk than any sort of fission. I think that's unfortunate, and hope we can get around it, but I don't think that's a sure thing. Another is that for all their charms, production-ready MSRs aren't here yet either. My understanding is that China has devoted a billion dollars and doesn't expect commercial operation for twenty years or so. Perhaps others will get there sooner, we'll see. Another is that any form of fission has to deal with a great deal of government regulation, and that slows the rate of progress. Fusion has less of that to deal with, and boron fusion much less. Another is that if we actually manage boron fusion, it would likely be cheap enough to make every other form of electricity generation obsolete. Fossil fuels would be abandoned very quickly. It's possible that MSRs will ultimately be cheaper than coal, but I'm guessing not radically cheaper in the short term. (On the other hand, for processes requiring heat rather than electricity, MSRs may still have the advantage, and I very much like your ocean proposal.) Finally, the amount of R&D money required for the alternate approaches I mainly advocate here is just not that high. It seems well worth it given the potential payoff. I don't really think, at this stage of the game, that we should settle on a single solution, or that we should see these technologies as being in conflict with each other. Over the next few decades we'll spend trillions of dollars on energy infrastructure. Anything that might reduce that expenditure is worth looking at for financial reasons alone, let alone carbon impact. The Weinberg Foundation, btw, seems to agree. Over the past year they posted several articles on alternative fusion research, such as this post on Helion: http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2013/04/30/the-nearness-of-fusion-the-materials-and-coolant-challenges-facing-one-fusion-company-mirror-fission/

Yes I remember yours, but I wrote one too ;) https://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/5/planId/15204 I think we're in complete agreement regarding MSRs.

FrankP, yes, fusion isn't needed. I started my grad-student research in the field -- Plasma Physics, when fusion was "20 years away". We recently had the group's 50th reunion, with the assessment that now fusion is "30 years away". But it doesn't matter. Local solar, EVs, good storage and advanced nuclear are all we need for thousands of years. And we need advanced, hi-temp fission in order to deal with truly carbon-neutral fuels, ocean acidification and the more mundane needs of desalination, iGadget charging when the sun don't shine, etc. This is especially true for any future Moon/Mars... exploration/bases, where only fission via Thorium breeding will be possible. Keep working on fusion, sure. We've thousands of years to work on it. Fission is the backside of fusion, by the way, the easier part of discharging fusion batteries that were charged billions of years before our Sun existed, by shocks from massive new or dying stars.

FrankP, you're apparently not an engineer or scientists, given your words about storage. And this is opposite to what I said: "There have been many in history who denied advancing technology." No one is denying "advancing technology" here. Just because you have a pet energy source that you apparently misunderstand doesn't mean others who do understand energy systems are standing in your way. I said you can do fusion -- get to wrk! ;]

Well, let's look at the funding for, say, the molten-salt fission reactor in the '60s and early '70s -- only a fraction of the other fission & fusion efforts, yet working prototypes were achieved -- the final one operating for >17.000 full-power hours from 1965 to 1969. It's still there, awaiting restart. We landed on, and returned from, the Moon while MSR's operated at Oak Ridge TN costing peanuts compared to other fission designs and fusion. By the way, the comments by our Stanford Plasma Physics group in 1961 and 2011 on fusion being 20, then 30, years away were not based on funding. Fusion is a far more difficult animal to tame, because we still know so little of the complex electrodynamic and thermal instabilities to be overcome. For example, the NIF effort at LLNL has been plagued by inadequate models: http://scim.ag/noNIFbreak We know how to do fission, especially in MSRs and, even better, with Thorium breeders, as JFK asked: http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkfa And, the Chinese know the same, and have put $1B and over 1000 scientists & engineers on finishing what we foolishly didn't. They're not spending on fusion because they know all the above. And many others around the world are wisely advocating for more fission designs: Scientists step up to what needs doing... www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/ http://thoriumforum.com/open-letter-those-influencing-environmental-policy-opposed-nuclear-power www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24638816 www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/nobel-physicist-thorium-trumps-all-fuels-as-energy-source/33365 http://thoriumforum.com/nobel-physicist-carlo-rubbia-thorium-trumps-all-fuels-energy-sourc http://thoriumforum.com/sunniva-rose-tedxoslo-thorium-energy More Thorium discussion... http://theenergycollective.com/jimpierobon/295261/does-thorium-deserve-role-next-generation-nuclear-power?ref=popular_posts http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/10/cern-hosts-international-conference-thorium-technologies

Agreed! Had a chance to meet with Eric Lerner and Dennis Peterson at the conference there. Amazing people!