Discussion on:

Fusion breakthrough

Their small scale research may point to a future where it is more economical to produce many smaller fusion plants instead of the massive commercial electric plants built today.

Think of the reduced grid infrastructure needed if power plants that required only a 3,000 square foot building 2 stories tall could power a city block or a single NYC skyscraper.

Instead of building massive plants in place you could have an assembly line producing power modules that could be delivered on flatbed trucks.

Excellent point Mr. H. Idiots. Applies equally to nuclear fission as well as fusion. The thorium molten salt fission reactor that Flibe Energy is working on could come in a small form factor and help the U.S. military disconnect its bases from the grid http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/the-new-face-of-safe-nuclear/7712?tag=search-river. That's just one example. Others within the links at end of story. Or search "modular nuclear" above for more from me and my SP colleagues. Modular reactors could also be used as a heat source for industrial processes. On a slightly controversial note, for instance, they could assist in oil sands extraction. See "How nuclear will make oil greener" http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/how-nuclear-will-make-oil-greener/10879.

Those units run about $3-$20 per Watt capacity, all in (steam turbines etc. included), AFAIK. The FF unit runs about $0.05/Watt. Which would you spend your money on, if wotsa watts was what you wanted?

The company has mentioned this as a goal.

You're way overstating the size. Perhaps 300 sq', one story tall. 5MW per unit is expected to begin with, perhaps up to 20MW if cooling technology improves enough.
The modules would fit in a shipping container. Cost about $250K FOB factory door.

For most of my 63 years, nuclear fusion has always been 10-20 years away from being practical. Maybe this time it's true? But probably it isn't.

Thanks Xray. My years don't add up to 63, but I'm somewhat steeped in the history of this. My impression is that fusion has perennially been 30 years away. So I'll take the new 10-to-20 years! And I'm going to go out on a limb and say it will be closer to 10. I'm impressed that entrepreneurs have entered the business. That's not to discount what the government-backed giants like ITER and NIF are doing - I do think they'll deliver useful findings. But they have the luxury (until budget cuts) of trundling along. Startup companies do not. That's why I see the time frame now shortening. Provided the startups find adequate funding - not all will.

Lerner and co. expect about 4 yrs of engineering prototyping after scientific breakthrough to produce a licensable design. At that point (~2017), the design will be made available to ALL comers for a very reasonable fee, world-wide.
At that moment, the race to be first (or at least quick enough) to get access to ultra-cheap power will be on. I perdicks: by 2020, the world will be converting to FF power as fast as it can crank out the generators. To do otherwise in any particular jurisdiction will be to accept a 10X+ disadvantage in the cost of new and replacement power sourcing. That's incentive with big teeth.

...I just don't expect to see it commercially deployed in my lifetime.

It has it all; it's theoretically efficient and economical, fuel is endlessly abundant, and it's beyond "green". (although I know the "greens" will find plenty wrong with it, and the economic prosperity that will inevitably follow)

Fusion also opens up solutions to many of our other industrial/ecological problems. Imagine being able to molecularly transform "toxic" waste and compounds to benign, or even alternatively useful material. It's the ultimate in recycling. All of a sudden, landfills would be highly valuable as sources of raw material.

Back in the late '80s/early '90s, there was a debate in Congress to either fund the International Space Station or a giant supercolider in Texas. I always felt that the supercolider would have been the better investment, because it would have contributed towards fusion research, which will benefit us far more as a society in the long run than orbiting the Earth.

The real debate should have been between funding the billions (at least $10B) in fossil fuel subsidies and these research projects. Or the $1B for every stealth bomber, or the $5B or more for each new aircraft carrier (and its huge fleet of support vessels etc). And don't even get me on to the cost of the various wars....

You have an excellent chance of seeing it deployed. See my post above. By 2020 the planet will be installing FF generators as fast as thousands of factories can crank them out.
Renewables, btw, will be very early economic roadkill. Probably as soon as the scientific feasibility is announced, perhaps later this year, it will be evident that they are far worse than worthless.

Now while I welcome this amazing breakthrough, it does not realistically help us with our planet's immediate or even medium term energy needs.

Liquid Fluoride Thorium reactors are much more achievable in the short term, as they use technology already successfully trialled at Oak Ridge in the 60s, and offer all the advantages of safety and scale that fusion promises.

Mind you, as the world is running out of Helium, thanks to balloons, then perhaps fusion will be useful to generate that.

This shows good progress from us for focus fusion, but since the feasibility study is not complete I am very much in favor of a true diversity of energy projects including LFTR's. If the focus fusion feasibility study is successful, the timeframe for commercialization is 5 years, however.

Workable thorium reactors haven't yet been designed and tested, and the FF generators are about 50X cheaper in any case. Tho, thad to thay, thorium's boat hath thailed, leaving it thobbing on the thea thore!

Production and installation of the FF generators will get cranked up to high volume during the 2017-2020 period.

"Workable thorium reactors haven't yet been designed and tested". Perhaps not, but molten salt reactors in general have. The barriers to LFTRs are mostly political. Sure, there is research and testing still required to achieve a certified design but if LFTR research received a fraction of money that wind and solar do, we could have one fairly quickly. OTOH, LPP admits they have a technical challenge with an unknown resolution date. As a former nuclear engineering student, I'm an advocate of fusion, LFTR and the LENR technologies. All three have the capability of obsolescing wind and solar as a grid power source in short order and even fossil fuels in the longer term. There is too much ignorance out there concerning the word "nuclear". Cheap nuclear power may just save us all.

From all the articles that I had read, none of them described how they can converse hi temp plasma into electricity. Since the temp is so hot, whenever it touch the surface of metal or liquid, it would either melt or evaporation. This makes eff to be very small for practical use.

Because the plasmoid is far from any solid surface, surrounded by lower temperature gas, melting the surroundings is not of concern, although a commercial system will need heat removal systems (particularly for the anode, which is closest to the plasmoid). Our FoFu-1 chamber does get warm to the touch after a series of experimental shots. In a potential commercial system, energy will be extracted from the ion beam that exits the plasmoid, and from the X-rays using an "onion" type device that takes advantage of the photoelectric effect over many thousands of layers. Both these methods promise very high efficiency, while eliminating any steam turbine. The video might better explain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVif4hUAJ8c

...why would anyone go to your crappy web site after posting something annoying like that?

why would you come to his site if you don't like it ?


http://piratercomptefacebook.org/

Seems like a refrain I've heard many times before - I won't hold my breath waiting for this to become practical.

Go for it! Always wanted to see someone turn true blue ...

Timeline: scientific breakeven this year (2012)
Four more years to engineering prototype for licensing (2016)
Manufacturers world-wide begin pumping out generators (2017)

Fast enough for ya?

Cheers!

For a fraction of what we've spent on Hot Fusion we could already have cold fusion.

Get the facts! http://youtu.be/i29oXQHh-U4

(... sac louis vuittonG??n??rer et manipuler des conceptsDans la vie de tous les jours, l'??tre humain utilise les concepts qui relient des objets distincts par des r??gles de relation de type?sur le plateau puis sur son compte twitter. sac vuittoneurosCe forfait ?? 2? sacs louis vuittonois Hollande. Le Parlement constitu?? en Haute Cour pourra alors destituer le pr??sident en cas de manquement "manifestement incompatible avec l'exercice de son mandat".a comment?? Fr??d??ric Rollin, conseiller en strat??gie d'investissement chez Pictet. louis vuitton site officiel "Cela prouve que la d??gradation de Standard & Poor's ??tait d'ores et d??j?? int??gr??e",? louis vuitton pas cherqui bouleverse les certitudes, selon les chercheurs.d??cembre 2010".

The question isn't if, it's when. Furthermore, why do we have to accept that the answer is later rather than sooner. The answer of course can be summed up in one example.
Why doesn't the president announce to the world that we are embarking on a plan to replace oil energy with fusion energy? That announcement alone would cause the price of oil to plummet. Energy would be cheap, jobs would be plentiful, and etc.
Back in the early forties, it took the United States just a scant few years to go from a good basic knowledge of atomic energy to a working bomb. Now we have a very good understanding of fusion energy. (There is a Russian-Italian project called "IGNITER" that can produce a sustained fusion reaction for 4 seconds. The problem appears to be their ability to keep it cool.) I submit that if the United States made it a national goal, such as going to the moon was, we could have a working model in ten years or less.
The understanding/technology is there, the tools are there, so why arn't we leading the way? The answer is OIL keeps getting in the way.
ortexgraves.com

This shows good progress from us for focus fusion, but since the feasibility study is not complete I am very much in favor of a true diversity of energy projects including LFTR's. If the focus fusion feasibility study is successful, the timeframe for commercialization is 5 years. If you are looking wow gold, cheap wow gold, buy world of warcraft gold gil, Cheap wow gold,Click Here wow gold

Cheap Converse
Cheap Converse shoes
Cheap Converse
Cheap Converse Shoes
Cheap Converse Shoes
Cheap Converse

This shows good progress from us for focus fusion, but since the feasibility study is not complete I am very much in favor of a true diversity of energy projects including LFTR's. If the focus fusion feasibility study is successful, the timeframe for commercialization is 5 years. http://www.wlkgame.com

This shows good progress from us for focus fusion, but since the feasibility study is not complete I am very much in favor of a true diversity of energy projects including LFTR's. If the focus fusion feasibility study is successful, the timeframe for commercialization is 5 years, however. http://www.370seo.com

Hello, I read your blogs on a regular basis. Your humoristic style is witty, keep up the good work! http://www.tayol.com

that is so cool and so amazing.We should have this spirit to learn things.
ice maker
http://www.cbfi-icemachine.com/

This shows good progress from us for focus fusion, but since the feasibility study is not complete I am very much in favor of a true diversity of energy projects including LFTR's. If the focus fusion feasibility study is successful, the timeframe for commercialization is 5 years, however. http://www.rihont.com

Article written Excellent, thank you sharing, looking forward to your next works!

http://www.topheadphonessale.com/

Hello there, There's no doubt that your website could possibly be having browser compatibility problems. When I take a look at your web site in Safari, it looks fine however, if opening in I.E., it has some overlapping issues. I merely wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, wonderful site!

http://www.chinesecuisinesite.com/

Hello there, There's no doubt that your website could possibly be having browser compatibility problems. When I take a look at your web site in Safari, it looks fine however, if opening in I.E., it has some overlapping issues. I merely wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, wonderful site!.http://www.lvbagsoutletjp.com
http://www.lvbagreplicajp.com

This is an optimistic article. I hope it is correct, but I doubt it - Every time someone has come close to controlling fusion in theory, in practice, it just gets further away. May we all live long enough for this pipe dream to become reality.

thank you it's a very interligent article . http://www.pirater-un-compte-facebook.eu/

The company earned 882,000 new subscribers while AT&T only signed on 319,000 new subscribers during the same quarter.We wont know exactly how well AT&T did during the holiday season until their earnings call on January 26. Regardless of who won between AT&T and Verizon during the holidays, the real winner was Apple. The company will reveal its holiday earnings onand is expected to set all-time records for iPhone and iPad sales. http://www.nikerunfreebillig.com/nike-free-run-m230nd-nike-free-tr-sko-c-49_61.html
http://www.nikerunfreebillig.com/

No other breed of canine has experienced as many discriminations and misconceptions as has the Pit Bull. Although many people would tell you that Pit Bulls are http://www.nikefreeskotilbuds.com/nike-free-kvinder-run-c-327.html a Nike Free mild and harmless pet, other folks consider http://www.nikefreeskotilbuds.com/ them as wicked and evil sufficient to become Satans guard dog. Despite the fact that neither viewpoint is accurate, both have some foundation the truth is and inside the dogs controversial origin.

EEA Helicopter Work K.V. ("EEA"), an Significant Nederlander insurer http://www.lululemonoutletsale.com/lululemon-tops-lululemon-in-stride-jackets-c-91_93.html Biggest percentage Held or
operated and also EHO Holdings S.a.r.l. in Add-on to the minority Employed Anticipated to CHC Helicopter
S.a.r.l., Provides chopper Supplements in the North Coast. EEA Operates out plantar to CHC Manufacturer in
Add-on to Advantages CHC Inventive logo Troubled certificate. This Company Companies Anticipated to 17
facets in the united kingdom, Ireland, http://www.lululemonoutletsale.com/lululemon-tops-lululemon-scuba-hoodies-c-91_94.html Denmark, Norwegian and also Netherlands.

There are A lot of Indications of standing female Giorgia Bronzini sprint. Rainbow stripes indicating their
Position of Globe champion twice on the Street - she also won a Name on the circuit - are A single.led
Bicycle Mild An additional http://www.lululemonoutletcanada.net/lululemon-tops-lululemon-scuba-hoodies-c-1_3.html is the Reality that the Italian was Attempting to Warning for most English-Wiggle Honda
Group in http://www.lululemonoutletcanada.net/ its inaugural Period.

When trying to buy a suitable spyder ski jacket, you need to decide what kind of type you really need. Does it have to be the insulated jacket or just the shell-style or the so called non-insulated jacket? Sometimes it depends on the http://www.clearancethenorthfaceoutlet.org/womens-outlet-north-face-hyvent-jacket-c-50_61.html temperature, the thickness of the snow, and your body temperature.

Luxury Brand name Oakley has existed for decades, Beginning out as the Leather-based Products Store in 1973. James
and his Sibling Martino Began the Enterprise, which has Considering that turned into Between the Planet's
most Prosperous Higher-Style Brand names. The Organization Experienced been Operate by Loved http://www.cheapukoakleysunglasses.co.uk/oakley-active-sunglasses-oakley-scalpel-sunglasses-c-8_14.html ones for decades, with Mario's
daughter and grand-daughter At some point Getting the Enterprise to its Planetwide Standing.

Polaroid sunglasses Have been Made and brought forth by the Support of 4 Folks. When 1750 dawned
James Asycough Began experimenting with tinted sunglasses. He was Making http://www.oakleyukoutlet.org.uk/ use of the tinted sunglasses to
Right the Eyesight Troubles that Have been Made Anticipated to deformities in the pupils. At the Exact Pretty
time, a Whole lot of Folks Have been experimenting with Lumination and Coloring.

Head of hair Elimination does not have to be High-Price tagd. It Accurate, waxing has a Greater price tag of a razor or a
bottle http://www.spyopticsunglasses.org/spy-optic-murena-sunglasses-c-4.html of Nair, but the Outcomes are smoother Complexion and Lengthy lasting results. Waxing also Requires Treatment
of Difficulty Places with Much less irritation. A lot of Occasions a wax Beauty parlor will Few Providers to make an
Attractive and Inexpensive Package deal.

Nevertheless, Among the the Remarkable Components of Grilamid is its lightness, Offers Great transparency,
has Substantial flex fatigue Durability, http://www.spyopticssunglasses.org/spy-optic-murena-sunglasses-c-2.html Influence resistant and Climate resistant, can be coloured and has
Lower flammability and is resistant to Chemical compounds at temperatures and to Strain cracking.

I have long worked on a broad, theoretical examination of what humans will need to survive long them. Obviously, as energetics is the basis of the ecology of any specie, the importance of the energy source that humans have available cannot be over stated (oh and the difference between distributed and centralized is important too, particularly in terms of resilience). But think, if we could produce a thousand of these a day, right now, what problems would remain? Most of them... and even a larger problem you don't know about yet. It's OK. If I live long enough to publish, I've got the solution to almost every other human problem (except perhaps automation, because it's hard to beat efficiency).