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

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