fusor

Fusor.net Featured at WIRED.com

Brace yourselves for an onslaught of newbies... WIRED magazine has just issued this article at wired.com that covers the full range of fusion experiments in the world today, and prominently features the work that our members here at fusor.net are conducting: 

There is, however, a problem: Fusion doesn't work. In hopes of changing that, international consortia have plunged billions into research, with the latest project, ITER, tagged at $13.3 billion. Even so, scientists expect it will take ITER decades to consistently produce more energy than its consumes.

Faced with such immense price tags, it's easy to be startled by the work of people like Thiago Olson, Frank Sanns and Raymond Jimenez. These men all share one thing in common: they've all built fusors -- simple, fully-functional fusion reactors -- using readily available parts, and shared their experiments online.)   

They call themselves fusioneers.   

"Fusion has always intrigued me, but did not seem like the kind of thing you could do in your basement," said Sanns. "It is quite involved but quite elegant, and ... the fusion is spectacular."

I don't know if it's been mathematically proven yet, but I still suspect that even our low-yield fusors are generating far more fusion-per-dollar than those billion dollar boondoggles...

Please direct your discussion of this article to this section in the fusor forums

Link: Fusion Experiments Show Nuclear Power's Softer Side -.

First Look at the Tesla Roadster

This doesn't really have anything to do with fusion, but most of the visitors and regulars here, in addition to being Philo-files, are also well aware of the contributions that Nikola Tesla has made to electrical science.  And this doesn't really have anything to do with Tesla, either, except that his name is being used as the marque for a new, 100% rechargeable electric car called the Tesla Roadster

One of the editors PC Magazine has had a chance to examine one of the prototypes and reports his findings here:

Due on the market this fall, at a price of $92,000, the Tesla is powered by the same lithium-ion battery cells that drive the average laptop or smartphone, and you can charge it from an ordinary wall socket. There's even a grate under the rear fender where the car expels hot air, just like the typical desktop PC.

Several prototypes are already assembled, and last night, I was invited down to the company's Silicon Valley offices for a spin down the freeway. No, I didn't get to drive. Each prototype was built at a cost of over a million dollars, and only the lucky few covered by the company insurance policy are permitted behind the wheel. But I did get the rush of sitting in the passenger seat of this Lotus-like two-door convertible. And what a rush it is!

On second thought, maybe there is a fusion connection to this story.  I mean, if we're going to have a world of non-polluting electric cars, the electricity is going to have to come from somewhere, and unless we find some source other than coal or gas fired generators (and fission reactors), there will be no net-gain in reduced emissions if the cars are the only things running on electricity.  So the sooner somebody comes up with practical fusion generation, the sooner cars like the Tesla Roadster will make  any kind of real environmental sense. 

Link: Tesla Roadster: Test Driving Your Electric Dream Car - News and Analysis by PC Magazine.

Bussard in DefenseNews.com

Link: DefenseNews.com - Fighting for Fusion - 03/05/07 17:52.

He completed low-power tests in September and October and began high-power testing of the reactor in November. After four tests Nov. 9 and 10, an electromagnetic coil short-circuited as electricity surged through it, “vaporizing” part of his reactor, Bussard said, and bringing his tests to an end. “The following Monday, we started to tear the lab down. Nobody had time to reduce the data that was stored on the computer. It wasn’t until early December that we reduced the data and looked at it and realized what we had done,” he said. Bussard said he and his small team of scientists had proven that nuclear fusion can be harnessed as a usable source of cheap, clean energy.

Discuss this article in the forums

More "Fusioneers" In the News

... and this time from across the pond. 

Physics Web, the online journal of the Institute of Physics in the UK, has run a very nice article about the Fusor and people in the UK and Ireland who are building them.  Comparing the Fusor to the humongous ITER now being built in France, author Edwin Cartlidge writes,

the device that sits on a bench in the corner of a quiet laboratory at Cambridge University. Like the reactors built by professional scientists, this machine can be used to create fusion reactions – tens of thousands of deuterium–deuterium reactions per second. But this device, known as a “fusor”, cost about £3000 and was put together by two secondary-school students in the garage of one of their parents’ houses in Torquay.

Download the entire article in .pdf format from the link in this post in the forums