NYTimes Thomas Friedman Discovers Fusion

Unfortunately, he discovered it at the National Ignition Facility, where they can spend tens of millions of dollars on a single burst of fusion produced by a finely-tune array of nearly 200 laser beams:

Hang around long enough and you’ll even hear that in another 10 or 20 years hydrogen-powered cars or fusion energy will be a commercial reality. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard one of those stories, I could buy my own space shuttle. No wonder cynics often say that viable fusion energy or hydrogen-powered cars are “20 years away and always will be.”

But what if this time is different? What if a laser-powered fusion energy power plant that would have all the reliability of coal, without the carbon dioxide, all the cleanliness of wind and solar, without having to worry about the sun not shining or the wind not blowing, and all the scale of nuclear, without all the waste, was indeed just 10 years away or less? That would be a holy cow game-changer.

Tom, do you want a REALLY "holy cow game-changer"?  Then how about a process that produces real, hot, "thermonuclear" fusion in a device you can build in your own basement or garage?  Instead of a facility the size of an auto factory, costing tens of millions -- if not hundreds, or billions -- of dollars, suppose fusion could be achieved in a device that costs about as much as a good set of used golf clubs?

It's possible, and in fact it's being done almost every day in a device first demonstrated more than 40 years ago by electronic video pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth -- as described in my book, The Boy Who Invented Television.

Admittedly, the process we're talking about here -- the Farnsworth fusor -- produces no more "energy gain" (we call it "break-even," Tom) than that behemoth in California that you found so impressive and promising. 

But if it's a real "paradigm shift" you want in the way the world produces energy -- clean, (relatively) safe and virtually unlimited energy -- then what could be more promising than a machine that occupies about as much space as a microwave oven? 

And what could be more exciting than a process that is being effectively explored on a grassroots level by dozens of people around the world who are producing fusion in their own basements and garages -- and then comparing their results and sharing data with their colleagues around the world via the Internet?

Now, there's a really interesting prospect:  instead of holding out for a future where energy production continues to be controlled by large and well-capitalized industrial interests, suppose we could all produce more clean energy than we could ever possibly use.  And do it right in our own basements from a benign fusion energy device -- a gadget that would occupy the same space our oil, gas, or coal burning furnace occupies now? 

That was the vision articulated by Philo T. Farnsworth when he first developed the Fusor in the 1960s.  And while anybody building a Fusor today will tell you that they are many orders of magnitude from anything approaching "break even" or net energy production, the effort is worth noting, because dollar for dollar, the Farnsworth approach is producing vastly more amounts of actual fusion than the immensely complicated devices like you toured at the National Ignition Facility.

In your op-ed piece, Friedman concludes:

...we need to make a few big bets on potential game-changers. I am talking about systems that could give us abundant, clean, reliable electrons and drive massive innovation in big lasers, materials science, nuclear physics and chemistry that would benefit, energize and renew many U.S. industries.

And I agree, we need to make a few big bets.  But we also need to make a few SMALL bets, and stop looking toward gigantic institutions to deliver the solutions we need if they can perhaps be delivered instead on an entirely different scale.

Comments

[Richard Hull]

As a youth, my folks would tell me that if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. Well, somewhere along the line I grew up. As I got older I started thinking critically. After 60 years, I started thinking based on that number of years on earth and lessons learned from human interaction.

I have no trouble now with "hard sayins", (an old southern comedian's term for truisms or candid observations that hurt or sting.)

Barring a miracle, fusion systems that supply any form of meaningful power to the consumer are about 70-100 years off in the future.

Regardless of size or cost, unless new ideas in physics come about, the money spent on fusion might best be used to immediately building coal fired or nuclear power plants, in the short term. The world is on a fast track for becoming 100% electrically based. This includes all forms of transport.

We need electricity in huge quad units, quickly, not massive new wind farms or acres of solar panels that are dribs and drabs at the electrical energy issue.

Fusion quests are a series of long running games that are already lost in the short term.

Richard Hull

[Brett Bellmore]

My position is fairly simple: We already have proven 'fuel pellets' capable of achieving far more than break-even. They're called "bombs", and building a reactor to use them is just an exercise in application of known engineering principles, no new science needed.

We could let the contracts tomorrow to design a working reactor. We don't, because we don't desperately NEED fusion. We've got too many other options.

[Nathaniel Kaye]

We need fusion power for something, Brett, but I think harnessing hydrogen bombs could be a hard sell to the American people, and the cost might not be favorable compared to a fission plant. While most of us don't need electricity like we need food, we need it to stay in this age of man. We should consider the fact that coal plants are adding significant amounts of mercury to the oceans, and spewing out radioactive particles. Oil seems responsible for global strife. A 70% fission solution seems unlikely due to the expense. We need cheap fusion power to stop people from using gigantic amounts of these fuels. NIF might not be a way to achieve this due to the use of pellets, but I am hesitant to advocate against it. As a costly government project it is more likely to solve our problems than the next-generation destroyer for WWIII.

It makes no sense to say we need new physics. We understand the physics of this problem; we still need that good-enough fuel reflector that doesn't have side-problems. That is, assuming the laser/pellet and hydrogen bomb methods don't make reasonable power sources.

A sensible approach is to invest modest sums of money in small scale experiments. First play around with the details of the design and achieve repeat/extended time operation. Then build differently sized models that are otherwise identical to demonstrate the scaling principle. If at that point, the full scale costs seem reasonable, build it.

[David Spector]

Although the people who are rediscovering Farnsworth's Fusor patents and experimental reports and anecdotes elsewhere on the Web unfortunately use the typical "gullible" or 'new age" language of nonscientics, I believe that Fusor research is worth replicating today, if there is any chance that it can result in practical fusion applications.

This research has apparently never been discredited on scientific or experimental grounds, but rather died due to political and economic grounds apparently engineered by big business with much to lose.

We don't have such prejudices today, so if there is a chance that a small experimental setup can generate practical hot fusion (indicated by neutron generation and current output), it should be tested. There is no a priori physical reason why multimillion dollar Tokamaks should be necessary for generating hot fusion.