fusor

More Evidence....

...that the future will be a from-the-ground-up affair:  the Makers Faire, sponsored by the publishers of "Make" magazine:  

As important as tinkering has been to the nation’s past, it could become a much bigger deal before long, said David Pescovitz, a research director at the Institute for the Future, a consultancy in Silicon Valley. A new report from the institute argues that the makers could force enormous changes in the ways that goods and services are designed and manufactured. The renewed urge to tinker, along with flexible manufacturing technologies, could shift production from big companies and stores to communities of makers and consumers, Mr. Pescovitz said.

New Links for Newbies

I've added a couple of new links over in the "Newbies" section in the column on the right.  I also had to "number" them to get them in the order I prefer. 

New item #02.1 is a direct link to 2008 update of Tom Ligon's seminal "The World's Simplest Fusion Reactor."  The new version includes a detailed account of Dr. Robert Bussard's  final efforts  with his "WB" (for "Wiffle Ball") reactors prior to his death in October of 2007.

I've also dropped in a link, #05.1 to Richard Hull's post to the forums recounting the "History of the Amateur Fusion Effort." This post is recommended reading for anybody who wants to know how we got here (wherever "here" is...).

Thank You For Playing

...and for finding  another way to waste billions on a ridiculous fusion scheme.

The headline for this article actually says these blokes are going to "recreate the sun:"

A NUCLEAR fusion laboratory designed to recreate the temperatures and pressures inside the sun could be built in Oxfordshire under plans being drawn up by British scientists The aim is to build the world’s most powerful lasers and use them to blast tiny pellets of hydrogen fuel to create energy.

Of course, that's EXACTLY how the sun works:  giant laser beams from somewhere at the edge of the solar system converge on a pellet of hydrogen at the center...

No, wait... that's NOT how the sun works at all. 

Next guess?

Tom Ligon's "Analog" Article is Now Available Online

Long time followers of the forums on  this website will recognize the name of Tom Ligon as one of the prime instigators of the whole, world-wide basement/garage (I hate the word "amateur") fusor project.  It all began, really, when Tom -- who has worked with Dr. Robert Bussard -- wrote an article about the fusor for Analog magazine and then took up the topic with our own Richard Hull.

Tom has recently updated that seminal Analog article, "The World's Simplest Fusion Reactor" with a detailed recount of some of Dr. Bussard's contributions to the art as well as a round up of the work that is being done by the contributors to this website.

The article is now available online and can be downloaded as a .pdf file (from Mark Duncan's "askmar.com" website).

"Consider this a beta posting," Tom cautions, "as I have spotted a minor bug in one of the figures, which I will shortly point out to him."

Even with an outstanding correction, this paper is possibly the best single primer on the grassroots fusion movement that you'll find today. 

Thanks, Tom.

--PS
 

From Farmville to Fusion

Another student has built himself a basement fusion reactor, as recently reported in a Springfield (IL) newspaper:

Link: It's Only Rocket Science - News - Springfield Connection - Connection Newspapers.

Call him Springfield's resident genius. Andrew Grzankowski, a graduate of West Springfield High School, spent his summer vacation building a fusion reactor at Longwood University in Farmville.

"I wanted to do something different," said Grzankowski, now a senior at Longwood. "I read a magazine article about a high school student who did this and I figured we should be able to get better equipment."

There's A Story Behind This Picture

...and it's not the one you think you've heard before.

Richard Hull has stayed in close touch with all the living members of the Farnsworth/ITT Pontiac Street fusion lab from the 1960s, and has compiled the most complete history of that project exists today.  Sadly perhaps, as some members of the team have passed on to that Great Laboratory in the Sky, Richard is able to share with us some stories that have previously not seen the light of day.

Yesterday Richard offered up this lengthy post to the "Fusion History and News" section of the Fusor.net Forums.  The story he tells, which was first told to him by the late Gene Meeks, is controversial, if not down right explosive.  The money quote:

On the day of the proof of performance test, Gene was told to go into the next room and listen during the ITT testing for the high voltage call out and as it climbed, he was to play the tester spark along a massive fume hood intermittently and at the maximum fusor voltage call out he was to arc the tester closely and at a fixed point on the hood until the callout of decending fusor voltage. when he would again walk the tester loosely along the large hood. This was the illicitly generated count that launched a bigger funding from ITT to create the more successful real future fusion efforts and boost the stock as well as bring Farnsworth into the spotlight, more so than had his work in television, at least for a while.

The now-familiar photos of Farnsworth posing with the "top hat" or "bell-jar" fusor circa 1959-61 were taken as a result of the publicity campaign that ITT mounted in the wake of the demonstration that Richard describes in his post.  The irony, of course, if we're to believe Gene Meeks via Richard Hull, is that the fusor that Farnsworth is posing with here was obsolete even before the photo was taken. 

Link: Fusion History & News - Revealing More Fusion History.

NPR Talks About Fusion

...and, not surprisingly, the ITER project in France is not only sucking all the money out of the room, it's getting all the media attention.  $12-billion to get "close" to the actual goal of producing actual electricity.  Follow the link to listen to the report:

Researchers Seek to Recreate Fusion Power.

Morning Edition, August 20, 2007 · In southern France researchers are working on an idea for producing essentially limitless power without greenhouse gases. They're building a massive machine that will recreate what usually only happens in stars or the sun — fusion. That's where two atoms become one, and release energy.

David Kestenbaum's report begins by saying "There's a joke about fusion:  it's the energy source of the future, and always will be."  Except, without it, there probably is no future.

Helium 3 from the Moon

Here's a pretty good primer on why all the interest in mining He3 from the moon, including shots of what appears to be a grid-based IEC type device:

The continuation of this film can also be found here at YouTube Thanks for forum member Zixinus for the links.

Only $40-Million??

Venture Capital in Silicon Valley is contemplating nuclear fusion:

Link: RED HERRING | Startup Chases Nuclear Fusion.

Even with all the hullabaloo about clean energy, few scenarios are as pie-in-the-sky as nuclear fusion power. The sun and stars are powered by fusion reactions, and scientists have been working for more than half a century in hopes of harnessing the phenomenon to develop a clean and abundant source of energy here on Earth.

Enter Tri Alpha Energy. The Foothill Ranch, California-based startup last month raised $40 million in venture capital to do just that, seemingly upending all Silicon Valley logic. “Our primary application is to build an alternative energy platform for power generation,” says Dale Prouty, CEO of Tri Alpha, which is so publicity-shy it doesn’t have a web site. “But we’re a long way from knowing if this is going to work or not.”

I hope they're doing their homework before they start spending that $40-Million, or they're gonna wind up like Jimmy Olsen, burning their cash just to contact Superman...

We Can All Rest Easy Now

Ya gotta love it when somebody writes their first article fusion, and assures us that the future just barely exceeds our grasp....

Link: Engineer Live!.

Power generation: nuclear fusion closer

The holy grail for researchers in power generation is nuclear fusion. It promises the clean power of conventional fission with the safety of non-nuclear technology.

One kg of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000kg of fossil fuel. There are no chain reactions, no production of radioactive actinides and the radiotoxicity of fusion waste materials decays rapidly.

But there are still two major hurdles to overcome. One is containing the tremendous heat given off by fusion, 100 million degrees centigrade; the other is generating sufficient power for the fusion process.

Yup, just figure out how to bottle the star and the rest is easy....