Cold fusion reactor test 0.2 – Normal test
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Google Tech Talks November 9, 2006 ABSTRACT This is not your father’s fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that’s been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects. Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal… until now. Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television). Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google’s annual electricity bill? Come see what’s possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd. Google engEDU Speaker: Dr. Robert Bussard
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18 Responses
If Microsoft can put 2 Billion into Dell to save a struggling company, then Google can totally trump them by putting into a struggling global energy world. I vote yes….. and make it open source while you are at it.
Mainstream fusion does not like alternatives, especially after the cold fusion debacle in ’89, so the Navy wanted them to keep their heads down. Bussard could only do talks like this after the contract’s non-disclosure clause expired. As he explained.
The data gathered from WB-6 prior to its destruction was verified after Bussard’s death by the team, who have continued development, slowly. That the project and EMC2 didn’t just dissolve after his death should say something.
A few BIG question marks.
1. Research done in isolation without publishing – terrible idea, no peer reviewing or testing of ideas.
2. The working prototype got destroyed. Really? Convenient dude
3. This guy is not a good salesman, but he thinks he is – the worst type
But even after all that it is still compelling
Wow an overhead projector!
atleast i dont get exposed by radiation when i open my email, sure why not
While I’d happily live right over this sort of nuclear power reactor.
Very happily, if we’re talking about the boron-11 fueled mode.
I could imagine living in a spaceship which depended on Lorentz drive engines for thrust, and on Polywell IEC reactors for the electricity required to operate the Lorentz drive engines. I’d have few qualms about living in such a spaceship. I’d gladly live in a submarine or large ship which takes the power to run electric drive motors from polywell IEC reactors.
This is where the Polywell IEC (inertial confinement fusion) reactor comes in. When it fails, it just stops. No explosions and no radioactive steam.
In fact, if the boron-fueled mode works and can be made to generate economically useful amounts of steam, there’s almost no radioactivity at all involved in THAT mode of operation. No massive amounts of radioactive waste. No radioactive pollution.
This is nuclear power without the drawbacks we now associate with nuclear power.
Actually, yes, it IS – compared to how we make power NOW.
The projected cost to build the first power-generating Polywell IEC reactor is about $200 million, with a generating capacity of a gigawatt.
It now costs between $2 billion and $3.8 billion to build fission power plants for a capacity of between 1.05 and 1.15 gigawatts.
Electricity made by Polywell fusion plants could cost up to 19 times less than electricity generated by existing nuclear plants.
Do you realize how safe a generation 2-3 reactor is? In the event of a possible meltdown 5 levels of safeguards will go into action. These are our current reactors but they haven’t even considered generation 4 and won’t even give them a chance. Generation 4 promises to be more safe, no weapons grade waste, more efficient and half the waste. The reason why they don’t want a nuclear power plant is because half the nation can’t tell the difference between a reactor and a bomb.
no nuclear power plants get built because no insurance company will insure any nuclear/fusion power plant against the cost of any small to large “accident” and no bank will finance the ever more expensive to produce and constantly overrunning in price and time to build nuclear power plants – oh and both “conservative” and “liberal” citizens do not want one built near their homes, business, recreation areas, and the farms that produce the food they eat
Google had a chance to buy into this.  Interestingly, they didn’t but Obama’s stimulus project came along. Money was routed through the US Navy (which, if this works, can always use one or two gigawatts that fit inside a space 4 to 8 meters wide – the 4 meter space is JUST compatible with the innards of a large naval submarine, while the 8 meter (26 feet or so) space might fit inside a large aircraft carrier).
So far the US Navy and the US taxpayers have between 8-10 million in this project.
Google! Let’s put the money in.
Because the liberals are making it impossible to get a license and won’t open yucca mountain. Nuclear is actually getting cheaper and safer and more efficient with every generation.
It isn’t cheap anymore because of the eco-terrorists with their anti-laws warfare.
It’ll be a lot cheaper than many alternatives soon…. but then again solar, wind etc will all become cheaper over time.
its not cheap
where is bill gates when you need him?
COOOL!