Fusion Power: Polywell gets USD2m funding

Via Samizdata, CountingCats and Power and Control.

It is a small amount of money, granted, but sometimes fantastic engineering can be done with small amounts of money. Keeps it under the radar, gives focus, keeps the bureaucrats away, who are more interested in the delivery of progress reports than progress itself. This was one reason the US Navy kept their funding low and thus low profile.

Background: The Polywell fusion project, initiated by the late Dr Bussard, has the potential to create working ship and shore fusion power generators. In the Deuterium fuel model, it will produce practically no neutron, gamma or beta radiation - the stuff that crashes into your cells and kills you. It can be switched off almost instantaneously, with no long cool down or prospect of a China Syndrome or Chernobyl-style accident. If it scales properly, we can see the end of the Oil economy...and the "renewables" economy, too, for that matter, so no more ugly wind farms, no more food production taken to grab biofuel subsidies and no need for dams across the Severn that will disrupt the habitat. Most of all no more patronising control-freaks who in truth want us all to regress to living in mud huts on the Danube.

Fusion Power: Horizon Disappoints

The latest edition of Horizon disappointed. No mention of IEC Fusion.

That said, the programme was spot on in a number of important ways.

We had the H-bomb, the  Z machine, Laser Fusion, JET and a proto ITER. 

It was good in that it albeit subtly exposed the reality that all the so-called "alternatives" really are incapable of replacing fossils because of the scale that would be needed to replace our energy consumption. Now, I know some Econazis want us to return to one bath a decade, hemp clothes and living in a mud hut on the banks of the Danube with only 500,000 people on the planet, but they are going to have go attempt to reproduce themselves and the horse they rode in on. It did rather pull the punch, as I do think so many people really need it slapped around their face before they snap out of the collective delusion of "weenoobles".

The ending was quite correct - the energy crisis is over if we really want it to be.

I do have a nagging doubt that the presenter, Prof Brian Cox, is a little too familiar with the State teat that is ITER. 

As we have heard in the past, the rumour is that the Tokamak, which is what ITER-esque Fusion machines are, was a cruel joke played upon the world by the Soviet scientists, as "its no damn good". It is also very expensive indeed. You know, CERN expensive.

IEC for me just makes sense. ITER is highly radioactive and requires all manner of nasty things like molten lithium shielding. IEC not so, being, IIRC, electromagetically contained, not just magnetically.

Still, the real message got out - fund Fusion, not ringtones. Hell, ol Slackjaw has thrown away £100bln this year on the Banks. Just think what that could get is if used as a series of PRIZES for successful Fusion milestones. Not funding, but prizes. Get people competing.

So, Prof Brian Cox, can we get some exposure for IEC next time?

US Cuts ITER Fusion Funding.

Hot off the accelerator, we hear that the US Govt. has cut funding to the massive, poinsonous white elephant ITER project.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the renewed, order-of-magnitude cheaper IEC Fusion programme, that I blogged about earlier, which has already achieved first plasma after the project re-started a few months ago. ITER will not get there for 10 years, take 10 years to prove it is actually doing what they think it is doing, 10 years to refine, 10 years to get a prototype power station complete*. So, in 2047 ITER, even by today's timescales, will only just be ready to start the process of generating commercially. 40+ years, yet IEC has plasma in months. ITER appears to resemble a project to create a steam-powered aeroplane**.

ITER is a cathedral-sized, neutron-spewing leviathan, a piece of hell that needs to be constantly contained and restrained. IEC fusion is mews-sized and, in comparison, pretty clean and safe.

The Massive ITER Device...as a 'graphical representation'

IEC looks the part, and this is the electrical containment proof.

Everyone is wailling about "international commitment", i.e. ego. Science should be about following the right path or all possible paths. ITER is about ego. ITER is Fusion for small willies. The logical approach for International fusion research would be to fund IEC Fusion alongside ITER - a hedge. Does the "International Community" do that? No.


* There is a great R4 show on now about the ZETA project, which tracks the Fusion research with a UK slant. As always, UK genius stabbed in the back by the State. From thsi programe and out of the mouth of an ITER rep I get these timeframes.

** Ein Zeppelin würde vermutlich gut, ja funktionieren?

Fusion: First plasma

A team is continuing the late Dr Bussard's work on IEC Fusion.

They have achieved first plasma. The hope is to have full power tests in the Spring and then on to a full scale net energy producing unit.

Gore's face when that happens. I want a Gore-cam set up so we can see the moment his gravy train is shunted into the siding and lifted onto the flatbed headed for the scrap yard.