Fusion projects hang in limbo

Posted: Monday, October 20, 2008 6:52 PM by Alan Boyle

ORNL / ITER

This rendering shows the proposed ITER fusion
reactor. Click on the image for a larger version.

The current round of financial uncertainty is coming at just the wrong time for America's largest and smallest fusion research programs.

In its simplest form, nuclear fusion involves combining the nuclei of hydrogen atoms to produce helium atoms, plus a smidgen of energy. It's the energy reaction that powers the sun as well as hydrogen bombs. For decades, scientists have been trying to tame the process to produce what could be an abundant, high-yield power source that is less environmentally problematic than nuclear fission.

Federal funding currently backs three strategies for fusion power:

We will have ignition
One of the strategies, known as inertial confinement fusion, involves blasting tiny bits of fusion fuel with focused pulses of powerful laser light. The $4 billion National Ignition Facility in California has been the focus of this strategy, and although the program has faced questions over budgets and benefits, construction seems to be on track for completion next year.

Meanwhile, over in Britain, preparations for another inertial confinement fusion experiment called HiPER began earlier this month, with startup scheduled in the 2010-2012 time frame.

Bottom line: Inertial confinement fusion seems to be in good shape.

ITER up in the air
The biggest U.S.-backed fusion venture is the ITER project, which is aimed at containing power-producing plasma in a giant magnetic vessel to be built in France. This strategy is known as magnetic confinement fusion, and it represents the most mainstream approach to commercializing fusion power. The $13 billion international project is just gearing up for its construction phase, and the experimental reactor is due to come online in 2016.

In the beginning, ITER's name was an acronym for "International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor." Nowadays, the preferred explanation for the name is that "iter" is Latin for "the way," and that ITER marks the way toward more plentiful energy. But for almost a year, the way has been mostly blocked for U.S. contributions to the project.

During the fiscal year that just ended, Congress cut back the funds set aside for ITER support from $160 million to only $26 million. That forced the U.S. ITER project, headquartered at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to put off consultations with the U.S. companies that could be in line to build more than $1 billion worth of components for the future reactor.

Last month, Congress approved stopgap legislation that freezes spending at current levels until next March. That means the U.S. ITER project will have to remain in survival mode for months longer, just when other countries are ramping up their procurement procedures.

"We were worried that India and China might not be able to fulfill their obligations, but it turns out that the U.S. may be the one that doesn't," Columbia University physicist Gerald Navratil told The Associated Press at a fusion technology meeting in Geneva last week.

Ned Sauthoff, who heads up the U.S. ITER project, told the Knoxville News Sentinel's Frank Munger that his team will proceed with procurement on the assumption that the funding situation will get "significantly better" by April. "We've been advised by the Department of Energy we should expect a better six months" after that time, Sauthoff said.

If the United States can't produce the promised components, other countries would have to pick up the slack. America could theoretically find itself shut out of the energy project, although ITER's Japanese chief said he is hoping that Washington will "overcome this budget situation."

"We do need the participation of U.S. scientists and engineers," AP quoted ITER Director-General Kaname Ikeda as saying. "We hope they could make the necessary recovery early next year."

Bottom line: Further snags could add a black mark to America's record for international science cooperation.

Wild card in the fusion quest
The least expensive and most speculative route to commercial fusion power involves setting up a small-scale, high-voltage cage for electrons and positive ions. The system is designed to produce fusion reactions, ion by ion, and eventually give you more power than you put in.

This inertial electrostatic confinement approach was pioneered by the late physicist Robert Bussard, and a small team of engineers at EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. in New Mexico have been carrying on his work over the past year, reportedly backed by $1.8 million from the U.S. Navy.

Team leader Richard Nebel told me in August that the first phase of experiments was complete, and that he was waiting for guidance from a peer-review panel and his funders on whether to proceed to the second phase.

"We've been pretty busy, but it's the same situation," Nebel told me today. "We're kind of in a holding pattern."

He's been able to keep the five-person team together and "doing a few things" during this holding pattern. There have been some rumblings to the effect that EMC2's results have been encouraging enough to justify pressing forward, but Nebel has declined to make a prediction about the project's future.

Nebel worries about the same kind of budget limbo that the U.S. ITER team is worrying about, even though his budget is an order of magnitude lower. Among the factors on his mind are the change in the White House and the changes in economic circumstances.

"The thing that usually gets hit the hardest is what they call discretionary funding," Nebel said, "and that's what we're looking at here. That'd be the biggest fear everywhere."

Nebel said he sympathizes with U.S. ITER's troubles: "I understand their concerns. They're in turbulent times just like we are, and you don't know how this is going to go. ... I'm not a big ITER fan, but the bottom line is that we're trying to do something different from them, with different sponsors and different time lines."

Bottom line: The fans of this low-cost fusion experiment will have to wait a while longer to see whether more federal support comes Nebel's way. But for now, EMC2's fusioneers are still hanging in there ... even if they're hanging in limbo.

For more about the political prospects for science and technology issues, check out my Briefing Book in the Politics section.

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Comments

Fusion research should be supported because of its potential of providing "limitless" energy. We are living in a world where most conventional energy sources are limited and environmentally damaging. Although various renewable options are extremely important to pursue, the fusion option needs to be fostered as well for our grandchildren. Indeed a "Manhattan Project" type effort is worth considering when one ponders the current and future financial and political consequences of energy shortfalls. Science and technology investment is our best bet to provide a way to energy independence.

Steve Winter (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 7:26 PM)

This research had been going on for about 60 years. What is the difficulty?
What criteria of "goodness", other than "hope", is there that would provide justification for continuing? Is there a set of goals, or stepping stones, that would give us an indication of progress?
Or, is it better to put our money, time, and effort into developing such things as pebble reactors, and coming up with effective methods of waste disposal of spent fuel?

Mike, Dayton Ohio (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 7:31 PM)

Thanks for the Polywell (EMC2) update, and the updates on those other things too. ;-)

rj40 (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 7:46 PM)

I'm wondering why the Large Hadron Collider project in France was not mentioned in this article. A primary focus of this, the world's largest particle accelerator, is to solve many of the technical questions that have stymied researchers as they've tried to solve the cold fusion challenge. It is believed by many that the results of experiments conducted in this facility may lead to a quicker identification of the optimal approach to viable fusion energy. I also wonder why I don't hear more calls for a "new Manhattan Project", where it is recognized that solving the cold fusion puzzle is the one technological advance that could actually eliminate our dependence on oil (foreign or otherwise), and is therefore a matter of utmost national security importance... just as much as was the first Manhattan Project, which concentrated resources in order to solve the similar "Fission" problem in the 1940s. It could be argued that the need to increase funding to these projects... is only made even more important by our current economic stresses. Cheap, abundant, ecology friendly, and politically unencumbered energy... virtually eliminates the wealth (and military significance) of the Middle East... and thereby most of its ability to pose a significant threat to us... economic or otherwise. It does so, by rendering oil a "secondary" source of energy... almost overnight. Our standard of living, our economic competitive position, and our national security... depend upon our recognizing the need to pursue this direction much more aggressively than we presently are.

Rod Burr (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 7:55 PM)

Individual with issued patent 7347294,and CIP(20070089918),seeks qualified people in the fields of physics,thermodynamics,electrodynamics,fluid dynamics,electrically conductive ceramics,electrical engineer,mechanical engineer,and offers equity stake
in start up.

Encarnacion Gonzalez,Alice,TX. (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 9:02 PM)

Also check out the LDX Reactor project at MIT. It is a different approach than the Tokamak being envisaged for ITER, but also has the possibility of generating large scale fusion power.

James White, Den Haag, Netherlands (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 10:20 PM)

How many billion dollars per year are given away to oil companies for exploration, so they can make huge profits? One tenth of that would solve the whole fusion budget probem.

Marty, Carson City, NV (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 10:24 PM)

They're doing it the wrong way. They need to be looking at the Polywell approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

Drew Wohlenhaus, Bellingham, WA (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 10:24 PM)

Considering the U.S. government has dumped nearly a trillion dollars into the economy to prop it up, but yet choke at spending 160 million on perhaps the most important research of the century indicates how little that same government is interested in changing the U.S. reliance on oil. Too many jobs lost, too much money lost from the oil and gas lobby and too much change would result, something most political and business insiders would consider far more important than cheap, economically friendly energy.

I can see the Europeans delivering viable fusion within 20 years, and the U.S. still fighting oil wars in the middle east.

J Brown, Perth, Western Australia (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 10:59 PM)

None of these fusion techniques have reached "breakeven", all require more energy to run than they can produce. Every improvement to get closer to breakeven results in increased size and cost. Exceeding breakeven and producing usable amounts of power will likely prove to be so incredibly expensive that it won't be economically feasible. For that reason, we shouldn't count on fusion to solve our energy problems.

CM, Modesto, CA (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 11:01 PM)

Thanks for the news. I have linked you in all the usual places.

M. Simon, Rockford, Illinois (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 11:03 PM)

The Super Conducting Super Collider (SSC) would have been four times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and would have had a better chance of finding the Higgs Boson sooner. Thanks to the economic conditions handed to the Clinton Admin., from Bush 41, the 103rd (D)congress eliminatied the SSC project. I also suspect this is the reason for the 1996,104th (R)congress, elimination of the Aquatic Species Project (Third generation Biofuel)started by the Carter Admin. started in 1978 as one of the responses to OPEC.

Looks like the Bush 43 economic debacle will all but destroy our alternative energy hopes and keep us on fossil fuels.

Phenix, CO. (Sent Monday, October 20, 2008 11:29 PM)

I agree with Rob Burr's points. That's the way to think about it. We can do this, and we can do it fastest through a Manhattan Project style initiative. We should to this for the reasons outlined by Rod.

BCW., Redlands, CA (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:07 AM)

Hi, I'm a Ph.D. candidate in plasma physics and nuclear fusion at Princeton University, home of the Princeton Plasma Physics National Laboratory, the US's flagship fusion research facility. I wanted to make a couple points with respect to the blog entry and the comments. Of course this is not the best kind of press we could hope for in the fusion community, but this is the reality that comes with a generally anti-science administration, timid Congress, and severe economic woes. Not to mention fusion's seemingly long history has tended to remove it from public discourse on energy, so in that respect, any press is good press--it's important for the public to know what we're doing. Yes, fusion is 60 years in the making (it started here at Princeton under the guidance of Lyman Spitzer, Jr., the Lab's first director), and it is true we have not physically achieved breakeven (though the JT-60 machine in Japan has, in fact, achieved theoretical breakeven, though at the time they were running only deuterium rather than a deuterium-tritium mix, so the reaction rate was much lower). In fact, as it turns out the fusion community has exceeded the sterling benchmark for technological progress-Moore's Law for computer chips-which is shown graphically here: http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/3_1_1_what_is_fusion_en.htm. There are still many scientific issues that need to be worked out (turbulence/transport, feedback systems to prevent instability, exhaust, plasma-facing materials, etc.), and my colleagues and I plan to dedicate our career to solving these remaining issues and seeing fusion become a reality in the span of our professional careers. Yes, it is true ITER is an expensive project, but after proof-of-principle comes economizing and optimizing design parameters to lower cost and increase efficiency. Fusion is also seeing a comeback as an idea for hybrid fission-fusion reactors that could extend our nuclear fission fuel supply more than 20 times longer than our current supply permits, giving us more time to perfect pure fusion power production. Things are looking up in our field, but to overcome the remaining challenges we need funding, a steady influx of gifted scientists, and patience. I support across-the-board federal support for all energy research, and I got involved with this field specifically because the potential payout for our society is beyond words. Once we get beyond throwing away immense amounts of money on national efforts that only polarize the world against us, I believe the international community will then be able to look beyond petty cultural and geographic differences and pool its resources to secure our long term viability as a technologically advanced society in homeostasis with the natural environment. Thank you.

Paul, Princeton, NJ (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:15 AM)

Don't count on pure Fusion for our world energy needs in the near future. However, we will have cryogenic DT ignition and target gains of 10X or more on NIF within the next two to five years. This will provide the physics basis for fusion-fission hybrid reactor designs using Inertial Confinement that could be built in the next twenty years.

Mark Henesian (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:23 AM)

The United States has essentially unlimited resources to support any approach or project we want to. I've read these other comments and would like to point out a few things:

1.) Why would anyone continue pumping money year after year into a project with no results. It may not be so much as abandoning a project or goal, but perhaps looking for a better team to support. My experience has indicated these things tend to become "career grant projects" for a small number of teams. That probably needs to change.

2.) "Grant Money" failed to yield a viable, commercial/civilian entry into space in about 30 years. The "X Prize" did it about 5-6. I've been a business owner, all of my life. I've never actually had a "W2 job". I can't honestly fathom where the piles of money that government projects get, would actually go into. Cold Fusion was discovered by a small number of scientists mostly by accident in a science lab and without a billion dollar budget. The reality is that this will probably be solved in a similar way. Throw up a massive prize that dwarfs the cost of a private company to research and develop the energy, and you would see ExxonMobile, Devon, and a boatload of other companies with large resources jumping in. I would also point out that the best scientific teams are rarely hanging out in a university. Look at the difference between the Tesla (commercially available pure-electric sportscar that goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds and a 200 mile range, built in Silicon Valley by the founder of PayPal) compared to say... the junk in the DARPA projects or anything the Detroit "experts" were working on.

3.) The President doesn't set funding for projects, Congress does. The President doesn't have line item veto authority, it is all or nothing in the bill. The cuts in Fusion funding for the US follow the ousting of the Republican majority, not the ousting of a particular president. I don't think I would pony up Carter as being capable of anything... 19% interest rates and the inability to retrieve a few hostages from a 3rd world country ran by a bunch of college students doesn't seem like someone to brag about.. the guy was impotent. The economy grew so large under Reagan, that government expenditures 4 years after his election exceeded the GDP of the country under Carter. If you really need a few million for funding... the earmark system alone that Congress spends on stupid-projects that would never pass peer-review by the others is about 6 times that amount.. Perhaps a little lobbying would help and a promise of results in 'x' timeframe. Something that makes it more financially feasible than alternatives.

Scott Johnson, Granite Bay, California (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 3:19 AM)

The problem with Fusion is this... Everything is "another 20 years"... "another 10 years"... etc. Doesn't really matter, we need a horse right now. By the time Fusion gets something going in the way of a commercially viable system, and that system gets built...(1), we will have run out of fossil fuels.

We need to realize that we are not there yet, and build as many fission reactors as we can, right now.

Hybrid and pure electric vehicles are about a year from hitting the sales dealerships in huge quantities.. it's going to place an enormous burden on the electrical grid and burning a lot more coal doesn't look like a viable answer.

I'm as green as the next guy, but I'm not seeing anything.

We can build an anti-matter reactor right now.. it's actually pretty easy, and far more efficient than fusion. The only problem is how to create enough antimatter to make it a viable fuel... and we are about 1 or 2 years from that if there was a Manhattan Project for it... maybe that is the better thing to look at now. It can also be used as a spaceship propellant (aside from the Star Trek jokes)... antimatter designs would yield about 1 million seconds of specific energy, compared to about 50,000 for a massive chemical fuel rocket. Something like 10 grams of antimatter would get a ship to Alpha Centauri. Fusion wouldn't be able to make the trip in 500 years... for comparison...

Scott Johnson, Granite Bay, California (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 3:25 AM)

Seems like the future of energy lies far beyond the US oil wars.

Just check how the handling of the economic crisis changed in the US right after European governments backed inter bank loans. Paulson was looking for "market auto correction" but as soon as European banks backed loans, banks told Paulson to follow through or face serious disadvantages against Europe.

The US will stop oil dependency right after Europe is done with the biggest fraud ever (oil).

Carl Urban (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 6:28 AM)

Can someone explain to me (a simple layman) why we can't leave the processing of the energy to the sun and put something into space to "catch" that energy, process it, produce what we need and transport it to the surface.

Is there any reason a sort of laser can't be used to "beam" the electricity to "receivers" around the planet.

I hope that I don't sound to "SciFi" ish, but I really was wondering if this is possible.

Alan Bell, Cape Cod, Mass (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 9:35 AM)

Well this is a real bummer. I have been following, and promoting, fusion as much as I can as a lay person since way back at my days at UCSD (Univ of Cal San Diego) in the early to mid 70s and 80s where some early work was being done in La Jolla. I think, however, that there are certain things we must do, both with alternative energy sources and with global climate change, that we cannot -- must not -- postpone. I think we are just going to have to suck it up and do it and it would certainly help if we elected an intelligent, visionary president that did not abrogate our morals and treasure in cowboy murder and adventurism and sought -- stimulated -- the like-minded in the world community to these higher mandatory goals. (As an aside, we should try, and imprison, those responsible for the wasted last 8 years as a deterrent to those who might attempt to do the same at some point in our future.) There are things we simply cannot put off and push ahead with all strata of society baring the weight of such endeavors at least equally, with perhaps the wealthiest taking the investment and risk lead in this imperative.

Bruce Freeman, Newberg, Oregon (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 9:57 AM)

During that short, and explosive period of World War II, the U.S. combined its economic and technical might to generate an atomic bomb. The issues related to the same level of development of the fusion process may be overwhelming, but I doubt they are insurmountable. It seems we, as a nation, do not see the current level of threat to our way of life as significant as Nazi Germany of the 1930's and 40's.

Fusion power could potentially usher in an new era of peace and prosperity to our nation and the world. We should be putting, at least, as much emphasis on mastering this incredible source of energy, as we did the Manhattan Project.

Darrell Messbarger (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:02 AM)

It's a pity that our country is so far behind on fusion power generation experiments. We should already have this well underway. We should never let up on the investment even if we have to tax the oil and energy companies more taxes to ensure that the reasrch and development gets done quickly. The energy companies don't want this newfangled energy production because it's new and they weant to keep drilling our wallets for their oil. [...]

Eric, Salinas, CA (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:16 AM)

Fusion energy is perhaps one of the most promising new energy technologies out there, in no small part due to the fact that it relies on hydrogen for an energy source... which we have plenty of.

Even better is the fact that we know the science behind it is sound. Fusion reactions do work, it is just a matter of finding the best way to use that release of energy in a cost-effective manner.

The development of fusion technology (or other similarly-renewable energy sources) should be at the forefront of the developed world's priorities right now. The economic crisis is bad, yes... but a lot of it falls on rising oil prices. World hunger is a horrible thing, true... but solving that issue is dependant upon developed nations who in turn depend on energy. Overpopulation of the planet is inevitable, certainly... but current time estimates for the colonization of other planets greatly exceed the estimated lifetime of primary fossil fuels left in the planet. Global warming sounds scary... but this issue will be basically moot when we have a means of energy that doesn't put greenhouse gases in the air.

The energy crisis is, in my humble opinion, the absolute #1 issue on the planet today, and it is shocking to me that so much funding is being diverted from this, one of the more promising solutions.

Ryan, Raleigh, NC (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:33 AM)

What about using Helium-3 instead of Hydrogen as your fuel? On paper, it requires much less energy to start the reaction yet yields almost as much energy. Although it is incredibly rare, difficult, and expensive on Earth (the only known source is from dismantled nuclear weapons, or from "manufacturing" trace quantities of it through neutron bombardment - like from a highly radioactive souce) there hasn't really been enough experiments with it to prove the feasibility. Considering that Hydrogen has lead to one dead end after another it seems like it is high time to give Helium-3 a shot.

Fittingly for a space-oriented blog, the moon is believed to have huge quantities of helium-3 on it. A single gram would yield 164,333 watt-hours of electricity. The head of China's space program has stated that it is a goal of that country to retreive some from the moon.

Why doesn't the US put a dog in this fight too? Too much money to be made from oil and coal for now?

Frank, Dallas, TX (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:20 AM)

If someone figured an application where you could kill people with cold fusion it would find all the backing it needed.

bill, Chatt, TN (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 11:49 AM)

Can't we just put everyone on Capitol Hill on some kind of treadmill? A "poking stick" could be utilized in times of increased energy need.

Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, VA (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 12:11 PM)

Blame everyone is all you leftist do but you never put blame on yourselves. I come into MSNBC to read a story about Fusion and I get a leftist nut blaming everything on everyone else. Great job NBC could you be anymore one-sided to let that jerk (Phenix, CO.) on here. Go out spend money and live then all the funding will come back. Sit in your house worry don’t spend any money and blame the government for not giving you anything and see what happens.

Kumi, Chicago, IL (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 12:18 PM)

There is such a huge list of objects that everyone uses in everyday life that were spawned from such projects. Fusion is the way to go, this is the time for our wonderful country to take the lead in this area. The possiblities of sustaining the reaction are endless, just having the supply of energy to produce hydrogen cheaply from water to run automobiles. No more fossil fuel need. Here is an article that you should also look into, its not fusion but its amazing and self sustaining. Plasma gasification. http://gas2.org/2008/02/03/more-on-plasma-gasification-technology/

Doug, Baltimore, MD (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 12:40 PM)

For another source of ongoing fusion research, it's probably worth googling the machine called "Z" at Sandia National Laboratories. A link to one recent advance:
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/rapid-fire-pulse.html

nsinger, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 12:59 PM)

Hopefully it will not be too long before cold fusion breaks through the censorship currently imposed by journals such as Nature and Science so that with a greater awareness of progress in this field it can be speedily developed as a practical, clean, energy supply. An example of current research in this area is the work of Celani reported at the ICCF-14 conference (abstract at

http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg26836.html )

and a number of papers on the subject have been published in Naturwissenschaften by the US Navy's SPAWAR group (Stanislaw Szpak, Pamela A Mosier-Boss et al.).

Brian Josephson, Cambridge, UK (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:18 PM)

One of the problems with fusion energy, is the byproduct, or spent fuel, which tends to be easily converted to fissile material. This is one of the reasons that world govts, are in no big hurry to develop this, unless scientists find a way to nullify the byproduct, and render it harmless. It's all a matter of trust, and big govt doesn't trust the masses to use this appropriately.

Don Gahagan, Golden, Mo (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:00 PM)

I'm surprised there is no mention of Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion. He's developing a compact fusion generator, and making good progress.

A.B., Massachusetts (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:54 PM)

While I doubt if either of them can make a difference, both McCain and Obama are right to say that we need a wide variety of different regional solutions including wind, solar, geothermal, tidal etc. One day, we might develop a usable fusion solution, but considering the complexity involved it'll be another hundred years after that before is becomes reliable.

OneVoice, Frederick MD (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:49 PM)

The first hydrogen bomb covered a South Pacific atol. The cooling equipment alone to keep the Hydrogen liquid was most of it. The Russians did it simply and elegantly with a solid material, Lithium Hydride, which when fused produces Helium just like Hydrogen does. The fusion research may eventually make a Tokamak-type reactor work, but there are hundreds of legitimate researchers doing experiments with cold fusion and you can bet that this will be the way we achieve the goal, not with Tokamaks.

Don Pointer, Buckhorn, New Mexico (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:02 PM)

Bush 1 gave Clinotn an economy out of recession and in positive growth.

Terminating the SCSC was wholly the doing of William Jefferson Clinton.

Mike Puckett, Charleston, WV (Sent Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:51 PM)

The anti-science administration we have is the Democrat Congress. Bush asked for the ITER money and the Democrats turned him down.

M. Simon, Rockford, Illinois (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:51 AM)

I think none of us really remembers the actual energy policy of Former president Carter (whom, by the way was a trained Nuke Engineer). He alone stands as one of the only presidents that attempted a comprehensive energy policy for this country. But enough of president bashing. Neuclear power was envisioned as a multiphased approach. First: Fission reactors. then Fast breeder reactors that used the spent feul from a fission reactor. Then Fussion. It is sad to see people with so many opinions that have so little real understanding of the "whole" picture. Fission energy, as bad as everybody thopught it was going to be, has been reliable and unparralleled by any other source. Solar, wind, politician hot air, are "worthless", in that they are all too local and dont scale well. They are also very very small contributors. A typical power plant needs to generate 2200 Kw. NO other form of "alternate" generation comes even close. To qoute an old saying " More Nukes, less cookes". Amen.

John, Chicago,Illinois (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 1:34 PM)

In reply to Scott Johnson:

Anti-matter doesn't produce net energy. Since there aren't anti-matter deposits anywhere on earth, you have to make it, which requires that you make en equal amount of regular matter at the same time. Therefore, you cannot make net energy this way.

In reply to Don Gahagan:

Fusion byproducts are light nuclei (generally helium-4, which won't do much of anything) and are not convertible into fissile material. You are thinking of fission, whereby plutonium is produced from secondary neutrons from primary uranium fission.

A. McEvoy, Santa Fe, NM (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 1:47 PM)

Alan Bell, Google "Space Solar Power Satellites"

Frank Glover, Rochester, NY (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:05 PM)

Fusion is the the way to go. Big Oil is the problem. If the government can afford to dump $700 billion to save banks, it can dump a couple billion to energize the development of fusion, or is the U.S. government planning on outsourcing that as well?

Some of the comments people have made in this discussion puzzle me when they refer to the "spent fuel" of a fusion reaction. The outcome of a hydrogen fusion reaction is helium and a neutron (both non-radioactive). The outcome of Helium-3 fusion reaction is helium-4, and a photon (also non-radioactive, a photon is a particle of light).

One more thing to point out is that the big projects mentioned here are just that, big project. This article does not point out the 1000's of small projects the public is aware of, and not aware of at the moment.

Someone earlier mentioned catching the sun's energy and transporting it to Earth. Solar Power satellites (Microwave power) is promising source of energy, but one of the biggest problems that come from that is that if the satellite missed, a lot of damage is going to occur, and people and wildlife in the vicinity of the badly aimed beam will explode like hot dogs in a microwave. Now if you're talking delivering the energy through a space elevator with a space station collecting energy (meaning having the longest vertical running power cables on the planet), then wow, that would be awesome.

As I said before, Fusion is the way to go.

FPCreator, Waterbury, CT (Sent Wednesday, October 22, 2008 5:10 PM)

BAN THE NUCLEUS

Almost all power in use today comes either directly or indirectly from a huge fusion reactor. That would be Sol, our sun, that bright radiating thing you may have noticed in the daytime sky. It is dangerous to look at and can cause cancer. Surely some government agency will find a way to ban it once our protectors on the left have pointed out that it is at least a perilous as that other bane of our existence, dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO).

Porkov (Sent Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:21 AM)

All that money spent on two years of presidential campaigning could have gone into the Polywell fuser which has been shown to work, and is scalable. While we are wasting money bickering over our new socialist overlords, we could have been perfecting fusion from already working models.

John Doe (Sent Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:22 AM)

The problem with fusion is that the energy emitted by the reaction creates radioactive byproducts, and causes the surrounding structure to itself become radioactive due to secondary nuclear fission. Unlike a fission reactor, where the contents of the reaction zone are simple, removable, and potentially valuable as a reprocesssing resource, the fusion reactor becomes a maintenance nightmare. It is complex, radioactive, and part of the active control infrastructure of the fusion process.
The Princeton Tokamak had to be shut down and entombed for years after going to a tritium cycle for only a few tests. It was then cut up with diamond wire saws and carted away to protect workers from the radiation.
Overcoming this limitation will not be simple or cheap.

John Pickens (Sent Thursday, October 23, 2008 11:01 AM)

In reply to John Pickens:

While your comment about the Princeton Tokamak may be correct, the radiation is due to tritium contamination and not "secondary nuclear fission" as you state. In addition, while tritium may appear more dangerous due to the increased activity from its relatively short half-life of ~12 years, this also equates to a shorter period of time for which the reactor is dangerous.

Not only does tritium contaminate the reactor chamber, but fusion reactions involving deuterium and tritium, the easiest to do and consequently the most common, produce neutrons which can transmutate nuclei in the shield-wall into radioactive isotopes as well. Luckily, there are a few nuclei out there, boron in particular, that can absorb neutrons without becoming radioactive.

The real key to sustainable nuclear fusion is the adaptation of so called "advanced fuels" in which no neutrons are emitted from the fusion process.

A. McEvoy, Santa Fe, NM (Sent Thursday, October 23, 2008 2:55 PM)

Alan, thanks for the update, and (as always) for your succinct and fair presentation of polywell fusion. I'm still hoping for a real breakthrough there, and apparently I'll have to wait a bit longer. But even knowing that they're waiting in a holding pattern is better than knowing nothing.

Joe Strout, Fort Collins, CO (Sent Thursday, October 23, 2008 6:56 PM)

"We can build an anti-matter reactor right now.. it's actually pretty easy, and far more efficient than fusion. The only problem is how to create enough antimatter to make it a viable fuel... and we are about 1 or 2 years from that..."

Um, the only way we know to make antimatter is with particle accelerators (already a bad word in other threads here), and it's an astoundingly inefficent process. Now, it may be possible to improve the efficency with much higher beam current devices (based on particle beam weapon technology) in accelerators optomized for antimatter production, but it would still be crazy to use a non-renewable power source to do that.

You shoyuld read 'Mirror Matter: Exploring Antimatter Physics' by the late Robert Forward. He proposed doing this with space-based devices, powered by the sunlight available there. Conversion efficency is less of an issue, when you're doing it with energy that the Sun radiates anyway, wether you collect it or not.

Once you can do this, antimatter allows for a very high performance kind of nuclear thermal rocket. A tiny amount is steadily introduced into a reaction mass (water is just fine), the energy released from anhilation superheats the remaining mass and you exhaust it through a nozzle in the usual manner.

But think of antimatter as we currently do hydrogen: It's not a natural resource waiting for us to drill, mine or otherwise go after, it's something we have to use energy to *produce* (splitting water, in the case of hydrogen) but it's then a form of stored, transportable *potential* energy that can be used in ways the energy that you used to produce it cannot (espically for space propulsion, in both cases), antimatter having an exceptionally high potential energy density.

But you can't solve anything just by waving the antimatter wand. You have to *make* it first, it takes energy from somewhere else to do that and nobody rides for free...

Frank Glover, Rochester, NY (Sent Wednesday, October 29, 2008 6:52 PM)

"Earth. Solar Power satellites (Microwave power) is promising source of energy, but one of the biggest problems that come from that is that if the satellite missed, a lot of damage is going to occur, and people and wildlife in the vicinity of the badly aimed beam will explode like hot dogs in a microwave."

Nonsense. The energy density in the beam will not be that great, espically at 22,000 miles down from tha satellite. it would be inadvisable to *live* in the area of the collector, but where the recieving rectenna is located could still be used for agricultural purposes too.

The biggest problem with powersats is that we currently have *nothing* like the low cost, regular access to space needed to make the space-based part of the system practical to build. Until you can get work crews and material to geostationary orbit with not much more cost and effort as to build offshore oil platforms, it will not work economically. (and remember, it's in competition with not just today's power sources, but those of the time powersats might be built. Including ground-based solar.) Right now, it makes no economic sense because of transportation costs. It's as simple as that.

Frank Glover, Rochester, NY (Sent Wednesday, October 29, 2008 7:01 PM)

Frank: Actually, one country (Japan I think) is looking into developing solar power satellites right now. The twist is they won't be geosynchronous. They'll be LEO and keep refocusing on receiving stations around the world. They actually plan to have them in production at competitive prices in three years or so.

Blah Blah, Blah, CA (Sent Thursday, November 06, 2008 9:27 AM)

There is absolutely question... Fusion research MUST go ahead, right now, and with the maximum political and financial support ! Every day that passes brings our environment one step closer to being irreversably wrecked by the current ways of generating energy, and there's no chance of stopping mankind from using energy... simple greed and self-interest will see to that ! The only way is to use our energy more efficiently and to make it in news ways. Fusion (to which there are two essentially realistic approaches) is the only source capable of meeting this huge demand without making CO2 or long-lived high-level radioactive waste. The electro-magnetic confinement approach of ITER is well-publicised. NIF's work will be carried forward internationally immediately folowing proof of principle, which is likely to be in about 2010. To look at the key international project in "Fast Ignition" Laser Fusion, watch this short film, ( http://www.hiper-laser.org/hiper_dvd01.wmv )which covers both methods but concentrates mainly on the laser approach. We all need this, so don't let the tree-huggers fool you... otherwise we are heading back into the dark ages, and faster than you might think !

James Makepeace (Sent Saturday, November 29, 2008 5:42 AM)

does anyone know if *serious* money has been specifically put aside for fusion research in the stimulus package , I really do hope so otherwise its a *massive* mistake ........

tim boards (Sent Friday, February 27, 2009 9:13 AM)

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