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Power Science

Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor 266

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fun-with-government-spending dept.
Sterling D. Allan writes to tell us OpenSourceEnergy is reporting on a "far more feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion". Inventor Eric Lerner's focus fusion process uses hydrogen and boron to combine into helium which gives off tremendous energy with a very small material requirement. Lerner's project apparently only requires a few million in capital investment which is a far cry from the $10 billion being spent on the Tokamak fusion project.
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Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor More

Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor

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  • Isn't he the guy that wrote the book, "The Big Bang Never Happened"?

    • Re:Eric Lerner (Score:5, Informative)

      by tartrazine ( 893277 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:23PM (#13958360)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lerner [wikipedia.org]
    • Well, I don't think you should dismiss him because of that, because there's absolutely no reason to decide that nothing happened before a big bang, such as a big crunch.

      If it's impossible for information to be destroyed, then it's impossible for information to be created. Information just exists, and is manipulated. Therefore, (convinced in my mind at least), there is no "start of universe".
      • Maybe ... however that doesn't mean that the Universe isn't cyclic. For all we know, there have been trillions of Big Bangs, with an infinite number yet to go.
        • Yep I have no problem with at, as long as "trillions" means infinite. The point is that whatever existed before still exists the same way that a black hole does not remove information (as was recently popularly examined).
        • You're half right: the universe may have oscillated in the past, but scientists have proven [wikipedia.org] that it doesn't have the energy to collapse back in on itself again. (See the fourth paragraph of that article.)

          Which makes me wonder in awe at the scale of the previous oscillations. Perhaps the first few were nanoseconds in duration, and each successive oscillation gave the universe more "time" to develop, until finally we're here. I wonder whether creatures obtained intelligence in the last oscillation, and

          • Of course, we're all assuming that the Universe as we know it is a closed system. Perhaps it's not ... maybe some Intelligent Designer recharges the batteries now and then. Okay, I'll lay off the crack pipe for now.

            There have been a number of books written about surviving the Big Bang. James Blish's Cities in Flight series ends with the protagonists competing with an evil Empire for the right to determine the course of the next cycle. Another excellent work is Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero", in which Earth's

  • Can any one say "Cold Fusion" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it is so simple and cost effective why do we not have it now if not yesterday.
    • There hasn't been a proof-of-concept yet.

      I don't see why though, since he only needs $1.5 - $2 million dollars. With all the money we throw at such horrible research, why the NSF can't throw $2 million this way is beyond me.

      Who knows? Maybe it's literally too good to be true and scientists that know the lingo, know it?

      • "With all the money we throw at such horrible research, why the NSF can't throw $2 million this way is beyond me."

        From the article:

        "Lerner's persistent quest to find other federal monies has thus far been unfruitful. "This administration does not want to fund any serious competitor to oil or gas," Lerner said."

  • Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by notpaul ( 181662 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:26PM (#13958372) Homepage
    From TFA:

    "The Dense Plasma Focus device is roughly the size of a coffee can."

    Size of a *coffee* can ... hmmm ... coffee ... coffee-makers ... *Mister* Coffee ...

    MR. FUSION!

    Yes! FINALLY!
    • Seriously though, how this small "coffee can" size device could hold a temperature above 1 billion degrees inside without melting. The copper will melt just above 1000 degrees. With a 1 billion degree plasmoid just couple of inches from the inner wall, how will the whole thing not turn into gas? I understand that there will be a vacuum created inside and there will also be hydrogen and boron gas flowing during the operation. The pulse will be at about 1 Mhz.

      The last time I checked there was vacuum betwee

      • I'm not smart enough to explain it, but I can give you some examples that show it's not totally insane. The inside of a CRT is something like 100,000F. But it doesn't melt the glass and then 3 nanoseconds later the faces of everyone watching it.

        • The inside of a CRT is something like 100,000F. But it doesn't melt the glass and then 3 nanoseconds later the faces of everyone watching it.

          It's like walking on coals. Coals get red-hot at about 600 degrees Farenheit, due to black body radiation. People can walk on them, though, because human flesh is much denser. (It also helps if you do it right after the morning dew, and it's a bad idea to linger.) The coals are hot but the total amount of energy isn't that high.

          It's a bit like having a very high voltag

    • Reverse Particle Accelerator (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CustomDesigned ( 250089 ) <stuart@gathman.org> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @03:17PM (#13958596) Homepage Journal
      The coffee can sized device is very similar to a plasma rocket [space.com] engine. The rocket engine trys to keep the plasma symmetrical for nice controlled thrust. Focus fusion "snaps" the plasma filaments like a whip. At the tip, where a leather whip exceeds the speed of sound, the magnetic compression in the plasma is enough to ignite fusion. The plasma is then ejected in one direction at high speed, like the rocket engine. Ironically, the major problem plaguing conventional magnetically confined fusion is that the plasma "leaks" out in high speed jets. Both plasma rockets and focus fusion recognize that this can be a feature rather than a bug.

      The neat thing is that the reaction ejects beta radiation (electrons) in all directions, but ejects the alpha particles with the plasma in one direction. The actual fusion generator is the size of a refrigerator, with the coffee can near one end. The larger device captures the beta radiation with a shell around the reactor and has a target at the other end to collect the alpha radiation. The result - fusion reaction produces current directly! The next refinement *decelerates* the speeding alpha particles through a magnetic field, converting their kinetic energy to electricity before it heats up the target. That is the "reverse particle accelerator" aspect. Beta radiation ejected in the same direction as the alpha beam is "lost" and becomes heat at the target. Future refinements will make the alpha beam as narrow as possible so as to minimize the number of beta particles it takes with it.

      After the proof of concept, engineering challenges include materials to collect beta radiation without becoming dangerously radioactive, materials to collect alpha radiation (hopefully low speed after magnetic decceleration) without becoming dangerously radioactive, and shielding to stop the occasional neutrons (from impurities, and the random nature of nuclear reactions). Will also need to store energy to "crack the magnetic whip" to drive the reaction, and meter precise amounts of ionized fuel. I'm not convinced that too much fuel won't be dangerous.

      • Potential dangers for home fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CustomDesigned ( 250089 ) <stuart@gathman.org> on Saturday November 05, 2005 @03:41PM (#13958735) Homepage Journal
        Assuming the proof of concept works, I can see a number of potential hazards:
        1. Magnetic deceleration coils fail. Alpha beam disintegrates target, and parts of your home beyond it. There is probably a way to do this on purpose to create a beam weapon. However, as soon as too many alphas start escaping, the device will lose power and stop working.
        2. Fuel metering fails. Too much fuel causes a meltdown. Should not create long lived decay products, so the mess can be cleaned up. Igniting too much fuel near or even in the fuel supply should *not* create an H-bomb, because all the material to be fused must be confined. The heat from igniting fuel will simply scatter any other fuel nearby. The necessity of ionizing the fuel first prevents cramming enough fuel into the plasma to create a bomb.
        3. Shielding fails, and device leaks beta, alpha, or neutrons. There should be gieger counters nearby to turn it off in such an event. Leaking alpha particles can result in a voltage difference between your home and the reactor, which could be hazardous. This can be measured and also trigger a shutdown.
        4. Fuel is contaminated with fusable reactants that produce many high speed neutrons. Again, need gieger counters with auto-shutoff. Just like you have CO alarms for your gas furnace.

      • Re:Reverse Particle Accelerator (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I work in a nuclear facility so I'll say a little about safety of this device.

        Absorbing betas will not transmute elements. Betas are simply high-energy electrons, and will land on a piece of metal and create a negative charge. Beta emission also can't really cause damage to anything other than eye tissue as it is absorbed by the top layer of your skin. It can cause burns but seriously anything will shield against beta.

        Alpha is absorbed within 10cm in air and cannot penetrate your skin whatsoever. Alpha emit
      • Magnetic deceleration does not exist.

        Magnetic fields do no work. Period. They cannot, do not, never have, never will. Read any textbook about electrodynamics if you are curious. One I would recommend is that written by David J. Griffiths of Reed College.

        Reason: Magnetic forces are always directed perpendicularly to the direction of motion. Work = F . d , where . means a dot product. Dot products (or inner products) are zero if the two vectors concerned (F and d) are perpendicular. d is the displ

  • Skeptical.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Duncan3 ( 10537 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:26PM (#13958375) Homepage
    Cheap, no long term radiation, efficient direct to electricity, sounds like everything we've ever dreamed of...

    And yet... not assasinated by the oil industry...

    So it must not actually work. Q.E.D.

    • Re:Skeptical.... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Persol ( 719185 )
      Yeah, well if you follow the road past this project, the organizations involved aren't very 'mainstream'. The majority of the projects supporters appear to be free energy advocates (pesky law of energy conservation). This is scarily close to all the other slashtivements. The guy is looking for funding, doesn't really seem to have much in the way of scientific support, and is using a US Patent Officer (most intelligent people around) as his main public supporter. You'll notice on the site, and the sites it
    • Not surprising. Mr. Lerner is a well-known crackpot - having wack jobs like him running around detracts from the developmnet of real alternative energy sources, much to the benefit of the mega oil companies. It would be much more likely that he is being funded by the oil companies than assassinated by them.

      He is a perfect fit with tabloid web sites like slashdot.

    • So it must not actually work. Q.E.D.

      Q.E.D. = Quite Easily Demonstrated.

    • Cheap, no long term radiation, efficient direct to electricity, sounds like everything we've ever dreamed of...

      And yet... not assasinated by the oil industry...

      From article...Lerner's persistent quest to find other federal monies has thus far been unfruitful. "This administration does not want to fund any serious competitor to oil or gas,"


      Why assasinate when you can just cut off monies? Very effective and much cleaner than killing.

  • I'm suspicious (Score:5, Funny)

    by evil agent ( 918566 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:28PM (#13958387)
    As for possible accidents with the reactor, there is "not really anything that could go wrong," and, because of the way the reaction stops immediately, "there is [no possibility] for runaway." Lerner affirms, "It's 100% safe."

    Sounds like something Mr. Burns would say.

    • I'm susupiscious because they claim that high energy x-rays can't produce long lived radioactive waste. Apparently they haven't heard of photoneutrons. That and the plasma temperature for the H-B reaction is 10 times that of D-T, making it pretty difficult with standard materials. It looks like a viable research project though. My only concern with the researcher is that if this guy agreed to publish this article to a non-conventional journal to get more funding and awareness, then he's probably going t
    • Sounds like something Mr. Burns would say... about his shoes.

      (i.e. So what?)
      • So what? Take this quote:

        Burns: Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus.

        Still don't get it? Let me explain. Describing your system as "100% safe" is completely unprofessional and, frankly, delusional. If Lerner hasn't found something unsafe about reactor, then he hasn't looked hard enough.

  • Equal time for cranks? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:28PM (#13958389)
    Why does slashdot give time to cranks who purport to have achieve something revolutionary, but really have no idea what they're talking about?

    • Re:Equal time for cranks? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So as to not offend anyone's liberal sensitivies. This sort of politically-correct, offend-no-one, every-opinion-is-equal sentiment is perfect for nutcases and crackpots to dig their claws into.
    • >>Why does slashdot give time to cranks who purport to have achieve[d] something revolutionary, but really have no idea what they're talking about?

      It depends on whether you view the slashdot readership as passive or active. On average slashdotters are smarter than your average bear, who better to suss out the truth of who is a crank or to pick up the kernal of a good idea and run with it? I know personally I've had several insights (sometimes from material in an unrelated endeavor) that I've been ab
    • Because it comes from a site called "Open source energy" and here on /. Open Source is canon, therefore all you need to do is mention those words and you are guarenteed to get your story accepted. Ask Slashdot is by far the worst(but not the only) offender in this regard. People just tack on the word FOSS just to ensure their article will get accepted. If that word isn't there, your chances of getting accepted drop significantly. Slashdot has turned into a religious organization, not a a news site
    • Every so often it turns out that the cranks are right. Besides, isn't it a fun discussion that comes about from discussing the crankishness of a person?
  • Wow. It even has the support of the 'Integrity Research Institute,' and all the resources of erols.com behind their website.
    Integrity Research Institute (IRI) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to helping establish integrity in scientific research, primarily regarding the physics of energy, whether it is in the technical, human health, or environmental area.

    Too bad NASA's funding funding for him dried up. What do they know about physics, any way?

  • Send in the Clowns! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:40PM (#13958432)
    far more feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion

    I recall when Cold Fusion was actually considered a possibility for essentially limitless clean energy that a bunch of environmentalist clowns arrived on the scene proclaiming that cheap clean energy would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. That, my Gawd, with cheap clean energy we would just end up with more people using up even more of the planet even faster. While my memory may have faded over time, a prominent name I believe was at the forefront of these claims at the time was Jeremy Rifkin.

    I certainly expect their reappearance any time now.

    • "When a man cannot be pleased nobody tries."

      And I certainly have no interest in pleasing Jeremy Rifkin or anyone like him. I thought once of buying him a pair of wooden clogs, like the ones a certain group of people used to throw into factory machinery.

      It doesn't seem occur to people like this that an unlimited power source would open up the entire solar system for exploitation. Regardless, countries like China and India are "using up even more of the planet even faster" without such an energy source,

    • These types of groups only work when all of their members are out there demonstrating and mad as hell. If, for example, NRA members looked at a bill in the Senate which proposes to take away people's antitank RPGs and VX nerve gas and thought "Well, that isn't so bad. I don't use Bouncing Betty very much" the organization simply wouldn't have the same "pop." To them, anything whatsoever that infringes upon their pet issue is the end of the world. I'll bet there were a significant number of people who though

  • Mmmmm... astroturf (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:41PM (#13958442) Homepage Journal
    by Sterling D. Allan
    Open Source Energy News -- Exclusive Interview

    I suppose occasionally major scientific advances are announced in press releases, but since 99.999% of the time it's somebody jumping the gun, I think I'll let it go.

    I do find it interesting that the article describes him as an "inventor" rather than a "physicist". Somehow when proposing a radically different model of the universe, the former always rings of "I was puttering around and I found something I didn't understand, therefore it must be both correct and completely novel."

    None of this is proof that he's wrong, but the crank-o-meter is pushing towards the red zone. Which is too bad, because apparently he's an extremely smart man with a lot of valid research to his name.

  • Cooks and crackpots (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eukariote ( 881204 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:42PM (#13958449)
    Some simple checks can prevent this sillyness from perpetuating. Bob Park's "What's New" column http://www.bobpark.org/ [bobpark.org] is an amusing and up to date reference for this kind of thing. Here is what he has to say about the "Integrity Research Institute" (the name alone should have raised a red flag): http://www.searchum.umd.edu/search?q=%22integrity+ research+institute%22&site=&btnG=Search+UM&output= xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ie=UTF-8&client= UMCP&oe=UTF-8&proxystylesheet=UMCP [umd.edu]
  • They claim to know how much money they require for what?

    For all of the fundamental engeneering problems of hot fusion? I really doubt it.

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i_should_be_working ( 720372 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @02:50PM (#13958489)
    Their method of heating the plasma to temperatures hot enough for fusion seems to be by using particles accelerated by magnetic reconnection. [wikipedia.org] (hmm.. that wiki needs love)
     
      Magnetic reconnection [pppl.gov] in traditional fusion reactors is seen as a bad thing because it shoots particles in unpredictable directions that often can't be contained by the confining magnetic fields. So it results in a loss of plasma density and also eventually puts small holes in the sides of the reactor.
     
    If these particles are that energetic it seems to make sense that they could be used to heat the plasma if they could be controlled. No idea if they are energetic enough to be used alone though.

    That magnetic reconnection thingy is also what causes the northern lights.
  • For those among you (including me) who have never heard about focus fusion, here is a link: focus fusion [focusfusion.org].
    It is not cold fusion, but one of the many alternatives [plasmas.org] to the tokamak. Although a tokamak is still seen als the best candidate for a earthly fusion reactor.
    Oh, nobody happens to have a job opening in plasmaresearch for a newly graduate?
    • "a tokamak is still seen as the best candidate for a earthly fusion reactor."

      Yes. It is important to understand the meaning of the maturity level of a field of research.

      One the one hand, there are projects that seem like good ideas based on theoretical analysis. They appear to hold promise, but all the steps in the theory are not rigorously supported.

      Then there are mature projects, where most aspects of the science have been studied and verified. All sorts of problems that were not evident initially

  • If I trust the physics papers on the web (Score:5, Informative)

    by Frumious Wombat ( 845680 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @03:05PM (#13958555)
    The correct response to this article is,

    (a) yes, H-B fusion (aneutronic) is possible, but...

    (b) it requires very high temperatures, and suffers from a variety of energy loss mechanisms which make getting usable energy from it difficult. This is similar to when I was in grad-school, and everyone was whispering about Muon-catalyzed fusion, which turned out to be impractical for energy extraction as well.

    IANA(N/P)P (i am not a nuclear/plasma physicist), but the papers I skimmed suggest that you could use this method, mixed with a conventional Deuterium/tritium mixture, to get cleaner fusion and better burn rates. Of course, not being a physicist, it's possible that the journals I found the citations in are the physics equivalent of Journal of Pointless Chemistry.

    http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServ let?prog=normal&id=APCPCS000406000001000216000001& idtype=cvips&gifs=yes/ [aip.org]

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleUR L&_udi=B6TVM-3WN77X7-19&_coverDate=06%2F17%2F1996& _alid=331683658&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_ cdi=5538&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version= 1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=fad383390465b806fd1 b90abff541fee/ [sciencedirect.com]

    Probable Translation: Another backyard inventor who can read enough of the literature to be encouraged, but not enough to admit the drawbacks.

    Secondary Translation: I canna' change the laws of physics, Captain.

  • Slashdot Needs a Science Editor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jpgrimes ( 15330 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @03:16PM (#13958594) Homepage

    As a scientist I'm dismayed by the number of people who always believe in science conspiracies (like here where he says the only reason he didn't get funding was the tokomak). It's hard to decide how useful this method really is from the article as it's not a science article, but I have some doubts.

    What people need to realize about science like this is that if he can make this work he will be lauded and made very rich. Although science does make mistakes, occasionally supporting wrong theories and such, overall it progresses by natural selection (and those who are correct get high end jobs because of it). I would love to disprove dark matter or dark energy because that would make me really well known. But yet I read about how the entire field of astronomy is so stuck on it that they won't look at other possibilities (but we do and they don't work with what we know).

    If this guy is correct he should be able to convince most other scientists in his field (which he hasn't been able to do). This isn't always due to science (some people can't communicate and sometime politics plays a role) but generally it is.

    I wonder how many theories have been posted on slashdot now that are just like this. Slashdot has been around long enough that someone could go back and look at the current state of these theories. How many are still, "waiting for that big moment" even after they go some funding. More importantly, I think slashdot should make more of an effort to put up articles when they show something has been disproved (like that article a few weeks ago arguing against dark matter in galaxies which used the wrong gravitational potential). Somebody with a science background should at least edit the original slashdot post so that people could get a better background before deciding that the future of energy production is safe.
    • & indeed also a manufacturing CFO on call.

      When someone states $200,000 to $300,000 to make a 20 megawatt generator, I just fall down laughing. You can't make a 20 megawatt transformer for probably 10-100 times that price, let alone the cost of the atomic "process equipment" and ion beam to electric current conversion.

      There may be no "radiation" of dangerous particles or left over radioactivity, but shielding everything and everyone within site from X-Rays is going to also cost a lot.

      This guy is looking
    • Slashdot doesn't need a science editor. All of the science you need can be found in the Bible. Now excuse us, we need to get to our Flat Earth Society Meeting.

      Sincerely,

      The State of Kansas Board of Education.

      PS: You're all going to burn! Burn, I tell you!!!

  • call me a sceptic, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @03:17PM (#13958597)
    For a start, this is on opensourceenergy.org, which also hosts a number of articles on electromagnetic over-unity devices, i.e. the 'free energy' crowd. Not good company to keep if you want to be taken seriously.

    In addition, Eric Lerner is a believer in the plasma universe theory; he wrote a book on the matter called 'the Big Bang Never Happened', which apparently makes him popular with the evolution-denier crowd. Again, questionable associations.

    He's also criticised [aip.org] the peer-review scientific process, calling it open to fraud. Just unfortunate that peer-review has not been kind to his own research, I imagine.

    I'm no physicist, but it seems his process passes a short, extremely high current from a coffee-can sized copper electrode through a low-pressure hydrogen-boron mix.

    The current's magnetic field forms a small hot ball of plasma, a plasmoid, (without external magnets) and when the current's magnetic field collapses it induces an electric field that heats the plasmoid so much, it ignites fusion reactions that create more electrons & ions, which can be converted back into electricity via an advanced transformer that converts an ion stream to electricity.

    So basically, pass an electric current though low-density hydrogen-boron in a coffee can, and you get spontaneous fusion - so much so, you get over-unity? Somehow, it strikes me as a little too easy to be true.

    Shockingly enough, Lerner has yet to demonstrate over-unity, but that's because the government is so in bed with the oil-companies, they won't give him any money. NASA gave him some money, looked at his results, and dropped him.

    I won't call him a junk-scientist, but I think I'd like to see some peer-reviewed and repeated evidence of his results before I lend his theories much credence.

    • So basically, pass an electric current though low-density hydrogen-boron in a coffee can, and you get spontaneous fusion - so much so, you get over-unity? Somehow, it strikes me as a little too easy to be true.

      While I will remain skeptical of Mr. Lerner's claims until they're reproducible (whether in a reputable lab or in a home energy reactor I can buy at Home Depot), I don't think he's claiming to have an "over-unity" machine here. Every other time I've seen that phrase used, it's in reference to a con

  • Described the way it is, it sort of makes sense. But so does John Titor. That fact that he is being dis'd by NASA doesn't mean much - they are famous for bureacratic bungling and this wouldn't be any different. Neither does it surprise me that he hasn't received any funding. The world economy couldn't easy handle such a paradigm shift. That doesn't mean that Exxon, BP, Shell, and various governments don't have departments to do research into these types of developments. It is to their great benefit to do so
    • The world economy couldn't handle this? Of course it could, this would be patented. No need to worry about Brazil or Nigeria or Cambodia building one of these, if they tried. we'd use WIPO to castrate them economically.

      Extending patents to 50 years would soon ensue, and it would grandfather in the cheap fusion patent, no doubt.

      No, the energy companies don't assassinate people who can do this stuff, they buy them up and exploit it. I have doubts that they've ever needed to so far.
      • The world economy could *not* handle unlimited cheap energy. Just as it could not handle unlimited cheap food. We are well on our way to a "service" economy, and there are very vested interests that want to see it happen.

        Not all "services" can be economically automated, even with unlimited cheap energy. Without centralized control of life's necessities (energy, food, housing, etc.) there would be no incentive for anyone to participate in the "service" economy. Without limits on those necessities, there

  • From a Thermodynamic perspective (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FTA "Imagine! At the flip of a switch, going from room temperature (or from the temperature of boiling water in the case of the liquid decaborane fuel), all the way up to a billion degrees, and then up to 6 billion degrees, all in a fraction of a second; then with another flip of the switch, when you are done, going back down to ambient temperature. And in the interim, you have produced excess energy from fusion -- safely, cleanly."

    A Billion Degrees! Are you kidding me. Alright, lets use the good old First
    • Dude, learn the difference between temperature and heat. It takes an equal amount of heat to heat 1 gram of H2 to 1 billion degrees as it does to heat 10 grams of H2 to 100 million degrees (ignoring the effects of the plasma phase transistion; IANA(N/P)P ). His device operates on a very small scale. Very little H2 involved, means very little heat energy required. Also, it doesn't say that the copper electrodes ever get that hot. They wouldn't, because there isn't much gas involved, there isn't much tim

  • Integrity Research Institute (Score:5, Informative)

    by cohomology ( 111648 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @04:07PM (#13958869) Homepage
    A teeny bit of fact checking is in order.

    The glowing praise in the article comes from the Integrity Research Institute,
    which doesn't even have its own domain name: http://users.erols.com/iri/>

    The web site lists three directors:

      Director 1: (also President and Chairman) Dr. Thomas Valone
          Physics, engineering, and teaching background

    Sounds good.

          Inventer of the Photonic Rejuvenation Energizing Machine and
          Immunizing Electrification Radiator

    what the fuck?

      Director 2: Jacqueline Panting Valone
            General Manager of M.A.M.S.I., a representative of several suppliers of
            microwave components and subsystems to OEM, military and commercial
            companies.

    Could have a solid technical background.

            Ms. Valone is also a strong advocate of holistic health, including
            electromagnetic medicine and is responsible for the Health programs
            of our Institute.

    Holistic health seems respectable. I am more than my symptoms.
    But "electromagnetic medicine?" Give me Maxwells Equations,
    not new-agey energy-fields-surround-us.

            In her spare time, she volunteered for The Hospice Program of Broward
            County where she assisted patients in their transition and helped family
            members cope with their loss.

    Very important work. She sounds like a good person.

            Ms. Valone is a doctorate candidate of Naturopathy at Trinity College of
            Natural Health and is certified through the College of Natural Health
            Professionals, CNHP.

    Never heard of them. What does this have to do with physics?

        Director 3: Wendy Nicholas

            EDUCATION

                  2001 Johns Hopkins University Rockville, MD

            * Continuing Education student in Telecommunications

    May be a wonderful, capable person. Why is she on the board of directors?
    • What makes me laugh with these electromagnetic therapies that keep poping up is that most of them use fields way in excess in terms of strength than you'll get from powerlines running through your estate but those fields are bad... the same field strapped to you is good??? DOH!
      • What makes me laugh with these electromagnetic therapies that keep poping up is that most of them use fields way in excess in terms of strength than you'll get from powerlines running through your estate but those fields are bad... the same field strapped to you is good???

        Indeed. However, this is not to say that ALL approaches to this type of healing are invalid. For instance, Acupuncture employs electromagnetics in order to have its effects, (effects which are well documented and undisputed). --The need

  • what a crock! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by delong ( 125205 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @04:09PM (#13958881)
    This guy is a quack.

    Here's a hint:

    1. Publication-by-press-release
    2. Few to none serious scientific citations
    3. Brilliant technology that would change the world but for government conspiracy to keep him down
    4. known nutjob that is ignored by the scientific community

    We have a winner! He's a nutjob!

    I'm dying to see a working commercial fusion reactor too, but let's try to keep a healthy sense of scientific skepticism.

    • Re:what a crock! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by vandan ( 151516 )
      I don't think so. I've read his book "The big bang never happened", and he didn't come across as a quack. He was a little bitter about the mainstream scientific community, but that's understandable - they have a lot to answer for.

      His ideas about government conspiracy are also spot on. Look at the US government. One conspiracy after another - and the biggest one revolves around oil reserves, and was sold on the next biggest one - WOMD.

      I have no doubt that Dubya's team of neo-conservative swindlers and murder

  • DUDE (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Saturday November 05, 2005 @05:25PM (#13959292)
    This is the second article posted from "Open Source Energy". It is nothing but junk science.

    STOP POSTING THIS CRAP.

    This isn't news - or anything it's just junk science written up by people who manage to take other people's money [focusfusion.org] and waste it in the name "science".
  • Pretending like 40 billion dollars for a renewable, non-polluting, cheap energy source is a lot is silly. The fact is that we (America, at least) hardly put any money into fusion research. Annually we spend 13 billion dollars on oil subsidies and research, several billion on coal, but not even 1 billion on fusion power. This is one reason why fusion is alway so far off (and the other being that early predictions on how far off it was were overly optimistic). If we only diverted 3 billion from oil fundin

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