Baldrson writes "One of the founders of the US Tokamak fusion program, Dr. Robert W. Bussard, gave a lecture at Google recently now appearing as a Google video titled 'Should Google Go Nuclear?'. In it, he presents his recent breakthrough electrostatic confinement fusion device which, he claims, produced several orders of magnitude higher fusion power than earlier electrostatic confinement devices. According to Bussard, it did so repeatably during several runs until it blew up due to mechanical stress degradation. He's looking for $200M funding, the first million or so of which goes to rebuilding a more robust demonstrator within the first year. He claims the scaling laws are so favorable that the initial full scale reactor would burn boron-11 — the cleanest fusion reaction otherwise unattainable. He has some fairly disturbing things to say in this video, as well as elsewhere, about the US fusion program which he co-founded."
_________________ Reality is agreed perception. Unfortunately there is also a reality imposed by nature.
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Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:04 pm Post subject: Re: Should Google go Nuclear? (Video)
Interesting talk; I listened to the whole thing.
Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn't. Even the good Dr. indicated that a lot of things need to be worked out to convert the physics he thinks is proven into a practical machine.
One think is clear from what he said is that there is zero chance that the US government is going to solve the energy problem, because the DOE has a vested interest in keeping it a problem. If it were solved, they would be out of work.
If a fusion solution does happen, it will come from someone or some group like this, working somewhere out of the mainstream. Hell, 2,000 of you could put up $100,000 each and fund it, which it seems was the pitch he was making to google.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3647 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: Should Google go Nuclear? (Video)
gego wrote:
Interesting talk; I listened to the whole thing.
Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn't. Even the good Dr. indicated that a lot of things need to be worked out to convert the physics he thinks is proven into a practical machine.
One think is clear from what he said is that there is zero chance that the US government is going to solve the energy problem, because the DOE has a vested interest in keeping it a problem. If it were solved, they would be out of work.
If a fusion solution does happen, it will come from someone or some group like this, working somewhere out of the mainstream. Hell, 2,000 of you could put up $100,000 each and fund it, which it seems was the pitch he was making to google.
I watched the first half hour but was put off by the sales pitch feeling I kept getting from it. Sure theoretically Fusion would be a wonderful thing and sure we could dump more money down that particular rathole, but I have yet to see any actual evidence that anyone has gotten a reaction over unity. Fission goes over unity with a little investment of energy (either by making heavy water or by enriching the fuel slightly), while fossil fuels don't need any outside energy input to acheive usable heat.
Show me a working small scale fusion reactor generating usuable heat in excess of energy input and I will show you investors beating a path to your door. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
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