I know we all hope and expect that in a decade or two the majority of the developed world's fleet of passenger cars will be electric. This will require a big increase in electrical generation, and despite all of our high hopes for renewable source, at this point it looks like a very large part of the increase will be from natural gas, coal, or other fossil fuels. Who would know, really? But the holy grail of energy production has been, for many decades, fusion. There are two governmental mega-projects pursuing this (The gian tokamak (ITER) and laser based (NIF) ), and a number of smaller projects by private groups. The reason "fusion power is always 30 years away" has been that the various approaches have all been working out problems that arise from the physics of the various approaches. In the last few years, one group's theory and experiments have suggested that their approach to 'breakeven' (more energy out than in) is now down to just a problem with the engineering*. They don't claim that they can make fusion power a reality, but they have a roadmap without obvious obstacles. The research group is Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, located in New Jersey.
These guys have been working on a shoestring for many years, ever since NASA pulled all funding of small fusion research projects. Their biggest problem right now, frankly, is that they've never had anyone on staff that was good with the media and public relations, so their accomplishments haven't become known outside of fusion research circles**. Their experiments using copper electrodes have taken them closer to breakeven than any other group***, and they are now setting up with titanium electrodes (to decrease impurities in the plasma), and finally switching to beryllium electrodes (allowing them to ramp up their current to 2.8 million amps) will, hopefully, take them to breakeven.
The beryllium electrodes are going to cost $200,000. To raise this they have started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. If they can get enough hits on the site and enough donations in the initial weeks, Indiegogo will put them on their front page and hopefully make the campaign go viral. No one knows if they can do what they hope to do, but I think they deserve the chance because the benefits to society are absolutely huge. Please go to focusfusion.org and follow the link to the crowdfunding site and consider donating. $10, $150, anything will help, because Indiegogo looks at both numbers of donations and total amount donated.
Indiegogo also looks at mentions on social media, so please consider posting a link on facebook, elsewhere, and tweet with their hashtag, #emPOWERtheWORLD
Any questions, let me know. I don't believe in a lot of projects, but I really believe that, like Elon's projects, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is going to change the world.
*Other approaches have focused on ways to get around various instabilities in the plasma, usually addressed by trying to create a larger plasma ball or pump more and more energy into the plasma. LPP's experiments show a close match to their equations, and their equations show that with sufficient amperage and a minimum of impuritie in thier plasma, their approach will work. Impurity reduction and amperage increase are pure engineering problems. They have a roadmap for this - check out the "science" link on their website.
**Their paper in the journal Physics of Plamas was the most read article in 2012. This link is worth a quick read: FUSION | LPP’s paper ranked #1 most- read in 2012
***Breakeven fusion requires that the plasma temperature is high enough, that the plasma stays confined for long enough, and that the plasma is dense enough. So the way the plasma fusion research groups judge their progress is by multiplying their temperature, confinement time, and density to get a 'triple product'. LPP's triple product is now 2,000 higher than any other group's number. These guys are now the leaders in their field. Their temperature is high enough, their confinement time is long enough, and all they have to do now is to get their density high enough.
These guys have been working on a shoestring for many years, ever since NASA pulled all funding of small fusion research projects. Their biggest problem right now, frankly, is that they've never had anyone on staff that was good with the media and public relations, so their accomplishments haven't become known outside of fusion research circles**. Their experiments using copper electrodes have taken them closer to breakeven than any other group***, and they are now setting up with titanium electrodes (to decrease impurities in the plasma), and finally switching to beryllium electrodes (allowing them to ramp up their current to 2.8 million amps) will, hopefully, take them to breakeven.
The beryllium electrodes are going to cost $200,000. To raise this they have started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. If they can get enough hits on the site and enough donations in the initial weeks, Indiegogo will put them on their front page and hopefully make the campaign go viral. No one knows if they can do what they hope to do, but I think they deserve the chance because the benefits to society are absolutely huge. Please go to focusfusion.org and follow the link to the crowdfunding site and consider donating. $10, $150, anything will help, because Indiegogo looks at both numbers of donations and total amount donated.
Indiegogo also looks at mentions on social media, so please consider posting a link on facebook, elsewhere, and tweet with their hashtag, #emPOWERtheWORLD
Any questions, let me know. I don't believe in a lot of projects, but I really believe that, like Elon's projects, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is going to change the world.
*Other approaches have focused on ways to get around various instabilities in the plasma, usually addressed by trying to create a larger plasma ball or pump more and more energy into the plasma. LPP's experiments show a close match to their equations, and their equations show that with sufficient amperage and a minimum of impuritie in thier plasma, their approach will work. Impurity reduction and amperage increase are pure engineering problems. They have a roadmap for this - check out the "science" link on their website.
**Their paper in the journal Physics of Plamas was the most read article in 2012. This link is worth a quick read: FUSION | LPP’s paper ranked #1 most- read in 2012
***Breakeven fusion requires that the plasma temperature is high enough, that the plasma stays confined for long enough, and that the plasma is dense enough. So the way the plasma fusion research groups judge their progress is by multiplying their temperature, confinement time, and density to get a 'triple product'. LPP's triple product is now 2,000 higher than any other group's number. These guys are now the leaders in their field. Their temperature is high enough, their confinement time is long enough, and all they have to do now is to get their density high enough.
