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Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC
- pierrefar 16y agoAs a member of the UK public that pays to support the BBC, I want my money back.
- arethuza 16y agoWhy? Seems like an interesting wee story to me.
- pierrefar 16y agoIt's one of those hoax stories that keeps popping up, along with energy from water. Try this copy/paste from the story: "He is the 38th independent amateur physicist in the world to achieve nuclear fusion from a homemade reactor, according to community site Fusor.net. Others on the list include a 15-year-old from Michigan... Some experts are sceptical that all these people are producing fusion reactions, but when he demonstrates his device, Mr Suppes says a bubble meter placed next to the reactor indicates that a fast neutron, a by-product of fusion, has been produced." I'm not impressed with the BS-checking of the BBC in this case.
- arethuza 16y agoWell, unless the concept of the Farnsworth Fusor is complete BS (IANAP!) it looks reasonably plausible (if rather unlikely to achieve break even or better). As long as what they are doing is reasonably safe I would applaud these people for trying, it's not like they are taking billions of dollars from taxpayers to pay for this stuff.
- GFischer 16y agoThanks, I wish the BBC had added that part (though the article does explain that it takes more energy than it generates). Here's a simple explanation for non-phycisists: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-farnsworth-fusor.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-farnsworth-fusor.htm
- arethuza 16y agoMaking a fusor looks like a pretty interesting project: http://brian-mcdermott.com/what_it_takes.htm http://brian-mcdermott.com/what_it_takes.htm
- Tichy 16y agoThe problem is that none of these amateur physicists are generating any power. I guess the holy grail is not fusion, but generating power from it.
- ScotterC 16y agoYea.. And we have fission, a proven power source over the last 50 years but nooooo, we need to invent something even better. Fusion is possible, but actually getting it to reliably generate power is a long ways off.
- jasongullickson 16y agoThe Fusor produces interesting byproducts as well: " He was absolutely convinced that he had observed the fusion of deuterium into tritium and/or helium 3 in his equipment. " from: http://itseasyto.com/farnsworth.htm http://itseasyto.com/farnsworth.htm ...it's a good source of neutrons.
- harshpotatoes 16y agoYeah, i was wondering about that. Neutrons are a very hard particle to stop, being uncharged, and are a pretty dangerous type of radiation. Does he keep his fusion reactor surrounded by tons of water all day? The article mentions this reactor is perfectly legal, but i know radiation sources are a very regulated thing. On one hand, his reactor probably only produces afew neutrons a minute, and so probably wouldn't be regulated or be a danger to anybody. On the other hand, im just speculating, how do i know the neutron production of this guys reactor? Has anybody measured it to determine it is safe? Why was the BBC so lazy in researching this article?
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoThis breakeven point wasn't hit for solar cells until the 1990s.
- randallsquared 16y agoIt's one of those hoax stories that keeps popping up, along with energy from water. Since Farnsworth Fusors are used commercially for neutron production, I'm sure those using them would be flummoxed to find that said neutrons are generated via hoax. :)
- pierrefar 16y agoOK, you're right, hoax is the wrong word. Sorry about that. What irked me is this kind of hyped up story of "little guy in a workshop makes amazingly complex device and look, he's going to beat all these scientists supported by billions of $". It is way too common and, frankly, bad reporting. Neil Calder, quoted in the article, summed it up nicely: we look forward to your ideas, but good luck. Not once did the BBC mention Farnsworth. It would have been a much better article if they explained a bit what the science was. Also, go to Fusor.net and read a bit. For example, question 1 on the right hand side column near the top under "welcome newbies" has scientific gems such as "It is God's own way of powering the universe" and uses the word "impossible" (in quotes) often. It's the typical bad science writing that is too common these days, and IMHO the BBC shouldn't be supporting it. So, not a hoax, but written up like one.
- Retric 16y agoA table top device that produces enough electricity to microwave your coffee is going to release enough fast neutrons to kill everyone in the room inside a week. Having said that these are fairly safe toys that look cool and can get you written up in the paper. IMO, the really problem is simply bad reporting.
- randallsquared 16y agoSo, not a hoax, but written up like one. No argument there. Most science reporting appears to be done as "Find a narrative; look for a sciencey story that can be made to fit the narrative; write article".
- stcredzero 16y agoI'm not impressed with the BS-checking of the BBC in this case. I'm not impressed with yours. Producing fusion reactions is just an advanced backyard project. Getting a net energy gain is the hard part. Did you label this as a hoax because it "sounds" like one? Your filter needs refining, as it would seem to suffer from false negatives. (Or false positives, depending on which meaning you're giving to "positive.")
- pierrefar 16y agoPoint taken. See my reply to randallsquared in this thread.
- rbanffy 16y agoLooks like a Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor It's a reasonably good neutron source with little chance of generating more power than it consumes to sustain the fusion process. edit: And the classic NIMBY reaction is priceless.
- ErrantX 16y agoMore specifically this seems to be Bussards version of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
- ck2 16y agoBet his FBI file is fun reading. BTW the guy who invented television also invented a homemade fusion device 70 years ago, so this is actually not that cutting edge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Use_as_a_power_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Use_as_a_power_source
- phiberoptik 16y agoWhat's the difference between what this guy is doing and cold fusion? I remember back in the late 80's two scientists claimed to have solved cold fusion. I'm assuming this is a different process?
- stcredzero 16y agoThey're using electric fields to get the ions to collide and fuse. Pons and Fleischman (the cold fusion guys) were trying to get ions to enter a Palladium matrix and collide that way.
- ScotterC 16y agoAnd here I was thinking the article would be about a fission reactor! Much tougher DIY project. Heavy water or graphite pile would be your best bet. That way you can use natural uranium from your back yard. The article mentions uranium as if it's hard to get. You can still fission U-238. It's just tougher.
- Geee 16y agoPolywell fusion is a step further from this, and is more promising as an energy source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
- kanwisher 16y agoLOL I used to work with this guy at Gucci, hes a bit off his rocker. I'm really surprised how much attention hes gotten from this project that really doesn't have much technical merit.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y agoDoes anyone else here notice the wonderful reporting "neighbors have mixed feelings on nuclear reactor". Yes, most people will be terrified to know that there is a nuke-of-sorts being built next door. Few know that nuclear reactor != the same stuff used for the a-bomb and Chernobyl. So yes, people have mixed reactions. I wonder how many people are actually aware of the difference between Fusion and Fission. The reactions are: They don't understand WTF the guy is doing, and therefore think they got a nuke in the backyard. Or. Yay we don't need no stinkin' oil.
- ScotterC 16y agoConflating nuclear weapons and nuclear power is one thing that I will never forgive my parent's generation for. To nit pick however. An A-bomb and Chernobyl are also completely different. Chernobyl was a graphite moderated reactor which means it does not have a negative void coefficient (unlike American light water reactors) but has fuel with about 5% U-235. An A-bomb requires about 90% U-235 to sustain a chain reaction. I can nit pick this a lot further but that's the general gist.
- jcl 16y ago...$4,000 he raised on a website that connects artists and inventors with private investors. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992078142/building-the-open-source-bussard-fusion-reactor http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992078142/building-the-... The guy also has a blog: http://prometheusfusionperfection.com/ http://prometheusfusionperfection.com/ And a GitHub repo with Ruby code for generating .stl fabrication files, for those who want to follow along at home: http://github.com/famulus/decawell http://github.com/famulus/decawell
- kitchen 16y agoand of course they got a guy who looks like Morgan Freeman for a photo op. Chain Reaction, anyone?