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"It's very scalable; we can achieve fusion at a much smaller scale," he said. "We could run the designed engine off 200KW of solar panels, which is about the sa

"It's very scalable; we can achieve fusion at a much smaller scale," he said. "We could run the designed engine off 200KW of solar panels, which is about the same power as generated by the panels around the International Space Station" So this is hot fusion, not cold. Hot fusion has been around for a long time. In fact I remember a couple of high school kids made a hot fusion device once.

arethuza 14y ago
My understanding is that "hot" fusion is actually fairly easy - it's generating a surplus of energy from fusion[*] outside of a nuclear weapon that is the tricky part. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor [Note: Typically in most H-bomb designs most of the energy still comes from fission - the fast neutrons from the fusion in the secondary igniting fission of the DU tamper round the secondary].
- lutusp 14y ago
  > My understanding is that "hot" fusion is actually fairly easy ... Unless you're talking about a thermonuclear weapon, it's not easy at all. In fact, decades of research have yet to produce a break-even reaction in the laboratory.
  - nkoren 14y ago
    I think you needed to read the second half of that sentence before replying.
lutusp 14y ago
> Hot fusion has been around for a long time. Only in the stars and in thermonuclear weapons. It has not been achieved in a break-even sense anywhere else, in spite of decades of research. Many very large projects are dedicated to achieving it, including the National Ignotion Facility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility The linked article shows that, in spite of vast amounts of money being spent, the project has yet to achieve break-even (i.e. produce more power than required to start the reaction). > In fact I remember a couple of high school kids made a hot fusion device once. No, that did not happen. It's an urban myth.
- arethuza 14y ago
  http://www.ncsu.edu/park_scholarships/news/article.php?id=240 http://www.ncsu.edu/park_scholarships/news/article.php?id=24... Nowhere near break even though.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    This is just a plasma generator, not a fusion reactor. Not to dismiss this student's achievements, but any fluorescent lamp is a plasma source. Plasma is the "fourth state of matter", essentially separate electrons and nuclei in a relatively high energy, electrically conductive medium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
    - arethuza 14y ago
      It's a fusor - which does (as its name suggests) do fusion - which is why they are used as neutron sources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
      - lutusp 14y ago
        A quote from your linked article: "Hopes at the time were high that it could be quickly developed into a practical source of fusion power. However, as with other fusion experiments, development into a generator has proven to be difficult." Translation: no break-even fusion reaction. If this approach held promise for fusion power research, it would be being explored instead of the millions of dollars in the much more common laser-confinement and tokamak approaches. Strictly speaking and from a technical standpoint, if it doesn't produce more power than is present for conventional reasons (like electronic current flow), and in spite of its name, it's not a fusion reactor as that term is understood in physics. It's a nice plasma source, and it produces neutrons -- very useful -- but it's not a fusion power source.
        arethuza 14y ago
        I never said it was a "reactor", or that it was close to break even - merely that creating a device where fusion reactions do occur is not that difficult. Read my comment above I say "Nowhere near break even though." Incidentally, there has been a lot of work in inertial electrostatic confinement - it doesn't look terribly promising and no it is not break even but people do appear to be working in this area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell

arethuza 14y ago

My understanding is that "hot" fusion is actually fairly easy - it's generating a surplus of energy from fusion[*] outside of a nuclear weapon that is the tricky part. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor [Note: Typically in most H-bomb designs most of the energy still comes from fission - the fast neutrons from the fusion in the secondary igniting fission of the DU tamper round the secondary].

lutusp 14y ago
> My understanding is that "hot" fusion is actually fairly easy ... Unless you're talking about a thermonuclear weapon, it's not easy at all. In fact, decades of research have yet to produce a break-even reaction in the laboratory.
- nkoren 14y ago
  I think you needed to read the second half of that sentence before replying.

lutusp 14y ago

> Hot fusion has been around for a long time. Only in the stars and in thermonuclear weapons. It has not been achieved in a break-even sense anywhere else, in spite of decades of research. Many very large projects are dedicated to achieving it, including the National Ignotion Facility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility The linked article shows that, in spite of vast amounts of money being spent, the project has yet to achieve break-even (i.e. produce more power than required to start the reaction). > In fact I remember a couple of high school kids made a hot fusion device once. No, that did not happen. It's an urban myth.

arethuza 14y ago
http://www.ncsu.edu/park_scholarships/news/article.php?id=240 http://www.ncsu.edu/park_scholarships/news/article.php?id=24... Nowhere near break even though.
- lutusp 14y ago
  This is just a plasma generator, not a fusion reactor. Not to dismiss this student's achievements, but any fluorescent lamp is a plasma source. Plasma is the "fourth state of matter", essentially separate electrons and nuclei in a relatively high energy, electrically conductive medium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
  - arethuza 14y ago
    It's a fusor - which does (as its name suggests) do fusion - which is why they are used as neutron sources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
    - lutusp 14y ago
      A quote from your linked article: "Hopes at the time were high that it could be quickly developed into a practical source of fusion power. However, as with other fusion experiments, development into a generator has proven to be difficult." Translation: no break-even fusion reaction. If this approach held promise for fusion power research, it would be being explored instead of the millions of dollars in the much more common laser-confinement and tokamak approaches. Strictly speaking and from a technical standpoint, if it doesn't produce more power than is present for conventional reasons (like electronic current flow), and in spite of its name, it's not a fusion reactor as that term is understood in physics. It's a nice plasma source, and it produces neutrons -- very useful -- but it's not a fusion power source.
      - arethuza 14y ago
        I never said it was a "reactor", or that it was close to break even - merely that creating a device where fusion reactions do occur is not that difficult. Read my comment above I say "Nowhere near break even though." Incidentally, there has been a lot of work in inertial electrostatic confinement - it doesn't look terribly promising and no it is not break even but people do appear to be working in this area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell