Fusion

Re Dr. Robert Bussard's Fusion Research: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606#

Marcin Jakubowski responds: I am a fusion renegade. I got my Ph.D. in fusion energy from U. Wisconsin, Madison, in 2003. See Marcin Biography. Since I have excused myself from the fusion world, I've been working on appropriate technology (see insightful comments on appropriate technology in this blog post). Here are my comments on the fusion question, which comes up frequently in discussions on a better world. I am asking any fusion scientists reading this to check for factual accuracy.

Regarding the Google Talk above:

Should Google go Nuclear?

My answer is yes.

With solar concentrator electric harnessing of fusion energy from 93 million miles away.

Sorry to break bubbles, but fusion is 10 years into the future. It always was and it always will be, as the running joke in the community goes.

In an ideal world, what Dr. Bussard says is true. In fact, fusion is not difficult. Over unity can be achieved rather easily.

However, the part that is hidden under the rug is that there is no humanly known or predicted way that the energy can be harnessed successfully without running into radioactivity issues.

Think about a hydrogen bomb. It explodes, and it would be very difficult to utilize its energy for producing electricity. It's an extreme reaction.

The fusion reactor, while built with the aim of addressing the 'taming of that energy to useful purposes,' suffers from the similar issue. Yes, the reaction can be sustained. However, when it comes time to harness the energy, the particles created in the reaction, when interacting with matter, tend to break apart that matter, and make it radioactive. If you have matter interacting with the fusion products, you get radioactivity. The only way that you can capture the energy is when the fusion products react with matter - such as a jacket around the reactor that captures the energy, and in one route, heats water to make steam to run turbines.

Thus, when you try to capture fusion energy, you get radioactivity. Period.

Idealists point to aneutronic fusion reactions as a possible solution to the radioactivity issue. However, that's an idealization. In reality, you will always have some side reactions that produce neutrons. Neutrons are responsible for the radioactivity that is created.

Thus, natural law and basic science indicated to me: why are we messing around with the possibility of a complex solution, which is likely to involve centralization of this technology, when we could already use fusion, economically, in the form of capturing solar thermal energy with concentrators to make electricity? Furthermore, if we open-source the solar concentrator technology, we will bring down the cost a factor of 2-10 times, which means that it will be ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE THROUGHOUT MOST OF THE WORLD. That is our approach. It's once again the question of appropriate technology. I have a hard time imagining that fusion can become an appropriate technology, given basic physics.

I think the question of fusion boils down to values. I challenge the masterminds behind fusion to be the on-the-ground workers who will be dealing with the radioactive waste. I can guarantee you that if fusion ever comes about, those two groups will not be the same people.

In summary, Google Talks should invite OSE for a presentation on a different approach to energy abundance - one which will not please most people because of its simplicity and contrarian nature. We are ready, however, to substantiate our claims based on the cost-reduction results that we have proven repeatedly within the scope of our work.