Developers, led by Eric J. Lerner, are developing Focus Fusion, a fusion process to generate electricity that is expected to be relatively cheap, highly efficient, and small enough to fit into a garage. The process which channels hydrogen boron fuel through a plasma focusing device, uses a smaller, more elegant approach than is currently being pursued by conventional fusion researchers. This device could be fired up and shut off with the flip of a switch, with no damaging radiation, no threat of meltdown, and no possibility of explosions

Focus Fusion reactors are small and decentralized, ideally suited for distributed power generation. Focus Fusion reactors can fit air jordan 4 womens cheap jordans online into a garage. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) Focus Fusion project aims at developing an electric generator with a projected output of about 5 MW, sufficient for a small community. The Focus Fusion process can produce electricity directly without the need to generate steam, use a turbine or use a rotating generator. The reactors are extremely compact and economical, with expected costs of $300,000 apiece. As the fuel is an insignificant cost, electric power production is estimated at about one tenth of a cent per kWh, fifty times cheaper than current costs. Because it can be shut off and turned on so easily, a bank of these could easily accommodate whatever surges and ebbs are faced by the grid on a given day, without wasting unused Air Jordan 3 energy from non peak times into the environment, which is the case with much of the grid's energy at present. On site personnel are not needed on a daily basis, maintenance would be rare. One technician could operate a dozen facilities by themselves.

In August, 2001, a small team of physicists led by Eric J. Lerner for the first time demonstrated the achievement of temperatures above one billion degrees in a plasma focus device high enough for hydrogen boron reactions. This breakthrough, reported at an international scientific conference in May, 2002, took place at Texas A and M University and was funded by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In March,2003, Lerner presented new theoretical analysis , showing that the magnetic field effect, known for thirty years but little applied in fusion, could greatly reduce the cooling of the plasmas by x ray radiation, and thus make it far easier to achieve net energy production. The presentation, made in an invited talk at the prestigious 5th Symposium on Current Trends in International Fusion Research in Washington DC, was favorably received by some of the top fusion experts in the world.

In February, 2004, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics completed a preliminary simulation of plasmoids that burns proton boron (pB11) fuel. The simulation results confirmed that net energy production is possible with a small focus fusion device.

A pulse of electricity from a capacitor bank is discharged across the electrodes. For a few millionths of a second, an intense current flows from the outer to the inner electrode through the gas. This current starts to heat the gas and creates an intense magnetic field. Guided by its own magnetic field, the current forms itself into a thin sheath of tiny filaments; little whirlwinds of hot, electrically conducting gas called plasma. The fuel is in the form of decaborane (H14B10), a solid at room temperature which sublimates a gas when heated to moderate temperatures of around 100 C. As in any fusion reaction, when the hydrogen nuclei (protons) and boron 11 nuclei collide at high enough velocities, a nuclear reaction occurs. In this case, three helium nuclei (also called alpha particles) are produced, which stream off in a concentrated beam, confined by powerful magnetic field produced by the plasma itself.

When the focus is used for fusion generation, collisions of the ions with each other in the dense plasmoid cause fusion reactions which add more energy to the plasmoid. This excess energy is expelled, together with the energy that went into forming the plasmoid, cheap nike air max 90 in the form of an ion beam. (The energy of the electron beam is dissipated inside the plasmoid to heat it.) This happens even though the plasmoid only lasts 10 ns (billionths of a second) or so, because the very high density in the plasmoid, close to solid density, make collisions very likely and they occur extremely rapidly.

The ion beam of charged particles is directed into a decelerator which acts like a particle accelerator in reverse. Instead of using electricity to accelerate charged particles they decelerate charged particles and generate electricity. Some of this electricity is recycled to power the next fusion pulse while the excess, the net energy, is the electricity produced by the fusion power plant. Some of the x ray energy produced by the plasmoid can also be directly converted to electricity. The capacitor is pulsed on the order of 1000 times a second to keep the process operating.

While the process would not create residual radioactivity, it does give off strong x ray emissions, which can be harnessed by a high tech photoelectric cell for additional energy capture in a process similar to a photovoltaic solar cell. There will also need to be shielding from the pulsing electromagnetic fields generated by the reactor. A layer of lead and a layer of boron shielding surrounding the reactor would be adequate protection for the focus fusion plant.

It all sounds great and has been vetted by a number of reputable experts. If it is so easy to develop, why is LPP having such a hard time getting funding? The Open Source Energy Network article implies that DOE has a NIH attitude about the project. DOE also has another magnetic containment process and an inertial fusion experiment that it is developing that are now underfunded due to comitments to the ITER project. If Focus Fusion was successful it certainly would eliminate thousands of jobs of people working on Tokamak research. It seems to me that a few million dollars spent on projects like these would be worth the risk.

Robert, I read through the Wikipedia entry you refered me to and sort of followed it, I certainly understood there conclusion that hydrogen boron fusion is virtually impossible. The Focus Fusion Society website has the following comment that is addressing at least part of the Wiki argument:

"So why, you may wonder, are researchers spending so much time on deuterium tritium fusion when hydrogen boron has clear advantages? The reason is that deuterium tritium fusion is easier to ignite. It requires temperatures of only 100 million Kelvin while hydrogen boron fusion requires 1 billion Kelvin.

Unfortunately, many fusion researchers have spent their careers developing a device called the tokamak which cannot reach the temperatures required for hydrogen boron fusion.

Rather than looking for new ideas, the fusion research establishment has decided that the radioactive waste produced by deuterium tritium fusion is acceptable.

However, there is a device which can reach 1 billion Kelvin the Focus Fusion device."

Sorry if I don understand, but I never understood anything but basic chemistry and they didn teach anything about nuclear chemistry to undergraduates 47 years ago.

I, too, am confused, and I do understand some of the physics. They achieved temperature, reacted the fuel, and reduced X ray cooling, and now it seems that they need to demo that magnetic containment can be sustained at the power output levels needed to yield net energy.

On the one hand, the Focus Fusion site does have some of the trappings of the pie in the sky types lone researcher, links to other non conventional theory (no big bang), asking for money, dependence on long known, but somehow never exploited phenomena (plasmoids).

On the other hand, there are some unquestionable advances in thinking especially charged particle induction based electricity generation and a neutron free reaction cycle. Also, there is real peer reviewed research, invited presentations at conferences, and, importantly, theoretical groundwork for each step in the process.

People have often said that big science and military guided research would squeeze out the little guy, and result in less practical progress. IMO, this is the story of the space program, although inertia may finally be breaking there. Can we ascribe the struggles of fusion (and focus fusion in particular) to 2014 new air jordan shoes this problem? I not inside enough to know.

Given that cheap access to space and practical fusion power have stalled for decades, while the space station, missile defense, Tokamak, and the National Ignition Facility are the Projects That Would Not Die, I can help but think that there are missed opportunities out there. A resent DOD review of EPS technology reads as follows:

"MIT considers these plasmas a revolutionary breakthrough, with Delphi

chief scientist and senior manager for advanced technology both agreeing

that EST/SPT physics are repeatable and theoretically explainable. (Delphi is a $33B company, the spun off Delco Division of General