Sunday, November 06, 2005

New Form of Fusion?

Warning: Possible snake oil!

That said, this looks extremely interesting:
WEST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, USA -- Imagine a non-polluting power plant, the size of a local gas station, that would quietly and safely power 4,000 homes, for a few tenths of a penny per kilowatt-hour, compared to 4-6 cents/kw-h of coal or natural-gas-powered plants. One technician could operate two dozen of these stations remotely. The fuel, widely available, is barely spent in the clean fusion method, and would only need to be changed annually.

That is what physicist Eric Lerner envisions with his focus fusion technology in which hydrogen and boron combine into helium, while giving off tremendous amounts of energy in the process.

It is no wonder that NASA would be interested, inasmuch as the modeling predicts that a craft using Lerner's technology could reach Mars in just two weeks. The ionic particles would be escaping out the rocket nozzle at 10,000 kilometer per second, compared to the 2 km/s of present rocket propellant....
This technology, if real, would be a huge leap forward in terms of energy generation. All I can personally say is that it's within my (limited) understanding of physics, and the inventors are owed some benefit of the doubt for submitting their results to peer review, before they contacted the press.

Oh, and I can't let this pass without taking a swipe at those who think we should ditch NASA, and spend that money "here on Earth":
Mary-Sue Haliburton, chief editor for PESN and OSEN news, points out that the plasma filaments in the plasma focus are a microcosmic version of the Birkeland currents visible in the sun's corona...
Those Birkeland currents were discovered long ago, but they were explained only a few years ago, after observations from the SOHO spacecraft gave theorists more information.

If it turns out the way this article makes it sound, that would mean that a $100 million NASA satellite would have solved a $1 trillion dollar problem - the energy crisis of the 21st century. That's a pretty good return on investment.

The company - Focus Fusion - has a pretty good website. Check it out.

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