Fusion msg. board post of the day:

[kalibex]

"Our company, EMC2, has been working since 1987 on the R&D of Iour polyhedral IEF concept for fusion; mostly under DoD support. Final tests were made last Oct/Nov on a unique new design, based on unexpected discoveries made in Spring/Summer 2005. This final machine, WB-6, showed 10x lower e- losses than any predecessor and produced DD fusions at a rate over 100,000x times higher than the data of Farnsworth-Hirsch in the 1960's for same drive conditions.

We have now proven the engineering and physics scaling laws that allow design of full-scale net-power systems, whether on DD or pB11. USNavy budget line item that supported our work was zero-funded in FY2006, and our lab had to shut down and close one week after achieving these results! We are probably the only people on the planet who know how to make a real net power clean fusion system, and we are out of support! Somewhat ironical!

The next logical step MUST be a full-scale net-power demo system, simply because there is not much left to do at small scale; when it is realized that the fusion output of these devices scales as the 7th power of the size, and the gain scales as the 5th power.

These outlandish scalings (inherent in the engineering physics of the thing) make it useless to build half-scale systems (for example). Unless you are AT the net-power size, you are nowhere in power and gain, even though the physics IS relevant. We have always been limited to about 0.1 scale, and have learned nearly all there is to know about the system's basic operation.

Thus, we have the ability to do away with oil (and other fossil fuels) but it will take 4-6 years and ca. 100-200 M$ to build the full-scale plant and demonstrate it. Anyone care?

R.W. Bussard"


Hmm, there's one little wrinkle: 'Destroys world market for gasoline'