Polywell fusion final report double-checked by peer-review panel

[bananas]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/16/1718741.aspx

Fusion we can believe in?
Posted: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 6:30 PM by Alan Boyle

Working on a shoestring budget, researchers have found no reason why a low-cost approach to nuclear fusion won't work.

President-elect Barack Obama's pick for energy secretary has said he's aware of the approach, known as inertial electrostatic confinement fusion or Polywell fusion - and although it's probably not on his radar screen right now, it just might show up in the future.

<snip>

An EMC2 team headed by Los Alamos researcher Richard Nebel (who's on leave from his federal lab job) picked up the baton from Bussard and tried to duplicate the results. The team has turned in its final report, and it's been double-checked by a peer-review panel, Nebel told me today. Although he couldn't go into the details, he said the verdict was positive.

"There's nothing in there that suggests this will not work," Nebel said. "That's a very different statement from saying that it will work."

<snip>

[lapfog_1]

1. This is truly great news.

Bussard was one of the few remaining "giants" from the hey day of physics. I'm glad to see that his last project is still going. Hopefully, now that the anti-science fossil fuel guys are packing up and getting out of the White House, more money will be found to continue funding this approach.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. It's not the despair, Laura...

I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.

John Cleese, Clockwise

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Thanks for the update

I'd been thinking it was about time we'd heard something.

I think we should all drop the President Elect a little note, asking that he fund this program in full (and then some.)

[janap]

4. Polywell fusion bust

They say that the devil is in the details. It certainly is with the Polywell fusor. This and the other fusors are going for the fusion of boron and hydrogen to avoid the production of neutrons. Those devil neutrons, those little devils that make the anti nukes turn green. The B-H fusors will never reach energy break even at one billion degrees it will take to reach B-H fusion. Someone will fuse tritium and deuterium with all those high energy plutonium producing neutrons but that is just as bad as those devil fission reactors with all that proliferation danger. Oh well! Back to the solar panels.