Dr. Bussard: IEC Fusion, the future in a post peak oil world... ?

[FogerRox]

Cross posted @ rdanafox:

http://rdanafox.blogspot.com/2007/04/dr-bussard-iec-fusion-future-in-post.html

Dr Bussard is the former Assistant Director of the US Atomic Energy Commission, he was the father of the US Fusion effort from the 1970's into the 1980's. Dr. Bussard went to Congress and pushed the fusion research programs in the 70's that developed the Tokamak design.

Dr Bussard now advocates a different design. For the last 11 years he has been working under US Navy contracts, building small test devices.



WB4 in 2003.



WB6 in 2005.

At the end of 2005, the Navy did not renew his contract. Since then Dr Bussard has given many lectures including the (famous in fusion circles) google tech talk of 2006. Video :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

DR Bussard was awarded the 2006 International Academy of Science Outstanding technology of the Year.

http://www.science.edu/TechoftheYear/TechoftheYear.htm

Why is this important? World oil production peaked in May of 2005. Dr Bussard says for 200 million he can build a proof of concept reactor by about 2011. The ITER reactor in Europe will be finished by 2013, and the concept may be ready for power generation by 2025. The ITER is slated to cost 13.3 billion. More importantly $3 million keeps Dr. Bussard working.

When the father of modern fusion tells you the Tokamak wont work, he bears listening to. Funny thing about fusion, it occurs naturally in a sphere (the SUN), just like Dr Bussards design. The ITER reactor will try to create fusion at a level high enough to generate electricity, in a donut or torus, which doesn't happen in nature.

Heres an overview of Bussards recent work with some really cool pictures.

http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf

Dr. Bussard will be utilizing a non profit organization to continue his research. Here is his website:

http://www.emc2fusion.org

THe 2007 International Space Development Conference (ISDA) will be held, May 25th thru the 28th, in Dallas Texas. Tom Ligon will be speaking on IEC/Polywell fusion. This event is sponsored by NASA.

http://isdc.nss.org/2007/

[chaska]

1. Everything I've read on Peak says....

that techno-fixes just simply will not work, that there is nothing that will prevent us from living (eventually) like the Amish. I think that's a good thing, a very good thing.

I'd suggest reading Alice Friedemann (spelling is correct) and James Kunstler for starters.

[FogerRox]

2. Kunstler is good. But we are talking about a replacement for all oil

at least oil for energy...

ANd a way to go back to a resource driven economy by using resources in space.

[bananas]

3. Kunstler thought y2k would end civilization

He couldn't understand why his phone still worked on January 1.

[FogerRox]

4. I file that under

A very knowledgeable guy, whose analysis is faulted.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. We publish James over at World News Trust...

But frankly, I consider him as one of those people who never met a worse-case scenario he didn't like. I give no ground to anyone in my cynicism and pessimism about people and their efforts(or lack thereof...). Except Kunstler. He has me beat by a country parsec.

[FogerRox]

13. "a country parsec." nice update to the old phrase....

[UNCLE_Rico]

26. I think he figured it out pretty quick...

What, with the hundreds of millions of dollars that we spent by thousands of different organizations in a massive worldwide effort that was prompted in no small part by people like himself who called attention to the potential for disaster that y2k presented?!? Do you remember that whole 'effort', back in 1995-2000, by chance? I sure do ... it put A LOT of money in my pocket. I hope you aren't just bitter because you missed out or something?

To proclaim or insinuate he was 'wrong' when, in fact, what he said was 'we gotta do something major here ... or else we're totally fucked', when we did in fact proceed to do something major (VERY major, in fact), and then we weren't totally fucked, is a textbook example an INVALID SYLLOGISM, my friend.

THE ONLY WAY that you could legitimately ridicule the man for his prognostications of doom regarding y2k would have been if NOBODY HAD DONE ANYTHING to prevent problems with y2k, and then NOTHING HAPPENED despite the lack of any effort. That is THE ONLY WAY you could prove him 'incorrect', which is an indisbutable FACT inherent to the structure of the argument itself.

To cite another, simpler example, suppose I was to posit "We must get rid of Bush, or else we're gonna attack Iran". Now, if you think hard on this, you'll realize that exactly four permutations or scenarios are possible as outcomes:
1) We DON'T get rid of Bush, we don't attack Iran.
2) We DON'T get rid of bush, we attack Iran.
3) We get rid of bush, we don't attack Iran.
4) We get rid of bush, we attack Iran.

ONLY IN SCENARIO 1 is it possible for one to prove I was wrong in my assertion. ONLY in scenario 2 can I be proven correct. Then there are also two scenarios where whether I'm right or wrong is unknowable. Which would be 3 and 4. One of them is clearly analogous to Kunstler's argument re: y2k. Thus, whether he was right or wrong is UNKNOWABLE. Therefore, for you to assert that he was WRONG - actually only makes YOU WRONG. Clearly, categorically, undeniably so.

[bananas]

31. Welcome to DU

Kunstler has acknowledged he was wrong,
so the permutation table reduces to a single element:

"Kunstler was wrong about y2k"

Thus, whether he was right or wrong is KNOWABLE. Therefore, for me to assert that he was WRONG - actually makes ME RIGHT. Clearly, categorically, undeniably so.

:hi:

[TheWraith]

5. Then everything that you've read is completely wrong.

And no, living like the hard-core Amish is not at all a good thing, unless you think that typhoid, yellow fever, high child death rates, back-breaking physical labor, and all the other things that we had to deal with back then that we've don't today are also "good things."

Anyway, that idea about "techno-fixes" not working is too bogus to describe in total, but suffice it to say that it's totally wrong. Even most of the hard-core people who want us to live in treehouses acknowledge that wind and solar power work. That's not even to mention the work of people like Bussard, who understand what they're talking about vastly better than all the peak oil Cassandra-complex types. There's energy available on this planet for tens of thousands of years at least.

Furthermore, Kunstler is a known fearmonger with absolutely no expertise in the fields in which he prognosticates. The claims he makes about peak oil are the same ones he made about Y2K, with the words changed. His defense of the former is to claim that there was a secret Y2K program spending hundreds of billions of dollars to avert the "disaster." He also claimed in both 2005 and 2006 that the Dow would crash down to 4,000 within the year. In other words, he's a kook, and deserves no credibility at all.

[UNCLE_Rico]

25. I must respectfully (but unfortunately totally) disagree...

I've read a hell of a lot more than Kunstler alone, personally, and my best analysis of both sides of the peak-oil/natural gas issue is that people who think CURRENT techno-fixes are going to work in terms of successfully sustaining anything resembling our current US standard of living (while the rest of the world grows in population and wants what we have) are, quite literally, smoking the crizzzack.

They tend to completely ignore the fact that the infrastructure that powers our lifestyle requires MASSIVE amounts of oil and LNG for the following: all the fertilizers and all pesticides we use to grow the massive amounts of food the planet needs to EAT (this one fact alone decimates the practicality of so-called 'biofuels' in terms of their EIEO ratio, leaving alone the massive topsoil damage such practices will incur, and the energy costs to convert the food to fuel, energy costs to bring such fuels to the generating plants, energy lost to phase-conversions, etc), the asphalt we use to build/maintain the roads, and all the plastics that form practically everything we buy nowadays.

They usually also ignore that practically all the industrial chemicals we use today to make, ohhhhh, well, just about EVERYTHING that gets made require petroleum as a base. They typically also ignore the fact that oil/lng accounts for like 50% of our total US electricity generation, and most of the rest comes from CO2-polluting coal.

They usually ignore the MASSIVE energy we'd have to burn up in order to retool our entire military and civilian infrastructure in order to make use of said 'techno-fixes', simultaneously to the time in which said energy is becoming more and more expensive in terms of EIEO ratios (and hence, of course, price).

Fact is, most of the types of analysis that I've seen done focus entirely on the possibility of using alternative sources of energy JUST to power our US passenger vehicles. And sure, THAT ALONE might be possible. All we'd have to do (by one well-calculated estimate I've seen) is plant corn on 97% of the surface of the United States and put the facilities to convert the corn to fuel on 2% of the remaining 3%, and then live/work/drive on the other 1% of surface area, and we'd be JUST FINE driving our cars forever and ever!

Fact is, I've yet to see a breakdown of alternatives that can account for ALL the uses I've listed above, PLUS fuel all the airplanes we fly and ship things in, AND all the diesel powered cargo ships, AND all the huge-ass trucks that carry virtually EVERYTHING to market.

The truth is, we've burned up, as a civilization, a ONE TIME bounty of cheap abundant fossil fuel energy that was the result of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of YEARS of SUNLIGHT striking this planet and then being stored hyper-concentrated in liquid and gaseous form(s) by processes that take millions and millions of years themselves. The total amount of sunlight (in Joules) that strikes every inch of this planet in each given day is NOWHERE NEAR the total amount of energy our civilization utilizes each given day, with our current population. Given that ALL energy is going to have to be derived from that sunlight once the oil/lng runs out (aside from a little bit that comes from nuclear power) coupled with the utter impossibility of harvesting even a tiny fraction of it for practical uses, the only POSSIBLE solution to being able to eek out even a meager existence in the post-oil landscape involves the following:

1) a MASSIVE, WORLD-WIDE, and IMMEDIATE effort to EXCLUSIVELY (virtually) utilize our remaining energy resources to effect a switch over to a post-oil infrastructure, and,
2) by doing #1, it will virtually assure the other necessity, which is a MASSIVE decrease in world population (roughly 70-80% of the world will need to die off, put it like that...)

THe reality is that unless #1 happens, eventually #2 is not only going to be much worse, but it's going to be a much worse standard of living for those who remain.

I don't know whose kool-aid you've been drinking, but I seriously suggest you check the details of the analysis you're reading and make sure it takes into account ALL THE USES of petroleum/lng, both as energy source and as a stock/source for absolutely critical chemicals and building materials, and doesn't just calculate 'how we can keep the cars going' because our cars are going to be taking a VERY LOW priority in the years that we are staring down NOW ... i.e. our IMMEDIATE future...

[TheWraith]

32. Rebuttal.

"all the fertilizers and all pesticides we use to grow the massive amounts of food the planet needs to EAT"

There are many sorts of fertilizers and pesticides which require no petroleum to manufacture, either because they use wholly synthetic components, or they're derived from other sources such as juglone.

Similarly, there are ways to create synthetic materials and oils for use in plastics, rubber, et al. Furthermore, if we no longer need to burn oil to drive our cars and power plants, then our remaining oil stocks go many times further, not to mention the possibility of devising ways to extract the leftover oil (a large percentage) from "depleted" fields which our antiquated drilling technology can't get at.

"They typically also ignore the fact that oil/lng accounts for like 50% of our total US electricity generation, and most of the rest comes from CO2-polluting coal."

And that's what we're talking about replacing, hence the discussion about Bussard's fusion reactor.

"They usually ignore the MASSIVE energy we'd have to burn up in order to retool our entire military and civilian infrastructure"

The alternative is not having a military and civilian infrastructure, which is obviously not an option at all. Besides which, I don't think it's quite as bad as you do. Ground vehicles can be replaced by phasing out conventional models in favor of electric ones. Our most important naval military vessels are already nuclear powered, and the rest run on diesel, which is easy enough to produce from waste oils, or we could nuclear-convert most of them as well. Diesel can also be synthesized for our civilian ships, or they might eventually be converted to electric systems run off fuel cells. Our aircraft fleets are primarily kerosene-fueled, which can be obtained from virtually any form of oil. A few simple facilities to produce these things from oils that we're already wasting wouldn't be that bad of an alternative.

"The total amount of sunlight (in Joules) that strikes every inch of this planet in each given day is NOWHERE NEAR the total amount of energy our civilization utilizes each given day"

Actually, the total sunlight that hits the Earth is VASTLY in excess of all global energy needs, electrical and fossil fuel combined, by many thousand fold. The reason solar power is ineffective is primarily due to the low efficiency of the technology and the large areas of land it would require to operate. We receive about 174,000 terawatts of total energy from the sun, and we consume 13.5 terawatts.

"Given that ALL energy is going to have to be derived from that sunlight once the oil/lng runs out (aside from a little bit that comes from nuclear power)"

Nuclear power actually supplies about 150 times the power that all current solar facilities do.

"2) by doing #1, it will virtually assure the other necessity, which is a MASSIVE decrease in world population (roughly 70-80% of the world will need to die off, put it like that...)"

Nope. A lower population would be nice, and I think it's likely to happen sooner or later, but it's certainly not a prerequisite to surviving the end of our dependence on oil. And this is the primary problem that I have with all the paranoia on this subject--it all seems to be based from an idea of wanting the human race to return to a more primitive state, rather than people wanting to find a genuine solution to dealing with energy dependence issues.

"I don't know whose kool-aid you've been drinking"

Thank you, but I think I've demonstrated that I have a perfectly accurate grip on this subject, one not tainted by paranoia and a near Cassandra-complex.

[FogerRox]

38. Ah yes, the possibilities, great post.

Just think what 50 sq miles of PV's could do right now, @ about 29%/30% efficiency... in the USA.

[Ezlivin]

39. A rebuttal's rebuttal

"There are many sorts of fertilizers and pesticides which require no petroleum to manufacture, either because they use wholly synthetic components, or they're derived from other sources such as juglone.

Similarly, there are ways to create synthetic materials and oils for use in plastics, rubber, et al. Furthermore, if we no longer need to burn oil to drive our cars and power plants, then our remaining oil stocks go many times further, not to mention the possibility of devising ways to extract the leftover oil (a large percentage) from "depleted" fields which our antiquated drilling technology can't get at."

When you say "manufacture" you're going to have to also explain how this is going to take place without petroleum inputs (or greatly reduced and extremely expensive petroleum inputs). What drives the machines to manufacture these new pesticides and fertilizers? And will the resulting cost be prohibitively high?

Regarding the "depleted" fields idea, you are neglecting to note that using our latest and greatest technology results in fields entering decline much earlier and at a more precipitous rate (see: North Sea and Cantarell). While there is oil remaining in many fields, if it takes a barrel of oil to get this barrel of oil (EROEI) then the process is pure futility.

"The alternative is not having a military and civilian infrastructure, which is obviously not an option at all. Besides which, I don't think it's quite as bad as you do. Ground vehicles can be replaced by phasing out conventional models in favor of electric ones. Our most important naval military vessels are already nuclear powered, and the rest run on diesel, which is easy enough to produce from waste oils, or we could nuclear-convert most of them as well. Diesel can also be synthesized for our civilian ships, or they might eventually be converted to electric systems run off fuel cells. Our aircraft fleets are primarily kerosene-fueled, which can be obtained from virtually any form of oil. A few simple facilities to produce these things from oils that we're already wasting wouldn't be that bad of an alternative. "

I believe our military infrastructure is many times too large and could easily be reduced and yet remain effective for defense.

It's easy to say that "can be replaced by phasing out conventional models in favor of electric ones" without addressing the problem of expense. You are talking about scraping millions of automobiles and manufacturing millions more, plus building new infrastructure to service/supply these new vehicles. All of this will be done with petroleum, as there are no alternate energy sources yet in place to accomplish the task.

I served aboard a nuclear submarine and I can attest that the powerplant worked very well. However, when you suggest nuclear power you neglect the amount of energy required to build the plants. Again we would need to expend immense amounts of energy to build these plants and, once built, we'd face uranium depletion (unless we built breeder reactors and then we have a whole new set of problems on our hands).

Fuel cells will never see widespread use. There is not enough platinum on the planet to satisfy the needs of this country alone.

Anyone who believes that we can simply swap in some new energy sources for the old and continue our way of living has simply not fully grasped the situation we've placed ourselves in through dependency on oil. As a previous poster noted, oil is a very special, one-time gift of energy. There is nothing equivalent.

[hunter]

12. It's a good thing if you pay no attention to the billions dying.

Keep 'em out of sight, out of mind, pay someone unclean to shoot 'em at the border, and it's a hard life but a good life out there in the countryside.

Sorry, but I really dislike some of the scenarios in which the human race survives in some sort of "balance" with nature.

The sheer number of humans currently living makes some sort of dense energy source a necessity, otherwise large numbers of us simply die.

[FogerRox]

17. Touche~.... LOL.

[bananas]

6. Slashdot - Bussard Gets (some) Navy Funding For Fusion Research

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x93649

[FogerRox]

10. False alarm, Bussard is not moving any equipment back into the lab.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/search/label/Bussard

http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fusor_historynews&key=1177038530

[bananas]

15. ack - "The contract has merely been continued for a year without funding."

Oh well.

[Occulus]

27. He did say in the Google video that he wants no part of government funding

in any truly meaningful amount, because he knows from experience they'll use bureaucracy to kill the program because (IIRC) it would threaten someone else's turf.

I think we all can guess which 'turf' he was speaking of in that particular little comment...

edit: he also said- to the gathered Google employees- that he needs around $200 million to build a working, full-size prototype.

[hunter]

8. Pretty machines...

Sometimes that means you are on to something.

[FogerRox]

14. If you find time watch the video at the google link

Bussard gets technical, but I found it inspiring, the old man is chaffin at the bit to get it done.

[TheWraith]

9. It's worth noting that it's not as simple as sphere versus torus.

"Funny thing about fusion, it occurs naturally in a sphere (the SUN), just like Dr Bussards design. The ITER reactor will try to create fusion at a level high enough to generate electricity, in a donut or torus, which doesn't happen in nature."

Fusion doesn't naturally occur on a planet's surface, either, and there have been good reasons for examining tokamaks. The so-called "hairy ball theorem" (No, I'm not making that up) means that a torus is really the only feasible shape for magnetically-confined fusion. The reason they've been focused on mag-containment is because inertial confinement, as traditionally practiced, wasn't efficient enough to generate electricity. However, Bussard's new design is something like 100 times more efficient than previous inertial-confinement reactors, and so may offer a more viable alternative. We have (or rather, the Japanese have) successfully produced a net energy gain in a tokamak reactor, but the issues inherent to magnetic confinement and getting a stable plasma burn make it incredibly tricky to work out.

The comparison with the sun isn't really relevant, since the sun operates in a vaccum, and is held together by its own gravity.

[FogerRox]

11. Yes, very true. AN oversimplification for the uninitiated, that I made

"However, Bussard's new design is something like 100 times more efficient"

And that reactor, WB6 was about 3 ft square.

But doesn;t gravity, or the potential well cause the Ions to return, yeah...OK.... I'm grasping at straws... LOL

[TheWraith]

33. I figured, just thought I'd throw some discussion out there. Also, a correction to myself.

I said that Bussard's new reactor design was something like 100 times more efficient. Upon double checking, I was wrong. It's one hundred THOUSAND times more efficient. Bit of a difference there!

Anyway, I don't know how practical it would be to extract energy from a reactor as small as the ones he's built so far, but it could be a long-term alternative to the use of batteries in electric vehicles. Very cool, in either case.

[FogerRox]

37. I think you missed something... maybe

WB6, the last rector, is about 3 ft square. His goal with the next models is to test tweaks to the WB6 model. IIRC 2 or 3 tweaks/models are in order. Then a large scale proof of concept model about 10ft square gets built. If this larger model is good to go. we build a model for power generation @ 100mgwh per unit.

100mgw generators means not having to completely rebuild out grid, which needs a lot of work anyway. But 100mgw units can be dropped into the existing grid with relative ease... no? Also a 10 ft core can be shipped easily.

On the other hand 1000mgw units do make more sense, NJ is projected to need IIRC 75,000gw by 2030. Thats a lot of reactors...

[IDemo]

16. Misses the basic point about Peak Oil

As well and good as alternative energy innovations are, and hopefully will continue to be, Peak Oil is specifically a liquid fuels crisis. The question is how will we continue to power transportation. Additional sources of electrical power are definitely called for as well, but barring a sudden 180° by auto companies towards battery-electric (and possibly some hydrogen) powered vehicles and away from internal combustion; more fusion, fission, wind, and solar won't address the problem.

[FogerRox]

18. The car companies will have to get over it

Liquid fuels are nearing death.... NO? If so, then the car companies have no choice.

Edit: let me rephrase

If its a liquids crisis, do we have a liquids solution within a 50yr window ? If the answer is no... then your point is completely moot.

I would offer that as a all purpose replacement for oil, fusion may be the only alternative, that has the capacity to generate world level GWh. If this assumption pans out to be true, then we simply have no choice. WE build 1000's of fusion generators and buy electric vehicles.

[IDemo]

20. The lack of a liquid fuel replacement within 50 years doesn't make it a moot point

It means there is a very real chance that neither GM nor the Dr. Bussards of this world can do enough, soon enough, to stave off a crisis. The lack of (viable) vehicle fuel replacements promises to become a significant problem before another ten years, unless you're Daniel Yergin or Amory Lovins.

While I am a strong advocate of electric vehicles, both for energy conservation and greenhouse gas reduction, I don't pretend they will provide a permanent long term continuation of our present lifestyle of 'happy motoring', as Kunstler calls it. If anything, 'neighborhood electric vehicles' (NEV's) promise to do more for us in the near to midterm years of the crude oil decline than do Tesla's or EV-2's or 3's or 4's. But neighborhood farms/gardens will eventually matter much more than personal transportation choices as the fuel costs of industrial agriculture and trucking and shipping skyrockets.

The scale of the effort required to replace both the energy source and the vehicle fleet, on any kind of meaningful level, is too often ignored. "Apollo program" or "Manhattan Project" hardly does justice to the scale of the issue.

[TheWraith]

34. We don't need liquid-fueled vehicles.

Why would we? Even given current levels of battery technology, we can easily build vehicles with a 250-300 mile range on one charge, which is roughly what you can get on a mid-size car with a full gas tank. Plus, newer batteries are capable of charging from zero to 80% in three minutes or so. When you're dealing with trucks, it's just a matter of scale: more mass, but also more batteries and more powerful motors.

And the very best thing that you can do for yourself is to put away Kunstler's writings. The man doesn't know anything about his subjects, he just engaged in scaremongering in order to sell himself as some kind of visionary.

[FogerRox]

35. First off I am not a doomsayer

Though, I wont rule out a Mad Max world, I just feel there are opportunities. SO I do not rule out the possibility of a non Mad Max world. I think Kunstler is knowledgeable, but I do not agree with his Doomsayer position, I think his analysis is askew.

So occasionally I read his stuff. Doesn't mean I buy into it.

[autorank]

19. Ahoy Admiral! Good news from the good doctor.

We better fix this because we're totally screwed if we don't.

Just imagine of * had devoted just $100 billion to a Manhattan Project for safe, clean energy and forgotten the war. We'd be a world leader. But no.......... that was too sensible.

Wonder if that top one will fit in my Hummer;) (no, I don't own a Hummer)

Great post. Thank you.

[FogerRox]

23. . yup

we're totally screwed if we don't....

[FogerRox]

21. Kickin for one more REC....

[nicknameless]

22. K&R

[FogerRox]

24. Thanks Nick Nameless

[Nederland]

28. World oil production peaked in May of 2005?

Have a source for that?

[FogerRox]

29. Sure...

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html

The US Energy Information Agency publishes monthly estimates of world oil production at www.eia.doe.gov/ipm/t11d.xls

[IDemo]

30. Here's one source

From The Oil Drum:

Crude Oil + Condensate: the peak date remains May 2005 at 74.15 mbpd, the year to date average production for 2006 (11 months) is 73.48 mbpd, down 0.09 mbpd from 2005 (11 months).

I've seen several sources online state that we either have seen the peak, are currently experiencing it, or will by next year. Whether it's May 2005 or September 2010 soon becomes an irrelevant question.

[FogerRox]

36. Didnt the TOD get it from the EIA ?