Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power...

Google Tech Talks
November 9, 2006

ABSTRACT
This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter...

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• nuclear
• fusion
• energy
• google

[zardinuk]

Energy Matter Conversion Corp. is being awarded a $7,855,504 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research, analysis, development, and testing in support of the Plan Plasma Fusion Polywell Project. Efforts under this Recovery Act award will validate the basic physics of the polywell plasma fusion concept, as well as provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion. Work is expected to be completed in April 2011. That was reported Sept 11, 2009.

[Wilsonca66]

I am a nuclear engineer viewing this for the first time, I also work for the federal government and am well versed in the beauracracy associated with fiscal funding. This seems to me at a high level worth pursuing based on Dr. Bussard's credentials. I have long felt that the problem with fusion power is not a technology issue but a funding issue. If we as a nation, that is the USA want to have fusion power we will have it just as we put a man on the moon forty years ago.

[52111centrumcz]

@mphello

you can divert then coal to create liquid fuels using Fischer-trops reactors. You can also use electricity to turn any carbon containing compounds (including wood waste, food waste and agricultural watse). You can also use electricity to create hydrogen for industrial uses, reducing by a large amount the needed amount of natural gas needed for industrial production of hydrogen.

[oldwolf1]

It's not a funding issue, it's a brain issue. I've cracked how to fix the spikes in the plasma field. Trouble is, no one will listen to me. When he started making the polyhedrons he was on the right track. He just needed a 2nd layer(positions) of magnets over the junctions where the spikes were occuring to press them down. If you've ever tuned an old fashioned shortwave radio and have had to use the large and small tuning knobs, then you'll knowwhat I mean.

[Ponnybit]

@Wilsonca66 when you say "we" you mean the few people that run the enterprise that is the U.S of A i asume.

[tuseroni]

i squeeled like a fangirl when i heard there was a google tech talk with robert bussard (which was embarrassing because im a guy.) and a talk about fusion reactors what's not to love. somebody fund this, do it for the late great robert bussard! do it for humanity! this is one of the few times i have thought i would like to win the lottery (i dont normally concern myself with one time surges of capital but with steady revenue streams) but if i did, it would go to this.

[dukelanovic]

I think Google should work on nuclear fusion - it is possible.

[2110kop]

This guy makes a lot of sense. But they need 200 million dollars and who knows if after that they can make it work ? Star Scientic Limited with their Muon Catalysed Fusion are not asking for money they seem to be VERY advanced in their reaserch. See their Youtube video "In the Footsteps of Fusion" also their website Star Scientic Limited and their chairman's blog "The Big Picture by Andrew Horvath" both of which you can find through google.

[OfficeThug]

@longbeachboy57 You can, but U232 is a byproduct that's also present in U233 produced from the thorium cycle. U232 is a humongous pain in the ass when it comes to building bombs, being extremely radioactive by itself and its products being gamma emitters. You need very special equipment and shielding to handle it, and it can compromise the circuitry in bombs.

[mphello]

@mageboi97 You're pretty fucking stupid for making an ad hominem attack without even attempting to respond to my argument.

[mageboi97]

@mphello Are you retarded?

[mphello]

What freakin' good is all this electricity (from coal or nuclear) ANYWAY when we don't have affordable electric cars, boats, and airplanes yet to be powered by it?