I know lots of people dislike serious consideration for anything like a 'magic bullet'; however:

[Occulus]

There's something going on out in Santa Fe that may be of interest to you. Dr. Rick Nebel, on leave from Los Alamos National Lab, is working on a project for providing fusion power conceived by Dr. Robert Bussard. This project is known as the Polywell, an idea Bussard was working on under a Navy contract prior to his death. Since that time, funding was restored for this phase of the project, and WB-7, their latest design, can be seen being tested here (using helium as fuel):



For a discussion forum where you can find Dr. Nebel himself, visit www.talk-polywell.org .

This is an internal electrostatic confinement (IEC) reactor. The devices are named WB-x for what is termed the "wiffle ball" effect. Here's part of how the Wiki describes its operation:

The polywell approach

Like the fusor, the polywell confines positive ions through their attraction to negatively charged electrons. The difference being that in the fusor, the negative charges reside on a solid-state grid. In the polywell, they are confined to the inner region of the reactor by magnetic fields. The reactor volume is defined by the coils producing the magnetic field, rather than by electrically charged grids. The advantage of coils over grids is that the magnetic fields produced by the coils also help protect them from the energetic electrons and ions. On the other hand, the polywell has electrons and ions existing in the same volume, reintroducing the Bremsstrahlung that the fusor can avoid.

The magnetic field is produced by a polyhedral arrangement of coils, all pointing toward (or all away from) the center. The magnetic field vanishes at the center, and the magnetic flux that enters the volume through the coils leaves it again through the spaces between the coils. Thus the electrons are confined to the central volume by a magnetic mirror with a large field ratio, and all the cusps are points (rather than lines). Ions can be added to produce a plasma, but there must always be more electrons than ions in order to maintain the potential well. While this concept, in contrast to the original fusor, uses magnetic fields, they do not need to confine nuclei — only electrons, which are orders of magnitude simpler to confine.

I've felt this project is of vital importance ever since I learned about it. Why? Because, if the scaling laws hold to be true (Bussard calculated the fusion power output of the device scales as the seventh power of the radius, and the energy gain scales as the fifth power) we will have fusion power.

If that becomes the case, we can truly abandon fossil fuels and use what oil we have left for lubrication, firmly supplemented by and eventually supplanted by synthetics. We can finally supply clean, cheap, abundant, and reliable power to the entire planet. We can finally tell Saudi Arabia and its Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to piss off, and finally end war for oil. But most importantly, we can stop polluting our environment in our need for energy.

This project is definitely worth a look. If nothing else, they're doing some real, serious science, worthy of funding on the level of the Tokamak.

[On the Road]

1. I Don't Know Why Fusion Isn't Being Discussed More

It's ultimately a perfect source of energy. I have never heard of helium being used as a fuel, though. Seems like it would be more difficult to make a Be atom out of two He's than He out of H. But if works, great.

[Occulus]

5. They're only using helium to test their instruments

The actual fuel, if this works as advertised, would be boron-11. The exhaust from that, apparently, is helium.

[On the Road]

16. So It's 2 Boron Atoms Fusing to Make One Neon Atom?

That's a new one. You would think that the energy required to initiate fusion would go up sharply as you get higher on the periodic table. They have a hard enough time with hydrogen. But whatever works.

[Occulus]

24. He, not Ne

Here's an illustration of the reaction:



I think (I could be wrong here) it's a proton reacting with boron-11 which then decays into helium.

edit: found the description of the reaction here:

In the p-B nuclear reaction (above), a single proton combines with a Boron nucleus (made up of 5 protons and 6 neutrons) to produce a Helium nucleus which flies off to the left with an energy of 3.76 million electron volts. Immediately after that, the remaining transitional nucleus divides into two more Helium nucleii, each carrying another 2.46 million electron volts of energy. This energy can be used to make electricity. No neutrons, ionizing nuclear radiation, radioactive waste, carbon compounds or any other toxic substances are produced. The animation is by Torulf Greek, from the Focus Fusion website.

[On the Road]

26. Woah -- That is Not Simple Fusion

It is fusion plus three-way fission. Very out of the box.

[Occulus]

27. Innit, though?

They're calling it fusion because that's how the reaction begins. You're right- it's not simple fusion- but it's much easier to describe without calling it what it really is.

Nonetheless, it's still pretty simple physics, when all is said and done.

(Now you have a better idea why I like this concept so very much! )

[TheWraith]

14. A lot of people are just utterly unaware...

...of the existence of the Polywell tech and the potential that it has. Also, some people here are obsessed with wind and solar power as the only forms of energy in the world.

[cliffordu]

2. Kicked and Recc'd Excellent potential here, from what little I actually understand....

[NickB79]

3. I think Phantom Power said it best in a previous thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

"if we had that much energy, we would use it to ravage the biosphere in an orgy of unlimited expansion."

Though Hunter was a close runner-up with this one:

"We'd convert the entire mass of the earth into a great throbbing ball of human protoplasm."

[kristopher]

4. I don't think so. Birthrates in marginal subsistence cultures is

I don't think so. Birthrates in marginal subsistence cultures is higher than countries that have an abundance of energy. Labor specialization means that your children are most likely not going to follow in parent's footsteps and family manner of making a living in a way that provides returns to the parents.
Instead, universally funded social services networks provide a safety net for the elderly; liberating them from the investment in children for that reason.

In all, I believe nearly free or cheap universal energy would result in a declining population within 20 years - that is about the time it took from Japanese economic success until its pop growth rate turned negative.

The above is consistent with the ideas of Marvin Harris; I believe they are about as proved as a cultural theory can be.

On the energy front, there is no doubt we should fund these projects well. But the more important point is that we not tie our energy future to future development of products that aren't ready now in all ways. Balancing costs of production and overall environmental impact of the current technologies is the primary discussion, so it isn't strange to me that potential solutions - no matter how promising - receive less discussion than the ones we want to deploy right now.

If fusion or ultra-capacitors or (real)clean fission or 80%+ capacity factor solar or wind is in the future then I really do want it to come out; I think we will eventually use it in harmony with the rest of nature. If they don't then I'll also be perfectly happy living on a much stricter energy budget organized around renewables and storage.

What we can't do is sit around and wait for "clean" coal, or GenIV "clean" nuclear, EESTOR ultracapacitors, or high-altitude wind with a capacity factor of 90+%; we need to start this process of cranking out solar panels and wind turbines RIGHT F&*%KING NOW.

Peace.

[cliffordu]

6. What you just wrote:

"What we can't do is sit around and wait for "clean" coal, or GenIV "clean" nuclear, EESTOR ultracapacitors, or high-altitude wind with a capacity factor of 90+%; we need to start this process of cranking out solar panels and wind turbines RIGHT F&*%KING NOW."

IS EXACTLY RIGHT. Thanks.

[bananas]

10. Yes. nt

[GliderGuider]

18. Let's see how the numbers work out.

Let's assume we have enough energy to bring the whole world's energy consumption up to about where Portugal is today. The Demographic Transition Theory (or whichever population theory you hang your hat on) then proceeds to work its magic, and in 20 years the global population peaks and starts to decline. That should be at a population of 7.5 or 8 billion people.

Now to get us to this point we had to double the world's energy consumption. The global average consumption is 1.7 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe)/capita today, where Portugal's is about 2.7 toe/cap, and the population rose as well. But this is no problem because we have Mr. Fusion.

Of course people don't just consume energy. Mostly they consume stuff that they use energy to make. So, using energy as a proxy, the amount of stuff the world consumes will approximately double. That means that in the 20 years before population peaks, the world will consume 40 years' worth of stuff.

According to Wackernagle and Rees, all this consumption translates into ecological footprint. Again using energy consumption as a proxy, the global ecological footprint could be assumed to double as well (or almost double, since by now everyone is driving spiffy new fusion-mobiles instead of those ugly CO2-belchers. So instead of needing 2.1 global hectares (gha)/person of biologically productive area (today's footprint), we would need maybe 3.6 gha/cap. Since the planet has only 1.8 gha/cap available, we would be in an overshoot of 100%.

Of course, the problem is worse than that. Some proportion of the world's population already has a footprint well above the global average, and they're unlikely to want to give up their consumption. So for this magic to work, we might need to triple the world's energy and material consumption to make sure all the low-wealth, high-growth regions are brought up to code. And that means a commensurate rise in ecological footprint, for an overshoot of 200% compared to today's paltry 20%.

In fact, I did an analysis (linked here) last year that looked at exactly this issue, and determined we would need three to five times our current energy consumption to accomplish this feat.

The effect of added energy wealth on material consumption strongly indicates that bringing the world to a population-reducing boil by adding cheap energy will simply blow out the ecological balloon at some other point.

It won't work.

[kristopher]

19. Several problems with that argument

First is that replacing most thermal generation with renewables is an extremely large move in the efficiency needle as thermal loss accounts for where most fossil energy goes. Your analysis doesn't factor that in nor does it distinguish between envirnomental damage from fossil fuel life cycles and the other environmental damage caused in product manufacturing. In every product assesment I've ever seen, fossil fuel based energy is a large part of the environmental costs of goods. I'd say it is important to account for that.

Second is the use of energy as a proxy for environmental footprint. It isn't nearly as straightforward as you are making it. For the largest mass of people affected, initially it is the difference between burning either coal or their forests for fuel to cook with. As an infrastructure develops around a system of cheap readily available energy, it really isn't possible to extrapolate from the fossil fuel experience which was founded on a much more limited cultural, environmental and technical knowledge base. Associated *energy intensity* trends are a big factor which you aren't capturing with your numbers.

This part seems to contradict itself: "instead of needing 2.1 global hectares (gha)/person of biologically productive area (today's footprint), we would need maybe 3.6 gha/cap. Since the planet has only 1.8 gha/cap available, we would be in an overshoot of 100%."

According to this we are already well beyond the "available limit" you are speaking of. Perhaps you could explain more fully? I'm sure that there is a great deal of discussion lurking behind that sentence.

Also, you are making the assumption that our hypothetical cheap abundant clean energy would ONLY be used for manufacturing goods. But that isn't necessarily so. It is equally likely, IMO, that the expanded knowledge base we now have would encourage the use of this energy in projects designed to clean up some of the messes we've made and would make it more cost effective for industries to deal with wastes properly rather than seeking to abrogate their responsibilities by externalizing costly waste disposal.

[GliderGuider]

20. OK, you have managed to surprise me.

This part seems to contradict itself: "instead of needing 2.1 global hectares (gha)/person of biologically productive area (today's footprint), we would need maybe 3.6 gha/cap. Since the planet has only 1.8 gha/cap available, we would be in an overshoot of 100%."

According to this we are already well beyond the "available limit" you are speaking of. Perhaps you could explain more fully? I'm sure that there is a great deal of discussion lurking behind that sentence.

You are apparently completely unaware of ecological footprint analysis. You really need to know about it to contribute effectively on boards like this. Start here Ecological Footprint.

Briefly, yes, current analysis suggests we are already 20% or more over that "available limit" I'm speaking of.

The rest of my argument isn't meant to be a detailed critical analysis of consumption growth. It's a reminder that there is a lot more than energy to consider when one blithely talks about making all the poor people wealthy so they'll stop having kids. It's a reminder that obtaining all that stuff has an ecological impact beyond simply the energy necessary to produce or transport it (examples include oceanic overfishing and habitat loss due to metals mining). And that we would need a lot of stuff do get to the point you propose. But it's all based on the concept of ecological footprint. If you don't understand that, you won't get the point.

[kristopher]

21. I'm aware of what is on the wiki site

but thank you anyway. My critique is specific to the quoted portion of your post where you state that we are currently over this maximum theoretical limit. The point of my post was do demonstrate that this limit is so difficult to calculate with any degree of accuracy that it is virtually useless. I listed a couple of specific items (increased energy intensity and decreased impact environmental impact from energy extraction) that serve to cast serious doubt on the simple linear progression you offered.

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that consumption of goods wouldn't increase as the global level of personal wealth rises, but the specific premise of the exercise, as I recall (and I sometimes get threads mixed up) is that there is a new, near limitless source of clean energy available - what would be the effect?

I see your answer as one based on simply extending the present experience with dirty and limited fossil fuels. I don't believe you have even attempted to factor in the idea of unlimited or clean. Those are significant variables that would tend to have very large impacts on our view of what it means to be "wealthy".

[GliderGuider]

22. A 20% overshoot is the usual outcome of ecological footprint studies.

Dig into the following links to find support for that generally-accepted conclusion.

http://www.stirpat.org/frontiers_hi_res.pdf
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?content=dat...
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/ecological-footprint.ht...
http://www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/gallery/life_sciences/foo...
http://envirostats.info/2007/08/15/0301 /

On the question of fossil fuels, one of the categories in ecological footprint calculations is land area allocated to carbon storage. This amounts to half the footprint according to the second paper linked above. Now, with the use of a non-carbon energy source this would go down. However we need to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, so some proportion of this land would still be required.

And "wealthy" means "stuff", especially to someone in the developing world -- no matter how clean the energy was that made it.

[kristopher]

23. Why would some portion of this land still be required?

That perfectly illustrates my point. With unlimited cheap clean energy, I'd be willing to bet that there are a number of ways to remove and sequester greenhouse gases from the atmosphere that would become viable.

"Wealthy" is a state of mind, of which media driven envy is only one manifestation.

[phantom power]

7. I should clarify...

that was me predicting what GG was going to say. Although I understand why GG thinks so, uncomfortably well, I don't claim to agree with him.

Although I do love the "throbbing ball of human protoplasm bit."

Yum.

[phantom power]

8. It's the old caveat...

until he's actually done it, he hasn't proven it's real.

However, if I was a rich man, I'd toss him some coin. I think what he's attempting is pretty tantalizing.

[TheWraith]

11. Actually, they have "done it." They just haven't built a large enough one for net power production.

The power scales up drastically as size increases, but they've been doing proof-of-concept work on a relatively small model, for reasons of manufacturing and cost. They're working off a Navy grant, so they don't have the $150 to $200 million they want to build a full-scale demonstrator plant.

[phantom power]

12. Exactly. They haven't done it...

[TheWraith]

15. They haven't generated power. They have successfully tested out the physics of how to do it.

It's the difference between building an internal combustion engine, and actually building one big enough to drive a tugboat.

[phantom power]

17. I would say...

that it is more like the difference between showing you can get hydrocarbon fuel to explode in a chamber, and building an internal combustion engine.

[GliderGuider]

9. It would be worth it just to see what we'd do with it.

It might make life uncomfortable for the last tuna in in the sea being chased down by a fusion-powered trawler, but hey, the planet doesn't actually need tuna, right? I admit to being turned on by Big Change, and this would definitely be a biggie.

In the end the planet will keep on going no matter what happens, so let's go for it. Go big or go home.

[Joanne98]

13. Off to the greatest.

[Occulus]

25. Why thank you.

I think that's a first for me!

[Terry in Austin]

28. Unlimited energy: be careful what you wish for

Technology rocks. I'm a big fan, myself. Long-time geek.

Sometimes, though, we look to it for our salvation. These days, the search is on for this holy grail of unlimited, cheap energy. Fusion, uranium from seawater, even zero-point energy -- one or another cornucopia of our own devising.

Usually, when the grail tale ends, our hero has finally found it and everybody lives happily ever after. We never get to see the sequel.

But what would that look like? No, really -- what would happen in a world where humankind has cheap, unlimited supplies of energy? Gosh, now that you mention it, we had one just like it during the 20th century. At the time, the oil sure seemed unlimited. More importantly, we acted as though it were.

What happened? Population spiked. Populations do that, even human ones: energy in, numbers up. At this scale, it's like a force of nature. Despite the hopeful blips in "educated" countries, human population control by humans on any meaningful scale is still well beyond the policies and efforts made by groups of individuals. Even government-sized groups.

Hopefully, it won't stay that way forever, but it's likely to for a very long time. We're going to have to get a whole lot smarter and maybe a little more clever before we're really on top of the numbers thing.

Trouble is, our cleverness tends to outrun our smarts. Before we ever get smart enough to manage our numbers, it may well be that our cleverness delivers some new source of energy that's huge and cheap. If it does, and if you thought the topic of overpopulation was uncomfortable now, you ain't seen nothing yet!