Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

Very Cool! This ain't no cold fusion, but rather small fusion. Check it out:


Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas
By KENNETH CHANG

Published: April 28, 2005

In a surprising feat of miniaturization, scientists are reporting today that they have produced nuclear fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a footlong cylinder just five inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller.

While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs.

The findings, by a team at the University of California, Los Angeles, led by Dr. Seth J. Putterman, are being reported in the journal Nature.

The minifusion device accelerates hydrogen atoms and slams them together to produce helium. Unlike earlier claims of tabletop fusion - "cold fusion," in 1989, which suggested that energy could be produced by running electricity through water and metal plates, and "sonofusion," in 2002, in which collapsing bubbles supposedly heat gases to starlike temperatures - this report is not being greeted with skepticism.

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Here is the link:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/science/28fusion.html?hp&ex=1114747200&en=429234222b0a2ffd&ei=5094&partner=homepage>

[maxsolomon]

1. yay! fusion powered flying deloreans!

george bush's sweeping vision of energy independence pays off in 1 day! our drive-thru utopia will continue unabated!

god has truly blessed us with such a leader.

[On the Road]

2. Now That They Know How to Do It

all they have to do is work on energy efficiency.

[punpirate]

3. And, buried in the report on the data...

... is the simple fact that energy input exceeds energy output.

[hunter]

5. It's the quality of the energy that matters...

If you put a kilowatt of electricity into this machine you get more than a kilowatt of heat out of it. But you can't turn all that lower quality heat energy back into electricity.

"Tabletop" neutron sources that are actually small fusion reactors are available as off-the-shelf products. This is an intriguing variation of those sorts of machines.

[phantom power]

4. This sounds cool, but I can't help but recall that

the particle emissions from both cold fusion and sono-fusion were also alleged to "convincingly match those expected of fusion".

To my knowledge, nobody has disproved sonofusion, although I haven't heard much about it recently either.