Fusion goes forward from the fringe

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/10/6619613-fusion-goes-forward-from-the-fringe

Fusion goes forward from the fringe

Plasma shines within EMC2 Fusion's WB-7 device, the predecessor to the WB-8 inertial
electrostatic confinement vessel currently being used for fusion experiments.
By Alan Boyle

A Navy-funded effort to harness nuclear fusion power reports that its unconventional plasma device is operating as designed and generating "positive results" more than halfway through the project.

The latest http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIDSUR=46419&qtr=2011Q1">quarterly update from EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. comes amid other signs that seemingly oddball approaches to fusion research may not be all that oddball after all. Just last week, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42912543/ns/business-press_releases/t/general-fusion-closes-m-series-b-funding-round/">General Fusion announced that Amazon.com's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, was part of a $19.5 million investment round to further the company's plan to take advantage of a technology called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetized_target_fusion">magnetized target fusion. Another billionaire, Paul Allen, is an http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/new-nuclear-roundup-tri-alphas-50m-funding-and-more/">investor in Tri Alpha Energy, which is working on its own hush-hush fusion project (and occasionally http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v105/i4/e045003">publishing its http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP10/Event/130589">research).

EMC2 Fusion doesn't have tens of millions of venture capital to play with — but it does have a $7.9 million http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecipientReportedData/pages/RecipientProjectSummary508.aspx?AwardIDSUR=46419&qtr=2011Q1">Navy contract to test a plasma technology known as inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, also known as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell">Polywell fusion. The idea is to accelerate positively charged ions in an electrical cage to such an extent that they occasionally spark a fusion reaction, releasing energy and neutrons. The concept was pioneered by the late physicist Robert Bussard, and carried forward by the EMC2 Fusion team in Santa Fe, N.M.

Some of the leading team members went on leave from Los Alamos National Laboratory to work on EMC2. Rick Nebel, the Los Alamos engineer who led the company since Bussard's death in 2007, retired from the company last November. Taking his place as acting chief executive officer is Jaeyoung Park. The 41-year-old physicist says he's given up his position at Los Alamos to focus fully on EMC2.

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[The Doctor.]

1. Yay!

:bounce: