Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) started a crowd source funding campaign at IndieGoGo. Eric Lerner, President and Chief Scientist at LPP researches electrical power generation directly from fusion energy and without steam or neutrons. Anyone who believes that fusion energy can phase out carbon fuels should support this campaign. Developing fusion technology is a legacy for future generations.
We must phase out the Carbon Fuel Colossus that powers our civilization and poisons our planet. It is top dog in our modern times and its fall will be tragic for some, joyous for others. Let’s hope it doesn’t take down our civilization with it.
The price of a barrel of oil has passed $100, again, and is dropping, again. Our dependency on fuels like coal & oil is because they are resources that need to be discovered and refined to create energy. The amount of hydrogen fused is insignificant compared to barrels of oil or tons of coal. With hydrogen fusion and renewable energy, costs are more related to the infrastructure instead of fuel. These sources provide distributed energy; a fundamental difference compared to fossil fuels. Achieving hydrogen fusion energy is game-changing technology. Society needs energy from all sources. Fusion energy has greater potential than all other energy sources known to man. It is also more cost effective than any type of energy storage. Fusion reactors create power on demand, even at night or without wind to counterbalance renewable energy supplies.
There needs to be more funding for scientists and entrepreneurs like Eric Lerner, but attempts to increase funding is ignored by liberals and contradicts conservative policy. We can’t rely on government spending for fusion research since their budget was cut more than sixty percent during the past three decades. If we invested in the fusion energy project proposed on July 4, 1976, we could have had fusion by now. Achieving fusion energy is a 10-year science project, far beyond the view of any conservative pundit. Mr. Lerner once told me that many fusion researchers could spend years with an idle lab waiting for funding. The MIT Alactor–C was shut down for a year and a half because of lack of funding. A lab like that should be funded to run 24x7 to phase out our carbon fuel addiction. These are great examples of how conservative budget cuts impact science research. If we invested in fusion in prior decades, we would have had fusion by now. Instead government programs give orders to shut down or disassemble the largest laboratories in the nation. First in Princeton, then Washington University, now MIT. What is wrong with this picture?
The American Security Project’s proposal, $30 billion over 10 years, is a bipartisan proposal to fund fusion research. We’re funding about a tenth of that amount today. Current and prior board members include politicians from both sides of the isle. The cost is less than one aircraft carrier over its lifetime securing locations like the Persian Gulf.
Fusion research could be funded through a Carbon Tax, which should also include funding for conservation, renewable and other alternative technologies like fuel cells. A good Carbon Tax will result in Carbon Dioxide emissions declining over time. That would also result in less government income over time. That should appeal to most pro-science Republicans. The more alternative and renewable systems are deployed, the less need for fossil fuels. This will also increase jobs in the region, i.e., it’s a job bill, which conservative dogma also despises. We need a carbon tax to fund the infrastructure and research to get out from under the thumb of the Carbon Fuel Colossus.
There should be funding for fusion technology, the future of energy for mankind. There should be a race to develop this technology. Instead fusion energy advancement is being stalled, if not aborted by the Carbon Fuel Colossus that powers our civilization and poisons our planet