Several brilliant teams labor toward fusion power. One of them, almost unknown, seems further along in this quest than the others. Some impressive achievements may merit a closer look.
Ah, fusion. So many dreams, so many disappointments. Several promising efforts have fallen by the wayside, and many of the best known seem to be chasing their tails at great expense. The image of Lucy snatching the football away from Charlie Brown has already been mentioned by other diarists. The football in this case is not fusion, which has already been attained, but “breakeven,” where you are getting more power out of the deal than you had to put in. At that point you no longer have a hole to throw money into, but rather something to sell.
The advancement of several fusion projects has been steady, though often constrained by limited funds. In spite of having to drag this anchor, one particular outfit has made steady progress into new physics and has built up quite a list of accomplishments. The title above points to one -- 3.25 billion degrees Fahrenheit. Repeated attainment of temperature at this level, more than enough for fusion, has been verified and published in an article in a peer reviewed journal. (1.5 Kev = ca. 1.6 bn deg) As an astronomer, I know that such temperatures are found in almost no part of the universe. The center of the sun, at 25 million degrees or so, is not even close. The rare, carbon burning star can reach this temperature at its core, but only in one other place, in a supernova, will you find such enormous heat.
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, founded and run by Eric Lerner, has constructed a device, first invented in 1962, called the Dense Plasma Focus, the core of which is the size of a basketball net, visible here. This device, with its bank of capacitors and firing mechanism, can concentrate the heat of a supernova into an area the size of the point of a pin. With it they have been routinely fusing deuterium for test purposes since 2009. (For full technical information, links are provided near the end of this article.) Some of the competitors have also produced hydrogen fusion, but none have as convincing a track record as LPP, whose several breakthroughs have spawned a number of patents. (Google “Lawrenceville Plasma Physics patents”) The consistency of the device itself, called FF1 (Focus Fusion 1) has varied but has been steadily improved. The plasma Density attained so far is not yet what would needed to reach their goal, but is also improving.
Their goal? LPP seeks to develop a type of nuclear power generation which harnesses the power of fusion but does not have any potential military application. They seem on the verge of successfully fusing boron-11 and hydrogen in significant amounts, something which can be proven possible theoretically but verified so far only on the microscopic level. If they pull it off we may be looking forward to the following:
1) Power plants which are simple, cheap, and small, allowing distributed generating systems. Five megawatt power plants are currently estimated at $300,000 construction costs. This would be the size of a two car garage and have no noise, no odor, and no hazard. Most communities could easily afford to become independent of the power grid, with its dependency and well known risk of failure.
2) A generation process which is iterative rather than continuous. It is iterative in the sense that it operates like a car motor. The spark plugs generate power in sequential bursts. If something fails, the process stops. This is in contrast to a continuous process, such as a fire or a conventional fission (uranium) reactor. This iterative process may seem unusual in power generation, but it eliminates many of the safety hazards associated with other generation methods -- like boiler explosions and meltdowns.
3) No significant radioactive or toxic waste. The output of this type of device will be a beam of hot x-rays and a beam of alpha particles (helium nuclei), both of which can be used for power generation very efficiently. Another useful output is “waste heat” which could be used for additional power generation or water purification by distillation. However, every few billion atoms or so, small quantities of various other elements are produced, some of which are radioactive. The half lives of these few elements is so short that they evolve into something harmless within three hours. The typical power plant will have to dispose of a small amount of no-longer-radioactive dust each year. We should compare this to the tons per year of long term radioactive waste that we have now from conventional fission reactors.
4) Generation costs projected to be .4 cents per kilowatt hour. This is less than one tenth of costs by conventional means of generation, burning fossil fuels. Even if it turns out to be double that cost, it will not be hard to sell. Being so much cheaper than petrochemical energy sources will make it harder for politicians to agitate for them.
5) Power plants using an inexpensive fuel which has far fewer hazards than using oil, gas, or coal since it is needed only in small amounts. Used to power FF1 will be a boron compound called decaborane, a substance which does have to be handled with proper safety precautions, but no more than is necessary with many other industrial materials. The best news is that there is enough boron in the ocean and a few deserts to power this planet at one hundred times current usage until the sun gives out, five billion years from now.
At first I thought that this all was a bit much to promise, but the consensus of other, more qualified persons than myself indicates that LPP’s theories and calculations are correct. If they can perfect their machine, I think they can deliver what they claim. But can they manage this great step?
LPP has an impressive string of achievements so far. A full description of the device itself and how it works would be material for another, much longer diary. But since their consistent policy has been openness, the nature of their machine, their successes and failures are there to see on two websites.
As a for-profit business, the first site is that of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. The most interesting part of this site is a page on the timelines and achievements. The second site is for the Focus Fusion Society which is more for the general public and supporters and it contains a number of interesting fora. The tweets have all the latest information. Also, if you were to read only one thing, I would recommend a diary which Keith Pickering wrote for DK which explains much about the physics and has an excellent description of the history of this project.
The path to fusion power is still looking tortuous, but passable. LPP has so far has two out of the three necessary ingredients for successful breakeven: event duration and temperature. Only the density of the mini-fireball remains below target and they are hot on the trail. They may or may not be the guys who get the prize in the end, but from what I see, they are way out in front, and it seems that the odds are in their favor.
They merit at least a good look.