The recent announcement from the NIF in Collyfornia that they've reached fusion net energy allows an opportunity to discuss a few of the methods by which fusion energy is being pursued. (Phew!, what a sentence)
I've studied over a few of the strategies, and it seems to me that Focus Fusion has the best chance to succeed in the near term. The business which was hyped by the Brandon Administration isn't likely to achieve anything for decades. The accomplishment was put into perspective in the last post, not by me, but by the people at Focus Fusion.
Polywell Fusion was the first one I studied, and this was over 15 years ago. It took awhile for me to understand, or come about as close to understanding it as I am capable. The thing that was hard to grasp what the fact that it does not thermalize. Instead, it depends upon the equivalency of heat from charge potentials. To elaborate, the proton is positive, and the electron is negative. Instead of confining protons, the polywell concept confines electrons instead. This creates a deep "well" of charge potential, which the protons are sent into and "fall" into the well with enough energy ( in theory) to cause fusion to occur. It does seem like an elegant concept, and the US Navy did fund it for awhile. The inventor, Robert Bussard died, and the concept seems to have died with it.
In other words, I think that it could work, but it lacks a champion. There is an importance of a champion, who will pursue a concept until it is successful. Bussard didn't live long enough to see his vision to its fruition. There doesn't appear to be anyone of enough substance who could pick up the fallen torch, so to speak.
What Bussard was to Polywell, Eric Lerner is to Focus Fusion. He has the qualities of a champion. If he has enough time to see this to completion, I think he can succeed. It is the human element that matters most. There are many potential paths to net energy from fusion, but nobody really knows which one is the best. It could well be that any number of ways may be successful, but the one that is pursued the longest and with the most persistence is the one that is most likely to succeed. The main obstacle in the way of Lerner is time and money. That is something that plagues us all, for we are only human.
Although money is important, a lot of money may not be necessary. The ITER project is using a lot of money, and probably is the least likely to succeed. It MAY succeed, but it is way too big, and is way too costly to be a practical machine. In my opinion, so is the NIF. It is currently the size of a stadium, and produces less net energy than it would take to cook a decent hot meal. Such a device is wildly impractical, and must be scaled down to something much more reasonable before it has any chance at all of being commercially viable. The Polywell could fit in a room. So could Lerner's Focus Fusion device.
There is another fusion device from a younger man, who is talking big. That would be Helion. The way that concept works is to crash two plasmas at high speed against each other. The fusion occurs, and then the plasma pulsates. The pulsation would create the conditions that would bring about an electric output. The plasmas are charged particles, after all, and if the plasma could be made to pulse, it can induce a current. Voila! A net energy potential could be closer than anyone thinks. It is not possible to say if he turns out to be the champion, but he is claiming to be close to net energy and a commercial device soon. We'll see.
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