Build a Nuclear Fusion Reactor at Home

FridayBob writes "For those of you tired of waiting around for someone else to achieve the holy grail of physics, now's your chance to beat 'em all to it. All you need is some basic engineering skills, this site and the inspiration necessary to make your very own 'fusor' produce more energy than it consumes. Hopefully, you'll have more luck than its inventor, Philo T. Farnsworth, who first built it in the 1950's after inventing the television some 30 years earlier. If you run into problems you'll be able to count on a enthusiastic support group, as the contraption seems to have developed a cult following over the past few years. Okay, so I'm skeptical that this approach will ever really work, but at the very least it sounds like a really cool science project!"

Comments

Re:Fusion is NOT the Holy Grail

[LionMan]

Unfortunately, the majority of the energy created in the system (which I think could plausibly break even or even function as a reactor, but if it were constructed to the highest precision, perfect sphericity, which we can not really obtain) is not in what particle is created, but the speed that particle is given due to the reaction. That's right, most of the energy from mass-energy conservation equation (E=M*C^2) is in the kinetic energy of the particles which have reacted. So using their electrical properties to evolve electrical energy is ignoring the vast majority of the energy.
Most generators (as far as I know) would convert this kinetic energy into thermal energy by using the velocity of the particles to heat some sort of water resorvoir, which would generate steam and drive a turbine like any old coal generator, except without the fire and coal and soot and yuck.

Re:Nah - Not Unless You Have Oil.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think the point was that controlled fusion would pose an enormous threat to the power of Bush's oil industry buddies, and that is just Not Allowed.