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Bubble Fusion Results Replicated
Anonymous Coward writes "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) stating that they have replicated and extended previous experimental results that indicated the occurrence of nuclear fusion using a novel approach for plasma confinement. Interesting stuff, read about it
here."
While these results are fascinating, and the research is worthwhile in its own right as pure science, I wonder if this is at all useful for generating power. Is there any way to capture the energy released? I'd imagine most of the energy produced would be wasted and difficult to extract.
Not In My Back Pocket!!!!
Not to unduly don a tinfoil hat, but will it be surpressed by oil companies until there's a worldwide oil shortage? And if so, it wouldn't be so "cheap" when they released it.
Tinfoil hats aside, I doubt something like this will get the funding it deserves.
I talk about stuff.
Previous slashdot articles
Thursday January 20: Fusion Using Sonic Compression
Monday April 19 2004: Bubble Fusion Results Replicated by 4 Institutions
for my flying car.
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
that's exactly what he meant when he said 'replicated'
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
whether it is suppressed or not, over the long term, if it works then someone will reproduce the results ( and given the basic research is available in the journals it will be easier for someone to rebuild a working system from basic principles ).
Basically what it comes down to, is that if this works, the cat is out of the bag.
open your mind too much and your brain falls out!
Because of course, we all know that oil companies only want to make money off of selling oil, not other forms of energy, which is why when you see oil companies investing in wind, solar and fuel cell technologies, it is just your imagination.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Good Lord, I hope you're not actually as gullible as that post makes you seem.
Oil companies like to be known as "energy" companies because it diffuses the appearance of their nearly-exclusive association with oil production. So, it's for PR purposes first off.
Much more important, investments in wind, solar, fuel cell and other alternative energy fields allow the oil companies some degree of control over the research in those areas (it happens fast, slowly, or not at all at their say-so).
Such investments give the oil companies control over people with extensive (and often unique) theoretical and applied knowledge in the field, and control of both developing processes and established patents.
Just as Microsoft "innovates" by buying up new entrants into the fields Microsoft considers its own, the oil giants' purchases and investments in alternative energy are their means to influence, if not dictate, the rate of "innovation" in global energy use patterns.
Finally, when oil eventually does become uneconomic as fuel, the oil companies will have long ago bought a lock on the now-essential alternative sources of energy, and will be able to maintain their revenue streams right on past the end of the Oil Age.
Slightly offtopic in that it's more about electricity than oil, but I think one can gauge oil companies' commitment to the public good WRT alternative energy by the degree to which they support decentralization of energy production (so far, little to not at all). Synfuels and wind and solar farms are being developed in an industrial mode that cements the importance of heavily-capitalized players, despite the greatest economic gains to the public being available in widely-distributed small-scale wind, solar and biomass production.
Please remove your tinfoil hat.
I will give you a clue. Companies care about making money. I swear I wish the extreme left and the libertarians both would get a clue. A companies job is to make money. The governments job is to make laws to regulate companies for the common good. Consumers make the decision of how much the will spend for positive behavior. It is like the outcry about outsourcing. You do not want outsourced tech support? Then do not buy a $500 PC. The energy companies do not care if it is from oil, gas, coal, or burning tinklies. The reason that they do not push for small-scale wind, solar, and biomass production is frankly they suck. solar has limited value in many places. The northern area of North America is one. I would like to see more solar roofs in the south. I would like just a 100 watt panel tied to the grid be required on all new homes built in the south. Wind is noisy, ugly, and expensive. Biomass has some potential but will never be a major part of the energy picture in it's current state. Now that bio mass converter I read about a while ago if it works could be very cool.
As far as the big oil companies stopping this research no they are just not putting huge amounts of money into it. Even if they where stopping it in the western nations what about Japan? They have no national oil reserves at all. I doubt that Oil companies could stop Japan or China from developing those technologies if they where practical.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The press release linked doesn't mention it, but nature has an implementation of this phenomenon called the Snapping Shrimp. This tiny bugger creates a cavitation buble with a claw that actually stuns prey with the shockwave generated. I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw video of this.
Maybe we will see the rise of genetically engineered shrimp that can live in the reactor and keep the system up for peanuts?
Here is a link on the shrimp How Snapping Shrimp Snap
It's news because the replicated findings are finally getting printed in a peer-reviewed journal, Physical Review E. The press release means that the authors say they did it, it means little until it get accepted by a journal. Do I think this is the wave of free energy? No but as far as a pure science aspect, it is interesting. Several assupmtions still need to be worked out anyways with the calculated temperature. Assumptions always need tested... Phys. Rev. E 69, 036109 (2004) http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v69/e036109doi:10 .1103/PhysRevE.69.036109
This story? In which country?
Laws are for people with no friends.
The government's "job" is to represent the will of the people. Only in Corporate America can you "consumers" be so brainwashed into believing the government exists to regulate the companies.
Wind turbines are quieter and more beautiful than a coal fired power plant, and less expensive than nuclear. The only people complaining about wind power are those with a NIMBY complex. I say stick a coal fired power plant in their backyard and see what they think about wind turbines then.