A Step Closer To Cheap Nuclear Fusion

ewsnow writes "The Focus Fusion Society reports that the scientists and engineers at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics have finally built an operational Dense Plasma Focus device. While still at less than half power, they were able to achieve a pinch on their device. The small company that Eric Lerner started recently gathered enough funding to start a two-year study on the validity of his theory regarding fusion-inducing plasmoids. If the theory holds, the device will produce more electricity than it consumes. In contrast to the billions of dollars spent on Tokamak fusion (think ITER), LPP is conducting their research on a budget around a million dollars. Yet, if it works, it will provide nuclear fusion with much simpler equipment and much less cost. Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion have been discussed on Slashdot before."

Comments

Re:Fusion!?

[gyrogeerloose]

The public needs to be shown that the word "nuclear" is not cause for panic

True. And it will be easy once the industry demonstrates that it is indeed "not a cause for panic." After all, the reasons the public gets nervous when it hears the words "nuclear" and "power" in the same sentence are related to the checkered history of commercial nuclear power generation.