Slashdot Mirror
Inside Piston-Powered Nuclear Fusion Company General Fusion
quax writes "Slashdot first reported on the Canadian start-up company that is attempting piston powered nuclear fusion back in 2009. This new blog post takes a look at where they are now, and gives some additional behind the scene info. For instance, a massive experimental rig for magnetized target fusion in the US is currently underutilized, because ITER's increasing costs absorb all the public fusion research funding. Because this Shiva Star device is located in an Air Force base, security restrictions prevent any meaningful cooperation with a non-U.S. companies. Even if U.S. researchers would love to rent this out to advance the science of magnetized target fusion, restrictions make this is a no go."
That summary made no sense.
I ran out of oil once in my car and my gasoline engine did piston fusion into a single block of metal
Because this Shiva Star device is located in an Air Force base, security restrictions prevent any meaningful cooperation with a non-U.S. companies.
We have a problem with Canadians because of security restrictions? WTF - NORAD is a joint US-Canadian operation. The 2nd in command is always Canadian. If that's not giving Canadians access to important military operations (specifically USAF no less) then I don't know what is.
MIT Prof Peter Hagelstein, one of the rare true believers in battery-type cold fusion is teaching his cold fusion seminar again. Just about everyone else in academia does not believe him. Peter has done brilliant work in other subjects such as Xray lasers, so MIT tolerates him.
As someone who has worked for a UK defense company - ITAR is more of a problem for the US than it's allies. The US has a nightmare contracting out work to european companies that have a technology/experience they need. You should see the time and money they waste, it is extraordinary.
For what ever reason, "piston powered nuclear fusion" sounds like it belongs in a Steampunk novel or movie!
ITER is an initiative 45% funded by the EU and 9% funded by the US, that Americans repeatedly complain about sucking away all of America's money, even though it was America's idea to build it in the first place, America gets an equal share of the knowledge gained and America only has to pay one 11th of the cost, despite having the largest economy out of the participants.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
but in the Zemeckis causality, a genius inventor with no regard for preserving the natural timeline traveled back to 1885, and then abandoned a highly sophisticated laboratory capable of refrigeration and probably other disruptive technologies. In other words, the 2015 we saw in Back to the Future, was heavily augmented by timeline disrupting technology injections in both 1885 and 1955... and 1985 for that matter. Chances are, most of that stuff could not be invented as early in our timeline, because in the BTTF timeline, doc brown and others saw the various technologies in action, years before they were duplicated/invented.
In my opinion this same phenomenon explains perfectly why the JJAbrams Star Trek is perfectly justified in having more advanced ships and transporters than the Roddenberry continuity. 8 minutes of sensor scans of a ship 129 more years advanced than anything ever witnessed would change the course of technology forever.
Actually the EU has a higher GDP than the US, the usual marker for the strength of an economy. Mostly that's due to the greater population (505 million EU citizens compared to 310 million or so Americans) as per-capita GNP in the EU is a bit less since we don't have quite as much raw materials production (oil, gas, coal) which inflates the figures.
The US tried withholding its funding contributions for ITER during the run-up to the off-the-books trillion-dollar war in Iraq after most of the other participants in the project decided it should be built in Cadarache in France, home of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys, instead of Japan. It didn't work, America decided to rejoin the project and they're pouring concrete this month in southern France for the reactor vessel's base.
Slashdot has finally found a way to force people to read the article before posting.
In all seriousness, it's nice to see new approaches to the problem of creating a fusion reaction that produces more usable energy than it consumes. Between the National Ignition Facility (which unfortunately was largely but not entirely dedicated to military research at the first sign of success), going massive with ITER, and this piston powered approach, I believe we will one day get there. We may try and fail and try and fail, but ultimately there is no stopping humanity.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Actually the EU has a higher GDP than the US
Depends on how you measure it. The EU has a higher nominal GDP but a slightly lower GDP under PPP. Both are right around $16-17 Trillion in 2013.
per-capita GNP in the EU is a bit less since we don't have quite as much raw materials production (oil, gas, coal) which inflates the figures.
As for GDP per capita, it isn't even close. The US population is around 315 milliion versus 510 million in the EU. Since the GDP is roughly the same, the US GDP per capita is about 40% higher at around $52,000 versus $34,000 for the EU. The differences in GDP are not explained by energy production. The EU is the 7th largest energy producer and 2nd largest consumer) while the US is the 3rd largest energy producer and largest consumer (with China catching up fast). Both economies have services sectors that comprise around 68-69% of the economy. Both have similar sized manufacturing sectors and agriculture sectors. Frankly the US and EU economies are remarkably similar in many ways.
Better than Polywell fusion? They're still under a publishing embargo, but if the Navy progress report is to be believed they have managed to demonstrate p-B fusion last year which is practically the holy grail of fusion for electrical-generating purposes - no neutron flux from the primary reaction, no clunky inefficient heat engine necessary to generate electricity, and the main researchers seem to have mostly all jumped ship to found an energy-related company.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Again, this is my opinion so it will be modded down.
Mostly random stuff.