Bussard's mantle has been picked up by a small team led by Richard Nebel, who has taken a leave from Los Alamos National Laboratory to head up Bussard's EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. Backed by a Navy contract, Nebel's five-person team is trying to pick up the technology where Bussard left it.If you want to learn more about this technology may I suggest:
"What's there is interesting, OK?" Nebel told me today. "And the bottom line of it is, what we've been charged to do is reproduce that. Find out if it's real. Find out if or if not all this stuff is what it seems to be."
EMC2 Fusion has built an upgraded model of Bussard's last experimental plasma containment device, which was known as WB-6. (The WB stands for Wiffle Ball, a whimsical reference to the structure of the device.) "We got first plasma yesterday," Nebel said - but he and his colleagues in Santa Fe, N.M., still have a long way to get the WB-7 experiment up to the power levels Bussard was working with.
"We're not out trying to make a big splash on any of this stuff at this point," Nebel said. But he said he's hoping to find out by this spring whether or not Bussard's concept is worth pursuing with a larger demonstration project.
The initial analysis showed that Bussard's data on energy yields were consistent with expectations, Nebel said.
"We don't know for sure whether all that's right," he said, "but it'd be horrible for Mother Nature to give you what you expect to see, and have it all be bogus."
Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion
If you want to get deeper into the technology visit:
IEC Fusion Technology blog
Start with the sidebar which has links to tutorials and other stuff.
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4 comments:
It is fantastic that Richard Nebel is now pursuing the work of Robert Bussard. The technology seems to be a great opportunity to provide net fusion power. Surely this project will be supported by researchers all around the world in the quest for cheaper, cleaner energy.
I recently came across some Physics simulation software (Ephi) that is usable for Polywell simulations. Maybe it is being used already, or could prove useful to other Polywell enthusiasts such as myself who wish to explore the science behind the fusion, but don't have the budgets for building the reactors.
http://www.mare.ee/indrek/ephi/
Billy,
Indrek has been with the freelance Bussard Fusion Team almost since the beginning.
May I suggest joining IEC Fusion Newsgroup? Indrek was one of the very first members.
He has also been hanging out at talk.polywell and working with Dr. Mike on Polywell simulations.
Thank you for your help with the vacuum pressure. Peninsula College is located in Port Angeles, WA. It's a pretty small college. If you would like to be in contact with our advisor, Jeff Zirul, his faculty e-mail is jeffz@pcadmin.ctc.edu .
Devon
Thank you M. Simon - I've joined the groups and will be following the on-going developments.
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