Steampunk Fusion

The picture you see above is a steam driven fusion reactor. I know what you are thinking. This is some kind of joke. It is no joke. General Fusion has a design that I think has an outside chance of working.

I was discussing it with some of the boys at Talk Polywell and I'd say it has no fundamental flaws.

Popular Science also gives some of the details of the machine and its inventors. The drawing at the top of the page shows a schematic of the machine that has 200 pistons. Now to give you some idea of the scale here is a picture of one of the pistons.

Huge sucker huh? Now imagine 200 of them all firing away at the rate of once a second. When the piston hits (and yes it will hit) the end of the cylinder it will be going about 250 mph and it will induce a shock wave into a sort of ball of liquid lithium and lead. But first two rings of counter rotating plasma will be shot into the middle of the rotating metal and then all the steam (yeah steam) driven pistons will fire and hit the molten metal with a timing of better than one microsecond.

Can it be done? My rough calculations at the above Talk Polywell link say yes. Not easy, but possible. So would I put money on it? Not me. But I'm an IEC Plasma Fusion type of guy. However, if the idea excites you (a steam driven fusion reactor) I'd say it has as much a chance of working as anything being done now. Definitely worth a shot. And besides how many of your friends can say they are investing in a steam driven fusion reactor? It has got to be worth some bucks just for the conversation starter value alone.