Researchers Replicate Nuclear Fusion
This should, I think, be pretty exciting news. However, it comes via the most banal press release on the planet. Dig this lead:
Physical Review E has announced the publication of an article by a team of researchers from 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.
That’s heart-stopping stuff. The appeal of nuclear fusion is that, “unlike fission reactors, fusion does not produce a significant amount of radioactive waste products or decay heat.” So, when do I get my space car?
January 20th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Nuclear fusion is old news. People have been running fusion reactors for about fifty years now. The only problem is making a fusion reactor that is
1 — economical to build
2 — produces more power than it takes to run
Goal 2 has recently been realized, but goal 1 is still years off. The joke in fusion research is that fusion has been twenty years away from commercial realization for fifty years, now. On the other hand, fusion has been consistently underfunded, so if you measure in billions of dollars instead of years, it’s still pretty much on track.
The novelty of this research is that acoustic cavitation — creating bubbles in water using powerful sound waves — is causing the fusion, instead of a hot, dense plasma. Hot, dense plasma is unpleasant stuff to have around, as I’m sure you can imagine.
January 20th, 2005 at 10:08 am
There is also still some controversy regarding these results. It is not absolutely clear that fusion neutrons are being detected (as opposed to the sonoluminescent gamma ray signal).
January 20th, 2005 at 10:55 am
That is an awful press release. The person who wrote it should be sent to journalism school.