Secretive start up company claims to have 10 MW fusion reactor running trials in 2012.

With the marketing ploys as of late by Rossi et al, regarding cold fusion or more appropriately LENR, the focus has detracted a bit for Hot Fusion.

Now a start up company in Australia is rumored to have a working 1MW Fusion reactor and in the process of developing a 10 MW reactor which will begin trails in 2012.

Anyone who has followed Fusion, probably already knows about ITER, a massive fusion research project using tokamak reactors:

ITER (originally an acronym of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project, which is currently building the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at Cadarache in the south of France.[1]

The ITER project aims to make the long-awaited transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to full-scale electricity-producing fusion power plants.

The project is funded and run by seven member entities - the European Union (EU), India, Japan, the People's Republic of China, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing 45% of the cost, with the other six parties contributing 9% each.[2][3][4]

1

In the shadows of ITER (Probably the largest effort for fusion to date) a unidentified source has come forward claiming fusion success by a small start up company and its "mad scientist" leader.

Self-funded by mad scientist! The technology’s inventor has apparently tinkered with his design for 40 years, and self-funded the company’s early stages, reinvesting income from earlier lucrative inventions.

No to takeover offers! The company is said to have already fielded a buyout attempt by General Electric (NYSE:GE). The founder apparently didn’t want the invention owned by just one corporation, characterizing it an invention for mankind, apparently.

Requisite military involvement!

The company is said to be secretly working with the Australian Air Force and Navy, and the U.S. Department of Defense, and aims to trial a 10MW version of its reactor in 2012 with an Australian utility.

The release of this information on the Aussie company has been tied in with the latest release of a Kachan report on emerging nuclear technologies.

Forgive my skepticism but perhaps that has something to do with it?

Kachan is a cleantech research and advisory firm. Recently releasing their report Emerging Nuclear Innovations

This sells for $1,295.00 to a single person.

This report is obviously worth the money to anyone involved in the fusion sector. People looking for investment or perhaps people that want to get the latest scoop on their competitors.

Of course, the story of the Aussie company comes from an unidentified source, with fantastic claims and has no supporting evidence at all, I am left to wonder if this is a way for Kachan to generate interest in their informational release.

You can read Kachan's take on the matter here.

It seems like a bait and switch. As the talk of soon to be fusion might draw someone into this story, Kachan does not fail to mention the large players that are on the forefront of fusion technology.

reply to post by boncho


Hot Fusion eh? That would be pretty dangerous for a home user to get their hands on i would bet... But my first hunch here is that this is only one of the "suppressed techs" they pull out of their hats now that Rossi seems so close to ruin the energy market anyway... So they probably just want a piece of the pie. It IS from the U.S Govt after all. ("mysterious mad scientist working closely with air force" my ass!) That is just their excuse to reveal some of their most primitive "suppressed techs".

Interesting that the project seems to be located in Australia as well... Pine Gap anyone? U.S department of defense?


Edit: Never thought i would give you a star considering your previous BS but there you go! This time you deserve it

reply to post by NeoVain

Hot Fusion eh? That would be pretty dangerous for a home user to get their hands on i would bet...

Hot fusion is obviously not meant for the home user. But, an input of 50MW can produce 500MW through the hot fusion process. As far as safety goes, the fusion reaction will not turn into a runaway reaction, and if it destabilizes it merely fizzles out.

But my first hunch here is that this is only one of the "suppressed techs" they pull out of their hats now that Rossi seems so close to ruin the energy market anyway...

Well, not exactly. As the planning for ITER project begain in 2006, long before Rossi came out publicly with his claims.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Not only that, but Fusion research has been going on for more than half a century. So it is nothing new, and hardly suppressed.

Research into developing controlled thermonuclear fusion for civil purposes also began in earnest in the 1950s, and it continues to this day. Two projects, the National Ignition Facility and ITER are in the process of reaching breakeven after 60 years of design improvements developed from previous experiments.

Link

It IS from the U.S Govt after all. ("mysterious mad scientist working closely with air force" my ass!) That is just their excuse to reveal some of their most primitive "suppressed techs".

If you read the OP, my thoughts are the consulting firm publicized this story only to draw interest into their latest report released on the industry.

The claims are unfounded and not supported by any evidence, so they should be take with a grain of salt. Especially given that the leading minds are working for years with extremely complicated tokamak reactors, and the timeline for seeing a net gain is not until 2026.

For someone to come in and Gerry-Rig something that outdoes the leading project is highly unlikely. As I presume most Fusion reactions are not the easiest to create. Unless of course you are a giant body of gas that forms and sustains one under your own gravity.

Interesting that the project seems to be located in Australia as well... Pine Gap anyone? U.S department of defense?

Nothing more than unsubstantiated claims.

Never thought i would give you a star considering your previous BS but there you go! This time you deserve it

Which I am sure you will regret. But thanks.

In addition to the 'Mr. Fusion' reactor there is also Star Scientific in Australia developing a muon catalyzed fusion reaction. See the bottom of the page alfin2100.blogspot.com... for the movie of D-T fusion. Now what to do with 14 MeV neutrons......

Originally posted by boncho
For someone to come in and Gerry-Rig something that outdoes the leading project is highly unlikely. As I presume most Fusion reactions are not the easiest to create. Unless of course you are a giant body of gas that forms and sustains one under your own gravity.

Whenever I think about hot fusion, I keep coming back to this last point.

Since the sun is already a stable hot fusion reactor, it seems like it might be easier to just do a better job of harnessing the energy from that, than to build what's essentially a small sun on Earth. Am I right?

The output of the sun is something like 382600000000000000000000000 Watts, but because the Earth is so small and far away, we only receive a tiny fraction of that energy. However even that, according to the US Department of Energy is substantial:

www.makeitsolar.com...

Every hour, enough sunlight energy reaches the Earth to meet the world’s energy demand for a whole year. --- U.S. Department of Energy ---

But if we can pull it off and actually make a successful, reliable, cost-effective hot fusion reactor on Earth, I'll be impressed. However I note that we've been trying an awfully long time, and the challenges are substantial. So I'm somewhat doubtful of the chances of success of the ITER (though I still have some small hope), and I'm extremely doubtful that any maverick can pull it off (I don't see much hope in that possibility).

But maybe someone will surprise me and pull it off...which is OK, I like surprises like that.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I think we are poised to succeed eventually. Given that it took us nearly two thousand years to invent/understand electricity, (In relation to things like the The Parthian Battery) even if it took a hundred more years or so to come up with a working fusion technology, it wouldn't be so bad.

An input of 50MW is no small chunk of change. The most efficient coal burning generation stations are only about 6-10MW. Besides, a load of 50MW would definitely drag down the frequency of the current system putting any generation station running at the time that this load was introduced into the circuit at serious risk. Is it worth putting all the current infrastructure at risk? If the frequency of the two nuclear generators in NJ was to drop below 58.3cy the protection (relaying) would trip out all of NJ and the PJM. For an example of how fragile the infrastructure of the US is take a look at the blackout in 2003 when basically a simple ground to phase fault cascaded into a blackout that affected about 40 million people.

Originally posted by StockdUp




An input of 50MW is no small chunk of change. The most efficient coal burning generation stations are only about 6-10MW. Besides, a load of 50MW would definitely drag down the frequency of the current system putting any generation station running at the time that this load was introduced into the circuit at serious risk. Is it worth putting all the current infrastructure at risk? If the frequency of the two nuclear generators in NJ was to drop below 58.3cy the protection (relaying) would trip out all of NJ and the PJM. For an example of how fragile the infrastructure of the US is take a look at the blackout in 2003 when basically a simple ground to phase fault cascaded into a blackout that affected about 40 million people.

edit on 19-1-2012 by StockdUp because: messed up qoute

Perhaps you should go back to the link for ITER and the 500MW idea.

reply to post by boncho


My apologies, I didn't understand that 50MW was hypothetical. Even so bringing a unit on that draws 10MW is very tricky. You would have to ramp it up into full effciency over a long period of time. This would give capacitors and voltage reactors time to compensate for shifts in frequency due to load.

reply to post by boncho


Truly I think they way we should be going is electromagnetism and other renewables. Have you heard of the MEG?
MEG-US patent

This wont be like ITER. If its not a hoax it'll be some variation on Polywell fusion.

As far as I know that project funded by the Navy is still progressing with the EMC2 company. They were up to prototype number 8 last time they talked in public.

"in May, when referring to WB-8, Dr. Park commented that "This machine should be able to generate 1,000 times more nuclear activity than WB-7, with about eight times more magnetic field.... We'll call that a good success. That means we're on track with the scaling law." Dr. Park also made reference to the Navy's position on the possible future usage of successful polywell technology, saying that "currently all our funding comes from the Navy... that's our customer. Our customer desired that we keep most of our progress confidential. ... They're somewhat concerned about making too much hype without delivering an actual product.... Our understanding is they want us to be successful.... They want us to provide something for our sponsors. They also want us to do well commercially as well, as long as we remain US-owned and control the technology.""

Originally posted by StockdUp
Truly I think they way we should be going is electromagnetism and other renewables. Have you heard of the MEG?MEG-US patent

Electromagnetic radiation coming from hot fusion in the sun will continue for billions of years.

The MEG has never been demonstrated to extract energy from the vacuum, and just because there's a patent doesn't mean the device actually does anything special. The MEG appears to be a quite ordinary transformer as this link explains:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Never saw that paper. Good find, I've only read his and he made it seem possible. I never really analyzed his equations just read his results.

reply to post by StockdUp

I'm glad you found it helpful.

There are two sides to that story but I never see the side of that paper being told (except when I link to it).

Regarding Bearden's side of the story, he said in 1998 that it would be in production within a year or two. So even the other side of the story doesn't support the MEG. It's definitely a dud.

But at least hot fusion follows the known laws of physics, so as Boncho said, it may pan out eventually, even if we don't live to see it.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

But at least hot fusion follows the known laws of physics, so as Boncho said, it may pan out eventually, even if we don't live to see it.

Adhering to the "known laws of physics" and the mainstream science will get us forward very slowly, if at all at this point. What we need is the unconventional types that look outside the box for answers. The rule breakers, the mad scientist types, coming up with new theories and inventions to take us forwards in huge leaps rather than at a snails pace.

These types usually have not polluted their minds into rigid "mainstream" science doctrines and fixed viewpoints as to why things work as they do, and therefore usually not get any respect from the Ph.Ds and MDs in the field, but nonetheless they might end up being humanitys greatest assets in the end. Just look at history, this is how great leaps are always made. These are the types that eventually end up rewriting history with new laws of physics, new theories of everything and eventually win out in the end. I don´t think i need to mention the Wright brothers, Einsten, Tesla, and tons others for you to understand this.