Iranian team to collaborate with US company on nuclear fusion project

Iranian team to collaborate with US company on nuclear fusion project

www.guardian.co.uk

A US company and an Iranian university have agreed to collaborate on nuclear fusion, the elusive technology that promises a limitless supply of clean energy.

New Jersey-based Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc and Tehran's Islamic Azad University will jointly design a fusion machine that "would be affordable to construct in industrializing nations", according to a contract signed last weekend and seen by The Guardian.

Sceptics doubt whether US trade sanctions will permit the collaboration. But LPP claimed in a written statement that the pact qualifies as an official US department of tre

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Iran launches nuclear fusion program, says atomic energy chief

Pretty incredible if it goes ahead. Companies/universities from arch rival nations working together to bring the dream of fusion power to fruition.

Tehran announced back in 2010 that they were developing a fusion programme as detailed in the related thread above.

Its great to see science bringing peoples together. Just imagine what the great minds of America and Iran could achieve together.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

what? Iran beating the US to cold fusion? not on Obama's watch. boys get the drones ready. we have stop iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

locked and loaded.

reply to post by stuncrazy


It's a well thought out plan....first you help them get some nuclear material...than pay them a visit looking for it. it's the old switcheroo...

reply to post by stuncrazy


Well from the article it appears that the US company, LPP, is making significant progress on fusion.

The problem is that it currently takes more energy to run fusion than what the process delivers. Two large international government-backed research centers face criticism from opponents who say they are wasting money. One of those, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Cadarahce, France, projects costs of around €13bn just over its first phase, funded in part by the UK as part of the EU's 45% contribution, and by Japan, China, India, Russia, South Korea and the US.

LPP is one of several small companies that believe they can crack fusion far sooner than can ITER or the National Ignition Facility (NIF), another international behemoth, based in Livermore, California.

Two months ago, LPP reported a breakthrough when it confined a gas at 1.8bn degrees C, much higher than the industry record of 1.1bn degrees C that had stood since 1978. Fusion temperatures flash for only nanoseconds and are contained.

www.guardian.co.uk...

The Iranian university,Azad, must be able to contribute significantly to this project or this link up surely would not even be considered.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
Pretty incredible if it goes ahead. Companies/universities from arch rival nations working together to bring the dream of fusion power to fruition.

Tehran announced back in 2010 that they were developing a fusion programme as detailed in the related thread above.

Its great to see science bringing peoples together. Just imagine what the great minds of America and Iran could achieve together.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/25/iranian-team-collaborate-us-nuclear]www.guardian.co.uk[/url
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 25-5-2012 by Peruvianmonk because: Spelling

Hmmm....another bomb?...ill try to keep an optimistic eye on this one.

reply to post by Peruvianmonk


lol. all i'm saying is the day after they get it all figured out will probably the day we find irans hidden stash of 1 trillion nukes, and their plans to destroy america with zombie osama.

reply to post by stuncrazy


I agree. Fusion has been lurking just out of reach of our hands, laughing at us for some time now.

You never know though, innovations and eureka moments are always just round the corner.

Nothing more is going to hold up the development of fusion energy, than Iran and this US university walking together! And it makes war much more likely. Well done then, to this anti-US, US university for bringing forward, two bad things, in a single move.

Go for it i say, certainly better than selling all our energy and everyhing else to China. Iran takes down drones and saves us ships from pirates, they will probably teach the us company a thing or two about nuclear science.

i got an idea
why dont all those genui go to Japan,
and have a look at fussion in Action.

reply to post by Liberal1984


Eh?

Originally posted by BobAthome
i got an idea
why dont all those genui go to Japan,
and have a look at fussion in Action.

Fission and Fusion are different animals.... Fission is what they use in current reactors, Fusion is how the Sun makes it's energy.. Fusion creates no waste material, or radioactive material.... unlike Fission which creates Fuki's and Chernobyls

Fort those who are interested Lawrencevile Physics is Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion company. If I remember right Focus Fusion does not create any bomb grade materials.

I personally have high hopes for focus fusion. If it can be commercialized like Eric lerner envisions it will be amazing with Gas station sized fusion power plants costing under a few million dollars each.

Now the Iran angle would make some leery, and honestly it sort of makes me leery myself. The last thing we need to do is create another China type powerhouse out of Iran while it's still under teh control of some not very cool people.

Some more in depth information on this collaboration.

The U.S. and Iranian scientists are developing a type of fusion known as “aneutronic” (without neutrons), which would provide electricity directly from charged particles rather than by heating water to create steam and drive a turbine, as fission and other forms of fusion under development do.

It is led by Eric Lerner, chief scientist of Lawrenceville, N.J.- based Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP); Hamid Yousefi, of the University of Tehran; and Morteza Habibi of Amirkabir University in Tehran. The LPP website says that the scientists “have already been collaborating informally, exchanging ideas and data, but are calling for a joint project to greatly accelerate this research.” The U.S. and Iran are the two countries most advanced in aneutronic fusion, it notes.

Interesting and different way forward in the race to develop fusion. I won't pretend to understand exactly what "aneutronic" is but it sounds sexy.

LPP believes that its recent breakthrough, in which it achieved temperatures hot enough to support aneutronic fusion, marks a big step towards shortening the timeframe for bringing fusion to market. ”With proper support, getting clean fusion energy to the grid could be accelerated to within as few as five years instead of decades,” the Fusion for Peace petition states. Fusion for Peace envisions two “Aneutronic Research Centers” - one in each country staffed by scientists from both the U.S. and Iran, and expanding to include countries not currently involved in aneutronic fusion.

“In light of these new scientific developments, and of the real threat of war between the U.S. and Iran, we are proposing the establishment of a joint US-Iran Aneutronic Fusion Program to accelerate this research and pool the resources of the various aneutronic fusion research programs,” the petition states. “If it succeeds, in a few years, all uranium enrichment for energy production would be obsolete and could be shut down - not just in Iran, but everywhere. This would be a giant step toward eliminating nuclear proliferation worldwide. And as aneutronic fusion supersedes fossil fuels, oil would be removed as the real fuel of the decades long tension and wars in the Middle East.”

www.smartplanet.com...

Some real visionaries at work here. I am especially excited by this LPP advance in achieving the temperatures needed to sustain a fusion reaction.