The Race Toward Commercial Fusion Energy
by Bruce Behrhorst

Basically speaking all large energy systems come with their own built-in obsolescence.

  Truth be told it’s a story of advantages and disadvantages as you dissect it. Once the need has been identified and decisions made, a key rule in my opinion apart from the finance of power plant construction and maintenance is a system’s ‘Process Footprint’. In other words, what does a power plant take up in manufacturing energy as opposed to the release of gases into the atmosphere as it relates to by-products much of which needs to be processed. The physical plant structure and the amount of land area it occupies to operate safely and efficiently. The 'Socio-Economic Footprint' is another aspect on surrounding communities its effects on employability requirements, and its effect on federal, state, municipal government and business in the surrounding areas with a shared responsibility to correct ‘Greenhouse Gas’ emissions (GHG’s) between the fuel/power generation industry and government at all levels.
 In the event of accident identification of evacuation routes from affected areas, security of power plant, transportation routes and efficient integration into the electrical grid. The ability of the multi-use power plant to process multi product streams. Not just electrical but hydrocarbon fuel, organic bio-fuel and elemental gases like hydrogen.
  Energy regimes that offer high-density energy generation tend to occupy a smaller intrusive structural footprint toward flora and fauna than solar, wind and ocean wave power generation. Nuclear fission power plants have operated for decades in some cases worldwide almost 40 years offering the compact structure for power generation capable of generating 1,200 MW (mega watt) with over 200 million MWh lifetime electrical power generation. In some cases older nuclear plants would have to be decommissioned and the land returned to its natural state which has been successfully demonstrated in a number of instances in the U.S. Eventually these older nuclear plants would need to be replaced with newer fast reactor design fission technology able to burn re-processed spent nuclear fuels generating electricity thereby, drastically reducing the need for geological repository of radioactive waste. In the future the introduction fusion plants has and even more benefit in the fabric of electrical power and fuels generation.

 Eventually fusion would need to participate in the current global energy use of over 16 tera watts as demand rises for power, fusion would be a welcomed source of clean energy. The first fusion device was an explosive device able to generate 500 times the power from previous fission explosive devices in the early 50’s it has taken the science of fusion energy more the 50 years to demonstrate capacity to sustain a breakeven ‘net fusion power’. In fusion research, achieving a fusion energy gain factor Q = 1 is called ‘Breakeven’ and is considered a significant although somewhat artificial milestone. Ignition refers to an infinite Q, that is, a self-sustaining plasma where the losses are made up for by fusion power without any external input. In a practical fusion reactor, some external power will always be required for things like current drive, re-fueling, profile control, and burn control. A value on the order of Q = 20 will be required if the plant is to deliver much more energy than it uses internally.

 Nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple atomic particles join together to form a heavier nucleus. Our star the sun is a natural fusion reactor producing all but the lightest elements in nucleosynthesis. It takes high energy to force nuclei to fuse, even those of the lightest element, hydrogen. This is because all nuclei have a positive charge (due to their protons), and as like charges repel, nuclei strongly resist being put too close together. Accelerated to high speeds (that is, heated to thermonuclear temperatures) the ability to thermalise, however, they can overcome this electromagnetic repulsion and get close enough for the strong nuclear force to be active, achieving fusion. Thus squeezing high temperature plasma (at least 15 million degrees C) an ionized gas (hot fusion) is the only source of high nuclear energy besides the direct conversion of mass into energy that is matter/antimatter science, which is more powerful. On a number of fronts the science of fusion has already taken the final phase for commercial energy parity in demonstration. Fusion reactor concepts date back to the late 40’s and early 50’s with soviet toroidal designs by Tamm/Sakharov this is currently the 14 billion dollar effort underway in France by the six-country consortium to build the donut shaped ITER Tokamak. Other hot fusion methods and funding source are: The Plasma Focus Device, .5 million dollars, JPL/NASA; Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC), 40 million dollars, Paul Allan-Microsoft/Goldman-Sachs.

THE POLYWELL CONCEPT

Power and the ability to generate it is crucial for modern society whether you’re in space traveling the solar system or on the ground on earth.
 
I once attended a space technology and applications forum in 2004 to my surprise author/scientist/physicist Robert Bussard was presented with the Schreiber-Spence Achievement award. I remember his speech outlining his work on fusion physics the importance of using systems that are challenging if we as a race of humans were ever to create a paradigm shift in space power and propulsion able to bridge our solar system and provide for human habitation apart from the home planet. I’ve read some of his work but none more intriguing than his work on a device he called, Inertial-Electrodynamic Fusion (IEF) of special quasi-spherical configuration. polywell grid

 A device in fusion parlance known as the “Polywell” a magnetic-electrostatic confinement device used to create fusion energy. The concept utilizes a polyhedral configuration of electromagnets to confine a cloud of electrons in the center of the polyhedron, creating a quasi-spherical negative electrical potential well to initiate and sustain fusion reactions. Essentially it’s a ‘trap’ for high-density energetic electrons within a quasi-spherical magnetic field, into which a current of high-energy electrons is injected to form a deep negative potential well, without the use of mechanical grids. Ions are then ‘dropped’ into the well at the edge which fall to its center with increasing density and gaining energy sufficient to make fusion reactions among them as they collide in the central core region. If scattering occurs, the ions simply recirculate back up the well and fall in again when they reach its edge. The critical element in the power balance (fusion power generation vs. electron drive power losses) is the ability of the magnetic field to keep electrons inside the quasi-sphere ions remained trapped by the electron-driven electrostatic potential well.coils

  This concept is a departure from the traditional Farnsworth-Hirsch desktop fusor a similarity is that the whole system is encased in a large vacuum chamber and that while in the fusor the negative charges reside on a solid-state grid, in the Polywell they are confined to the inner region of the reactor by magnetic fields. The advantage of coils over grids is that the magnetic fields produced by the coils also help protect them from the energetic electrons and ions. The Polywell is radically different from the typical Tokamak design offering clean non-radiative energy source of power. The Polywell is a convex shaped magnetic fields machine whereas the tokamaks are concaved fields. Convex fields are stable; concave machine are plagued with micro-instabilities, and depending on the fuel used like Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) is radioactive. Dr. Bussard believes his device can run with net energy production on boron-11 and proton fuel will thermalise within the core of the plasma while at the rim it has lower energy and hence does not thermalise to any degree. His concept took nearly 11 years and three design stages before achieving a world record for fusion type collisions 1x10^9 fusions/second for a duration of .25 milliseconds.

THE ADVANTAGE OF FUSION


· An inexhaustible supply of fuel (hydrogen & isotopes) examples of fuel use: D-T, D-D, D-H, p-11B
· The fuel is available from everywhere on Earth and therefore can’t be interrupted by other nations.
· No possibility of nuclear runaway (meltdown)
· No chemical combustion products or gases that contribute to Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emission
· Low to no radioactive by-products produced with a significant shorter half-life relative to fission reactors.
· Not a nuclear weapons or weapons parts proliferator

BUSSARD FAME IN SCIENCE FICTION

 In the 60’s he developed on paper the idea of the Bussard Ramjet an interstellar engine designed to power a spacecraft by collecting hydrogen atoms from the vacuum of space and feeding it to a fusion reactor. An inexhaustible source of fuel in the vast reaches of outer space. This was the first idea that gave rise to the famous television series “Star Trek”. A decade later Bussard served as assistant director of the Thermonuclear Reaction Division of the now defunct U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He also worked for the U.S. government nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos, N.M. and at Oak Ridge, Tenn. and for TRW Systems. He also founded his own small company: Energy Matter Conversion Corporation EMC2 to develop research into fusion. His aim was to use fusion to produce cheap, inexhaustible, clean energy. For 11 years and 6 million dollars the U.S. Navy/DARPA supported his work. The Navy always looking to stay relevant with new propulsion techniques in their fleets still needs technology allowing them the freedom to operate unobstructed with respect to fuel supply and the liabilities associated with the current use of nuclear fission powered marine vessels.
 Navy funding ran out at the end of 2005 and in October of 2007 Dr. Bussard at 79 with failing health passed away. The hope is the development ‘torch’ be passed on to his assistants and not fade away into obscurity. Energy Matter Conversion Corp. President, Dr. Rick Nebel informed me since Dr. Bussard's passing the company has relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico and is fully operational and fully staffed. They will be releasing technical data to the public when new results have been approved for release. They have had investor interest, but this came with 'strings attached' namely, investor control of the company. Relinquishing control at a critical developmental period would not be in the company's best interest for technical staff emphasizing the need to maintain independence. EMC2 would entertain offers from investors who would permit them arms-length development and operations.
Presently they are open to tax-free donations through their nonprofit website.

 Dr. Bussard was an energetic person along the same work ethic and dedication as Marie & Pierre Curie. Dr. Bussard as his funding had run out persevered until he deduced his last experiment, which showed success. He wanted as his next step to build a new reactor to replace his older one. Ideally he would have liked to build two and use them to demonstrate to other scientists beyond doubt that his process works. He would have wished for an immediate injection of about 2 million dollars and to build a full-size reactor in continuous operation would need funding at about the 200 million dollar level. Unfortunately, progress toward development of fusion power generation has been stymied. In part due to a century worth of outdated fossil fuel energy policies whose legacy is still reflected in the current expense of prosecuting the “War on Terror”, Iraq and Afghanistan. Had the longevity of adequate funding been applied to further alternative energy generation such as fusion technologies like the Polywell clean energy. Prosperity associated with cheaper sources could of relieved Middle Eastern political pressure and brought about petroleum price stability regimes on global markets.  

 Dr. Bussard sets an example, when people in research make the difference in discovery with less funding than other comparable fusion systems research. Money is only a vehicle. Fund money is important to science discovery, it just doesn’t discover the sciences-people do.

In the end Dr. Bussard was all too real in developing advanced power and propulsion concepts a dedicated scientist with dreams and as the saying goes, “…Only the good and young in spirit die too soon” 

 photo credit: EMC2 corp.