[ExI] Fusion (was Obama Transition Team Examining Space Solar Power)

[John K Clark]

Michael LaTorra

> Practical fusion power -- whether from Bussard's Polywell
> generator or from some other device -- has many
> advantages over space-based solar power systems.

I like Bussard's Polywell because if it works it will be dirt cheap, and we
could figure out if it really is going to work with just a few million
dollars. The trouble with the conventional approach to fusion, the Tokamak,
is that even if you reach energy break even the machine would be so
huge, complex, expensive, and hard to maintain that it may never be
economic.

The approach Focus Fusion likes would be even cheaper than Polywell if it
worked, but that seems even more unlikely; however I could be wrong
and it probably deserves a few bucks.

The General Fusion people have yet another way to produce Fusion but to my
mind it seems completely nuts. Maybe I'm missing something but to me it
almost seems like an elaborate practical joke, but somehow they found an
investor willing to put a few million into the company.

Finally we have Tri Alpha Energy which is more than 10 times better funded
than all these other approaches put together thanks to Microsoft co founder
Paul Alan. Unfortunately we know almost nothing about what they're up to,
the company has been in Stealth Mode for over a year. All they'll say is
that they're trying to make a commercial reactor that fuses the most common
isotope of hydrogen with the most common isotope of Boron, a reaction that
produces no neutrons and hence no harmful radiation. Nobody knows
exactly how they propose to do this, or at least nobody who knows is saying.
I wish them luck.

 John K Clark