Nuclear fusion, has been, is now, and forever will be the power source OF THE FUTURE. Fission would work just fine, and would satisfy the world’s energy needs for millenia if breeder reactors were used.
How easy is it for fusion to ‘run away’? I know fission requires fissile material, which consists of heavy radioactive metals. Fusion just needs stuff like hydrogen and helium, right? Sounds scary, though I know nothing about it.
All true, but in the interim, fission breeders are a reasonable substitute.
And it looks like Dr. Bussard has found the key to fusion.
Until fusion technology reaches commercial viability, the US has more hydrocarbon resources in the form of coal and oil shales than Arab OPEC has in the form of crude oil.
See:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/energy_expo/2005/pdfs/t_s4c.pdf
Vision: DoD/AT&L intends to catalyze commercial industry to
produce clean fuels for the military from secure domestic
resources using environmentally sensitive processes.
Notice map/chart on page 3.
The last time this happened all of the freakomaniac PhD.s in the great think tank communities know as universities came out of the wood work. The little Hitlers really thought they found their climb to power.
But take it from me. The real scientists and engineers who should be in such a program have dropped out of this BS society. How would you like to try to live on no money reporting to numnuts managers who don’t have the slightest clue; not to mention the diversity push that is putting poorly educated females with communications degrees from Penn State in charge of Human Resources not to mention the organizations responsible for doing the work.
Did you know that this administration put a lawyer in as Chairman for the US Nuclear Regulator Commission (and he doesn’t even have a degree in science and is silimar to in education and experience to the managers below him)? Did you know the head of NASA is a female Whitehouse lawyer who was rejected by NASA when she applied after college.
Our science and engineering has been politicized and is now in the hands of the incompetent; days of the Apollo program or the navy nuke program are over.
Right now any money spent would be wasted.
I don't know about that, matter - antimatter reactions are said to be the most energy releasing reactions. Of course since it costs $billions to produce a nano gram of antimatter it might be a while until it becomes a viable option.
Sounds like a wining campaign slogan to me!
This assumes that we be able to sustain reactions that actually produce more energy than it takes to initiate them.
bump
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/munger/2008/02/iter_situation_how_bad_will_it.html
If there’s no ITER commitment by Congress in the 2009 budget, the United States will basically default on its partnership and also be subject to financial penalty — somewhere in the range of $750 million in U.S. dollars. That would probably be a nasty little situation in which lawyers from around the globe would have to grapple with the details.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/09pch8.htm
After a significant hit in 2008 that deleted the U.S. contribution to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, fusion research would total $493 million, up $207 million or 72 percent. The entire increase would go to a $215 million ITER contribution in 2009 on the project now underway in France, after appropriators zeroed out U.S. participation in ITER in 2008 to preserve funding for domestic fusion programs. The 2008 request would have provided $160 million, and DOE ended up scrounging for $11 million to keep U.S. participation alive. Domestic fusion projects in New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts would mostly stay even in 2009 after an increase in 2008.