Posted on 01/15/2005 11:02:49 AM PST by ckilmer
January 12, 2005 03:30 PM US EST
by The Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium
GRASS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 12, 2005--
CONSORTIUM FORMED TO STUDY ACOUSTIC FUSION; COULD BE ALTERNATIVE TO OIL, GAS, COAL AND NUCLEAR POWER
The Acoustic Fusion Technology Energy Consortium (AFTEC) has been formed by leading academic and commercial institutions to research and develop acoustic inertial confinement fusion (AICF) and its related science, technologies, and equipment. AFTEC's five founders are (alphabetically): Boston University; Impulse Devices, Inc.; Purdue University; University of Mississippi; and University of Washington Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound.
Dr. Wylene Dunbar, Director of AFTEC, today announced the group saying, "Acoustic fusion has an excellent chance of becoming the alternative to oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy for the world's electricity -- if it is funded appropriately."
"If AICF delivers on its potential, the impact would be enormous. Fusion could produce electricity with a process that yields virtually no pollution--just ordinary helium and heat," Dr. Dunbar observed. "With acoustic fusion, the fuel is essentially water, and the cost to build and operate a plant would be a fraction of other alternative energy facilities. Furthermore, the timetable for acoustic fusion is arguably far shorter than all other paths to fusion."
In AICF, sound waves bombard a liquid such as heavy water, to create tiny void "bubbles" or "cavities" of deuterium a/k/a heavy hydrogen. This produces very high temperatures and densities that, when high enough, fuse the heavy hydrogen into helium. That fusion releases enormous heat that could be used to create steam and drive a turbine to produce electricity.
An emerging field, acoustic inertial confinement fusion can already lay claim to significant progress: A multi-institution team led by Dr. Rusi Taleyarkhan has twice documented fusion reactions taking place in an AICF reactor, with the results of those seminal experiments published in two prestigious, peer-reviewed journals, Science 295, 1868 (2002) and Physical Review E 69, 036109 (2004), and receiving publicity worldwide. Under the direction of its President, Ross Tessien, Impulse Devices has recently made available the first commercial research reactor for AICF.
Scientists leading AFTEC's research are preeminent in the field: Dr. R. Glynn Holt, Associate Professor, Department of Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering, Boston University; Dr. D. Felipe Gaitan, (discoverer of single-bubble sonoluminescence, a phenomenon closely related to acoustic fusion research), Chief Scientific Officer, Impulse Devices, Inc.; Dr. Rusi Taleyarkhan, The Ardent Bement Jr. Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Purdue University, and part-time Distinguished staff at a National Laboratory; Dr. Henry Bass, Director of the National Center for Physical Acoustics, University of Mississippi, and F.A.P. Barnard Distinguished Professor of Physics & Astronomy; and Dr. Lawrence A. Crum (leading researcher in the field of high intensity focused ultrasound and past president of The Acoustical Society of America) Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering and Director, Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound, Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington.
Members of AFTEC will work as a team to investigate acoustic fusion, Dr. Dunbar noted, and will consult with National Laboratory scientists for independent verification of positive results, as they are achieved.
"All of the scientists involved with this research appreciate that acoustic fusion is a relatively new field and one that has, so far, received little funding support," Dr. Dunbar stated. "Nevertheless, given AICF's potential for creating a limitless, nonpolluting source of sustainable energy, as well as myriad other applications, they also agree that the investigation of acoustic fusion is critically important and deserving of high priority."
Dr. Dunbar received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University and her J.D. from the University of Mississippi.
Grass Valley Group was sold to Thompson, but still doing a thriving business here.
Even if it works, it's still going to be radioactive. It creates neutrons which create radioisotopes and it will generate radioactive wastes just like fission reactors. That's not a problem. The problem is people who have been indoctrinated to fear radiation. It doesn't do any good to tell them that the problem is minimal.
Hydro hasn't been tapped out. We could double the amount we get from hydro if it weren't for environmental restrictions.
What everyone ignores is that the supply of a resource increases with the price. When the price increases, it becomes more viable to mine marginal sources. If the price of oil increases enough, it becomes economical to produce gasoline from coal or from oil shale. And as the price rises people conserve and demand falls. They spend more on insulation, fluorescent lights, and more efficient transportation. They cut back on luxury consumption, ski trips, vacation travel, etc. The real danger will be price controls that stops that feedback process.
The tricky thing about estimated oil supplies is that oil companies don't develop resource more than about ten years in advance. Why look for oil with today's technology when we will have better exploration techniques in ten years? Why pay taxes on proven reserves for any longer than you have to? So no one really knows how much we have. Some say that depleted wells are replenishing themselves from deep earth sources.
I read an article written about 1860 in Scientific American that said we would be out of coal in 100 years. These predictions always turn out wrong because the free market and technology always will provide. Our problem is people who hate technology and free markets. It is a political problem.
Think about it. The only energy sources that are not under attack from environmentalists are the ones that don't work -- wind and solar. If they were to become viable, they will also be attacked.
That's how progress is made.
Paging Pons and Fleishmann...
Where did you get this value. The price of heavy water is several times this and after you break out the Deuterium you then have to multiply it by 4 and add the energy costs. That would make it about $1000 per pound?
You're right. That price was in 1956 dollars.
http://www.osti.gov/html/osti/opennet/document/rdd-3/rdd-3b.html
But even at $1000 a pound for deuterium, that's pretty cheap considering the amount of energy available.
Thus the reference to GVG in the past tense.
It depends on which fusion process we are talking about. The helium 3 reactions are, as I recall, relativly aneutronic -- they don't produce as many neutrons. But you need a fission reactor to make helium 3 (or mine the moon). But deuterium fusion creates radioactive byroducts because stray neutrons are captured by the surroundings and become radioactive.
If you compare it to one of the new designs of fission breeder reactor where the fuel is reprocessed on-site and there are no long-lived isotopes remaining at the end of the reactor life, fission and fusion are pretty much the same as far as nuclear waste goes.
are you talking about daming big rivers or putting paddlewheels in small streams
Smaller rivers and creeks, yes. Paddle wheels no. Usually the solution is the pelton wheel, a small turbine appropriate for small volume hydro projects with about a 100 foot head. We have an enormous untapped potential for local projects like this but state and federal regulations make them prohibitive. And, like you say, it is going to be a battle to prevent them from dynamiting existing hydro plants.
the matter has become a national security issue because oil money has found its way into the hands of terrorists.
I think it's worse than that. The oil money is finding it's way into the hands of US politicians, bureaucrats and media and opinion makers. Former state dept officials typically retire and go to work for Saudi's for big fat salaries -- providing that they made had the correct decisions on the job.
US oil production peaked in the early 70's. This was predicted by a guy in the late 1950's. But I don't think it was caused by a drop in US supplies. The Saudi's quadrupled their oil production in the early 70's and priced it to sell. After we became dependent on it, they embargoed it. So now they have a club to hit us over the head with.
we are currently entering a transitional period from an oil based economy to a hydrogen based economy.
Until someone invents fusion power, hydrogen is not a source of energy. But, yes, that is the reason we will never run out of coal, and for the same reason we won't run out of oil -- we will start using other resources.
But I think there are a lot of other sources of alternative energy that are a lot more economical than wind or solar. The numbers you get from those people are skewed in many ways. Usually they don't account for the tax benefits or the government subsidies.
A lot like Ska but without the techno-synch. I give it a 10, but you can't dance to it. Maybe they'll get better next CD.
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