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Eric Lerner of Focus Fusion

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Skepticism is welcome, but let's be accurate about the facts.

The similarities I saw at first glance:
1. Promising a breakthrough well beyond current state of the art.

LPP has already achieved breakthroughs well beyond all other fusion researchers: the highest temperature ever reported for a fusion fuel (1.8 billion degrees Celsius) and higher fusion yields than any other group working with the Dense Plasma Focus device. These breakthroughs were due to LPP's unique design features (smaller size and axial magnetic field) suggested by Lerner's mathematical model of the device, which no one else has. The model has been experimentally confirmed in several ways, and it predicts ignition will result from device improvements that LPP is implementing now.

2. Relying on private funding since the DoE won't touch them with a 10 ft pole. (Seems LPP applied for DoE funding for an x-ray source, but haven't yet found evidence that they received any.)

Do you think lack of merit is the only possible reason why the US government doesn't fund a technology that would disrupt the entire fossil fuel sector almost overnight? NASA funded Lerner's work at an earlier stage when it was less proven, but NASA was ordered to stop funding any fusion research. Do you have any evidence that contradicts the former head of DoE fusion research (and other senior fusion scientists) who said: "the promise of the LPP DPF approach to fusion power has considerable merit and a much higher level of investment is warranted, based on their considerable progress to date."
Former US Fusion Chief: Focus Fusion Merits Higher Investment

3. An endless series of "milestones" which seem to be mostly geared towards securing additional funding, rather then making meaningful progress towards the "promise".

LPP is working toward ignition systematically, changing one variable at a time. That's what good scientists do. Far from endless, the series of steps should be complete in the next year or two. If you think that progression is not meaningful, then you disagree with the experts who have looked carefully at LPP's work, not given it a "first glance."

Add to that his book "The Big Bang Never Happened", and my opinion is that he is more successful as a science fiction writer than the person who will develop terrestrial fusion as an energy source.

Have you read the book? Have you read Halton Arp's book that agrees, and Halton Arp's credentials? Or are you judging Lerner's book by its cover?

- - - Updated - - -

We get more solar nuclear fusion energy than we can imagine what to do with. It is just a matter of harvesting it, and either storing or distributing it (e.g. superconducting transmission lines) effectively and efficiently.

The cost of harvesting, storing, and distributing solar energy is unlikely to drop fast enough to replace fossil fuels in time to prevent devastating climate change from excess atmospheric CO2. In contrast, LPP's fusion power (if their mathematical model continues to be correct) will be so cheap that it could stop climate change relatively quickly, and power CO2 sequestration projects to reverse it.

Terrestrial fusion (if done on large scale) will just add more heat to the planet.

The planet radiates excess heat to space. The problem with fossil fuels is not the heat they add, but the added CO2, methane and other gases that prevent excess heat from radiating away. That's why they are called "greenhouse gases."
 
... and higher fusion yields than any other group working with the Dense Plasma Focus device.

And yet H-B ignition still has not been achieved.

Do you think lack of merit is the only possible reason why the US government doesn't fund a technology that would disrupt the entire fossil fuel sector almost overnight?

The DoE FES Science budget is limited ( $170M current, $138M for 2014 ), so it seems reasonably that they would only fund projects that have the highest probability of success.

And no, it will not disrupt the fossil fuel industry overnight, for the very same reason that Tesla will not disrupt the fossil fuel industry overnight: People don't like sudden change.

Far from endless, the series of steps should be complete in the next year or two.

As it was 10 years ago. FocusFusion-Ver6.htm

Have you read the book? ... Or are you judging Lerner's book by its cover?

No, I confess, I only read the rebuttals.

Terrestrial fusion is more likely to be solved by Taylor Wilson than Eric Lerner. Until then my money is on SPWR, SCTY and TSLA.

This feels too much like a discussion with a car salesman, so not worth continuing.
 
I have no (informed) opinion about LPP, but there's a critical difference between solar power and terrestrial fusion: constancy. Solar has to be paired with very large-scale storage to be a complete solution, while a fusion reactor will be a constant source of power. Don't read this to mean that there's no role for solar power, but I urge solar supporters not to overplay its potential role, at least until we solve the grid-scale storage economics conundrum.

An important attribute of a hypothetical fusion reactor is that they could be used to replace fossil-fueled plants, reusing the existing transmission. Big solar and wind farms in California are forcing equally big investments in new transmission, which is both expensive and an unwelcome addition to the landscape.
 
Terrestrial fusion is more likely to be solved by Taylor Wilson than Eric Lerner. Until then my money is on SPWR, SCTY and TSLA.
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My money is on all of the above. I figure it's best to diversify because no one can know for sure or predict the future of how this technology will pan out.
 
And yet H-B ignition still has not been achieved.

Neither has deuterium-tritium ignition, which the National Ignition Facility promised last year, to justify continuing their billions in government funding.
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2013/10/fusion-breakthrough-nif-uh-not-really-…

The plasma temperature required for DT ignition is only a quarter of that required for HB ignition, which is one reason why most fusion research dollars have poured in DT efforts. But it seems a strange argument to say ignition research should not be funded because ignition has not been achieved. Do you apply that argument to NIF and ITER?

The DoE FES Science budget is limited ( $170M current, $138M for 2014 ), so it seems reasonably that they would only fund projects that have the highest probability of success.

Like NIF and ITER? Fifty scientists (so far) have signed an open letter urging the US, EU and Japan to "fund a much broader fusion energy research effort, expanding the program to include a large number of promising devices and fusion fuels in order to maximize the chances of getting economical fusion power as soon as possible."
Open Letter on Fusion

The architect of the DoE's early tokamak program now says he believes tokamaks will never be an economical power source. I've forgotten his name, but I'll find it and post it.

And no, it will not disrupt the fossil fuel industry overnight, for the very same reason that Tesla will not disrupt the fossil fuel industry overnight: People don't like sudden change.

People will change quickly if you offer to cut their power bills by over 90%.

"Far from endless, the series of steps should be complete in the next year or two." As it was 10 years ago. FocusFusion-Ver6.htm

Apparently you didn't read the document you linked. Eric Lerner has been careful to not over-promise. LPP has made steady progress, despite being "grossly underfunded," in the words of the expert Review Committee.

No, I confess [I didn't read Lerner's book], I only read the rebuttals.... This feels too much like a discussion with a car salesman, so not worth continuing.

I don't think it is car-salesman-like to post facts from sources I have actually read.
 
"Terrestrial fusion is more likely to be solved by Taylor Wilson than Eric Lerner. Until then my money is on SPWR, SCTY and TSLA."

My money is on all of the above.

Mine too. I own solar energy stocks, because I believe they will be a great investment for at least the next year. If/When LPP announces successful ignition, solar stocks may drop (although solar product sales will not be hurt for several years). This is a good reason to watch LPP even if you are not invested in them, as BlackRock analysts said (quoted in my article).

Cheap fusion power will only help Tesla's car business, although not their home storage business. By then, Tesla will likely be a major industrial power.
 
The DoE FES Science budget is limited, so it seems reasonably that they would only fund projects that have the highest probability of success.

That seems reasonable if you believe government budget-making is entirely rational with no influence from politics, personal bias, turf battles, empire building, government-industry revolving doors, and elected officials dependent on corporations to fund their election campaigns. People who have worked in government or read much about it have a different view.

Dr. Robert L. Hirsch directed the US fusion energy program during the 1970s evolution of the Atomic Energy Commission (including initiation of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor), through the Energy Research and Development Administration to the present Department of Energy. He has a long list of senior management positions, advisory committee positions, and publications in energy studies.
Robert L. Hirsch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In October 2012, in a speech at the 14th US-Japan Workshop on Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion (IECF), Dr. Hirsch outlined several reasons why tokamaks will likely never be an economical power source. Tokamak reactors would be much larger and more expensive than fission reactors, more complex, require regular rebuilding due to radiation damage, require radioactive waste disposal, and require a giant containment structure and costly safety systems to protect against explosion of the superconducting magnets. Hirsch's "painful" conclusion was: "pragmatic power industry engineers... are virtually certain to declare that [tokamaks] cannot become a practical power system." Yet tokamaks continue to receive most government funding for fusion research.
A fusion energy researcher gets practical. - NYTimes.com

In the same speech, Dr. Hirsch said a better approach would use smaller devices and aneutronic fusion reactions such as hydrogen-boron. He expressed hope for IECF, and seemed unaware of LPP's work.

But in November 2013, an LPP investor hired Dr. Hirsch to chair an expert committee of senior fusion scientists to evaluate LPP. Their report states: "The members of the committee have no financial association with the LPP program and agreed to participate in this review with the understanding that the committee would have complete freedom to express its opinions as it saw fit."
Review Committee Evaluation of the LPP Focus Fusion Program

As quoted in my article, the committee's opinion about LPP's probability of success was very different from that of J in MN, who says he/she "did some work an [sic] a Tokamak as a grad student."

Other members of the committee were:

Dr. Stephen O. Dean
• President, Fusion Power Associates, 1979-present
• Served on DOE Fusion Energy Advisory Committee, Chaired review panel on Alternate Concepts
• Served on Secretary of Energy, Energy R&D Task Force
• Editor, J. of Fusion Energy, Springer Publications, Inc.
• Director, Magnetic Confinement Systems, AEC/ERDA/DOE 1972-79

Prof. Gerald L. Kulcinski
• Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering; Director of the Fusion Technology Institute.
• Technical Program Chair, ANS Topical Meeting on Fusion Technology, 1976, member of the Board of Directors (1987-90), chair of the Honors and Awards, Fusion Division, 1997-2004; General Chairman of the 16th ANS Topical meeting on Fusion Technology (2004).
• A U.S. delegate to the International Tokamak Reactor (INTOR) Project, Vienna, Austria,1979 - 1981, and member of the INTOR advisory panel.
• Associate Editor of Fusion Engineering and Design, 1983-2003.

Prof. Dennis Papadopoulos
• Professor of Physics, Departments of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maryland, 1979 – present
• Senior scientist and division consultant, Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory - 1969-1979
• Science Advisor, Applied Physics Division, Office of Fusion Energy, DOE, 1978
• Currently PI, Multi-University Research Initiative on the "Fundamental Physics Issues on Radiation Belt Dynamics and Remediation"
 
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The DoE FES Science budget is limited ( $170M current, $138M for 2014 ), so it seems reasonably that they would only fund projects that have the highest probability of success.

I am reminded of the James Blish sci-fi book series Cities in Flight, which at this point is incredibly ancient history but still well worth a read. The first book, They Shall Have Stars is partly a diatribe against huge science projects when a lot of advances come from much smaller and more elegant projects. (Yes, I admit this is a gross generalization.)

For example, how many of you know that you can do fusion in your garage? See e.g. Fusor. Now, it's straightforward to run the numbers and know that this approach will never yield usable energy, but I find it somehow more compelling than the NIF, which I hereby predict will be cancelled before it ever yields usable energy either.
 
B-H vs T-D

Moderator]
Let's keep the discussion here on the technology and related non-investor matters.

Thanks for the reminder, Robert :)
A notable difference is that NIF and ITER both plan to use deuterium+tritium as fuel sources. Tritium is produced in nuclear reactors, so the fuel pipeline that NIF and ITER would use, if they eventually lead to commercially feasible fusion power, still has all the problems of fission reactors.
LPP's focus fusion approach (although it is currently using D-T, in the research phase) ultimately uses boron+hydrogen isotopes which occur naturally in abundance.

I'm with xhawk101 's sentiment: We need to pursue all these approaches and hope to find one that's feasible.