Fusion can't get "funding" unless it's some large-scale, gazillion dollar undertaking.
I think that's exactly the opposite of what fusion "wants" to be, or, at least, should be. Which is why I find the fusor so appealing and all these other Rube Goldberg giants so... ridiculous.
That said, I have to confess I get a little confused with some of the nomenclature and metrics.
I get lost between the temperature measurements and the K/eV equivalence. I'm not asking you to explain (not here, anyway), just trying to convey how confusing it gets for somebody not intrinsically well versed in the language and the acronyms.their 10 Million degree Celsius temperature is equivalent to a pathetic 861Volts in a fusor. Assuming that the ions in a fusor are accelerated across the full potential drop between the anode and cathode, and using the 11604 K/eV equivalence....Doug Coulter's 50kV fusor is hitting temperatures in the neighborhood of 580 million degrees kelvin.
And Richard Hull keeps insisting that the fusor is not "thermonuclear," at which point I have to wonder what that words even means. If 580MºK is not thermonuclear... then what is??
At least we know we're not dealing with "cold" fusion. Jeez, every time I talk to somebody (who knows even less than I do) about "fusion" and they say "you mean 'cold fusion'?" I wanna slap 'em upside the head...
But I get this much:
... and just have to wonder, "so why all the excitement." At which point I might take a bit of umbrage at the dismissal of my crack about the "100 million dollar cartoon." If they're that far from producing actual fusion – let alone their stated intent of p+B11 fusion - then what ARE they doing besides building really shiny laboratory?They simply aren't even close to the temperatures required for fusion.
I mean, Paul Allen has supposedly sunk $100 MILLION into this thing... and fusors can't get a couple of million here and there? WTF??
And yet, the fusor "gets no respect" in institutional scientific circles (except maybe at UofW, and a few other places that think of it strictly as a neutron generator), and there's no shortage of people right here on this site who insist that the fusor will never, ever be an actual, practical energy source.Fusors today easily generate plasma that is 35 to 60 times hotter than Tri Alpha's plasma. And they cost a lot less too.
The key phrase above is "...And they cost a lot less too." There is a mentality surrounding fusion that it is a giant problem that requires costly solutions.
Maybe it's must because I don't know any better that I can continue to believe... "...maybe not..."
--PS
(and don't even start me on the Wendelstat Stellarator... a million man-hours to construct? For all I know is may produce a bajillion joules of energy. But it's gonna be a mofo to make into a power plant... )
Update 151110: I'm doing some (long overdue) homework here, and I get now why we don't refer to the fusor as "thermonuclear." Now I will try to cope with the semantic inconsistencies of the nomenclature.