A friend of mine is a nuclear physicist (MIT PhD), and he says that Thorium has potential but it's not as clean as people seem to think. There are also issues to work out. The news reports say that the designs were ready to go but shelved, but that turns out not to be true, according to my friend. More work is needed to get these reactors viable, but, yes, they would be cleaner and safer than the reactors we have on-line today.

Bottom line: There is potential there, but it's not ready, and there would be benefits if these were to be finished and brought on-line...but these aren't the energy panacea everyone hopes for.

Ken, well said, but is the Issue " power" on earth? or is it Weapons? and or power for " Off Earth " like in deep space travel, I ask because if it is for " Power ON earth " PV panels can cover all we need now and in foreseeable future, so when we use the " Fusion/fission Generator " that Home delivers for Free, that is our SUN, then I think we will need to look for some other energy source for us.

All these various fusion experiments are the way to go as one of them is bound to eventually succeed. Even the failed approaches have value.

I'm rooting for this technology.

I think fossil fuels are far worse than nuclear in terms of the total impact on our world.

Personally, I have a hard time believing that worthwhile technologies will succeed the way our government is run.

If the Focus Fusion project Aaron mentions above continues to progress, power will become available at <10¢/W to install and <½¢/kwh. Everywhere. Without waste or radioactivity.

IMO, this will make economic roadkill of every renewables source on the planet. With most conventional not far behind. Starting 4 or 5 years from now.

The major importance of fusion is it's ability to supply abundant energy. The system that does this inexpensively, in the short term, and not create radioactive waste, would have the best chance of changing the world. We need to reverse the carbon emission problems of gas and coal, and supply a greater level of energy to the world. The United States and other countries should finance the small groups that show scientific progress to help them in this continuing quest. Once we have solved our energy problem, going in to space will be a natural step into the future.

DoE is funding Sandia's Pulsed Power project (z machine) which was conspicuously absent from this article and is arguably the most promising approach mainly due to unexplained record temps that bring aneutronic fusion into the realm of possibility.

They think of his company as a potential customer for their products, and are not directly involved in his schemes. They might not be aware of how he is mis-using their name in his promotions.

An awful lot of real physicists use LabView and other NI products. You'd think that NI would have the common sense to stay far away from a snake oil salesman, lest their brand be smeared by his fraud. Seriously, Rossi is already a laughing stock and he's pulled these investment stunts before.

Actually Rossi recently did a full scale test run and produced some 479 KW/H for 5.5 hours in it's self-looped (not needing outside power, just producing it's own). The customer and observing scientists were impressed and happy with the results.

The major reason that so called 'Cold-Fusion' has such a bad rap is that the corporations presently controlling energy are trying to keep us tied to a centralized energy system: electricity by wire, gas and oil by tanker, pipeline, truck and the pump etc. But cold fusion, properly set up and built, would have the capacity to be owned and run, with no waste, radiation etc. right at the source of need, such as homes, autos and industries that require energy. You can imagine that the fatcats in the energy sector do NOT want true efficiency or clean, cheap power, they want to continue to control the monopolies that they already have and so do everything that they can do belittle, badger, threaten and even historically killed individuals with technologies that threatened these monopolies in energy.

The so called Cold-Fusion is a real effect, measurable and testable, and there have been several different, WORKING approaches to this, yet these researchers suddenly find themselves without funding, harassed and their scientific credentials severely questioned.

It is time for the Old Powers That Were to step aside now, let go of their monopolies and corrupt controls of the Business, Agricultural, Financial, Energy and Political sectors. There are OVER 6000 patented inventions that have been sequestered by Corporations and the Military that have to do with Zero-Point energy, Cold-Fusion, much more efficient motors and generators, medical advances and such things as anti-gravity, interplanetary and interstellar travel that has been kept well hidden from us.

You may not believe me, thinking I am just a nut case, However, when these facts start falling out in mainstream media within the next few months, EVERYBODY is going to have to do some re-thinking about all of this and how we have been controlled and turned into a virtual slave race for the very richest.

Cold Fusion is a very real phenomenon...It just gets intentionally biased and bad press!

Conspiracy theories aside, my read of the recent demonstration was that there was a 500kW generator running at the same time 'for safety reasons. Cold Fusion is a very real........ scam?

Apparently the heat producing portion does not need outside energy to run, however, should there be a loss of power during the test, there needs to be an outside source of power to run the coolant pumps...just like with a fission reactor...it can supply it's own power just fine, but if there is some sort of accidental interrupt, then the outside source is needed. I am VERY Certain that the buyer and test scientists made sure that the generator was not producing the energy for the test, that would have been all too obvious!

Do remember that even tho it is called "Cold" fusion, it still produces heat as the energy output, which needs to be harnessed via well understood steam and generator setups to produce electricity. It is only "Cold' in comparison the the plasma temps and pressures needed for 'standard' fusion, but the heat output is still right up there and so the need for high level power as an emergency standby is quite reasonable!

The only thing Rossi's machine can do, even if it works, is produce low-grade steam. Not even enough to make electricity. Keep buildings warm, etc. That would substitute for some power demand, but it is not itself a good source.

His "1 MW generating station" is the size of a warehouse. Just for comparison, the Focus Fusion design will house in a home garage-size building, and put out 5MW of direct electricity.

Idiot. That was no nuclear disaster. It was a deadly super-tsunami that wrecked a 40-yr old nuclear plant. With zero radiation deaths.

Yeah, fusion generated electricity could be so plentiful it'd be too cheap to meter. Uh huh.

Where have I heard that before ?

We live in a capitalistic system, lets not be ridiculous. I implied cheaper, I didn't say or mean free.

Dan, I think you're greatly underestimating the potential of fusion power. The fuels (Deuterium and/or Tritium) are much cheaper, safer, and more abundant than fuels used in fission reactions, and the resulting fusion product (Helium) is inert. The challenge with fusion is technological one, not so much a question of potential. Fusion afterall is the "energy of the universe" (stars are giant fusion reactors).

Also, fusion is many times more efficient than solar, fossil fuels, etc. But one good thing about solar when compared to fossil fuels is that the fuel source itself (sunlight) is for all intents and purposes free, endless, domestic, and the conversion process is eco-friendly, all of which adds value.

But still, there is progress being made with solar on the efficiency front... see "Concentrated Photovoltaics" (CPV). Moreover, the overall economics of PV are improving year after year, and could be competitive with fossil fuels within the next couple decades.

"It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now"

~Rage Against The Machine

Your type of optimism is part of the reason why science isn't as heavily invested as it should be. People like you only care about what it will cost you despite the short/long term consequences. Mistakes create inventions, after all Edison didn't invent a working light bulb until countless failures. Just because something doesn't work as planned doesn't mean you throw in the towel and condemn the science.

The clock is ticking until we start running out of energy options. I applaud what these scientists are trying to achieve because it is truly amazing if the theoretical can actually become a reality.

cjks;

Happens the Focus Fusion system uses neither deuterium nor tritium (which have the unfortunate by-products of high-speed neutrons, which irradiate and damage everything nearby). It uses boron and protons, with no neutron output. And needs no steam turbine for its electric output. And it would put out power at 1/10 the cost of the cheapest current sources anywhere.

An advanced country such as Japan, with few natural resources of its own, would have no interest in stifling promising solar/geothermal/whatever energy technology, so I have never believed that conspiracy theory.

Solar is a waste of real estate and resources.

As I mention above, Focus Fusion will cost 5¢ a watt, and sell for under 0.5¢/kwh. Solar and all other renewables will be scrapped, not worth the materials they're made of.

Viable "clean energy" is not developing at all, there is no such animal. Solar is not on demand cheap portable energy source, same with wind etc. Electric has to be produced, which requires a cheap portable energy source. Geothermal and hydro is not necessarily placed where it can be tapped. You can not grow enough biomass to replace (or supplement) conventional fuel sources even after you consider replacing food crops with fuel crops. Even with fusion you only get more efficient electric, then what do you do about the other needs for portable energy? Batteries do not store enough for long enough and they still need to be made and not "clean" in the disposal part of their life-cycle.

Dennis,, try the " wind up hand operated chargers " if one can not operate those then one does not need " portable power ";-)

For some reason, your link to the news articles was missing. Want to supply that so we can enjoy the story too?

Only if he can remember to do it.

The fate of the planet depends on population levels dropping, that and that alone is the true solution. Less people means less demand and less polution etc. The climate will still continue to fluctuate as it always has but maybe not as fast but every other problem of the human species, including saving biodiversity is solved by less human species.

Imagine if every roof top in America had solar panels, and every home, factory, "big box store", etc., had the ability to feed power back to the grid!

distribution takes care of that problem the the 400 pound gorilla is storage. there is plenty of energy out there to harness but how do you store it in the same volume as a gallon of gas?

JohnUSMC Why Cover Any land mass with PV panels? why not use the Roofs of building that already exist? and also use the High rise building as " wind turbines " why have a limited View?

Or, why not build the solar power arrays in outer space where they can collect unfiltered solar energy 24/7 without worrying about weather. Beam the power collected in space to rectannae on the surface of the planet using microwaves for which clouds are invisible, and feed the power directly into the existing power grid or use it to inexpensively electrolyze sea water to create hydrogen to power vehicles? Use lunar regolith to manufacture the solar power arrays so that there is no need to carry all that weight into orbit. This idea was authored here in the US back in 1969 but is now only seriously being considered by China, Japan, and India.

Stan? So you want to built a " water Container in the Sky " to do what why not allow the water to Fall on the Building, and collect it then, so you will not have to have a long pipe to where you need it? Why collect electricity in Space when it is needed in Your House? Tell me what are the Transmission loses over distance?

Why collect solar energy in space? Just a few of the many benefits:

1. Because the solar flux per square meter is much greater in space than it is on the surface of the earth where too much has been filtered out by the atmosphere.

2. The solar flux at the space-based arrays is constant 24/7 because the inclination of the orbit ensures no day-night cycle, therefore no need to store energy overnight. (Such storage on the surface of the earth would have a horrendous environmental impact.)

3. No interference from clouds or adverse weather to interrupt the process. For the microwaves beamed to the rectannae on the surface of the planet the clouds are invisible.

4. No environmental impact on fragile desert ecosystems and valuable farmlands from locating solar collectors on the surface of the planet. (Solar arrays on the top of all of the buildings on the planet would not come close to generating enough solar energy to meet global needs.)

5. Freely available rare earth metals for making highly efficient solar arrays, together with titanium for the structures, can be mined from lunar regolith instead of on the surface of the earth where they must be lifted out of the earth's deep gravity well. Further, such surface mining on the earth would be far more expensive and possess enormous environmental impacts whereas the use of a solar furnace provides free energy to to that fabrication in space.

Much of the preliminary engineering this was worked out back in 1969-1970 at by a team at Princeton University and later popularized during the 1970s in books by Gerard K. O'Neil and Robert Heppenheimer.

With regard to your question on the efficiencies, I would need to go back to the original Princeton University report, but as I recall they were quite high. Further, the new generations of solar cells requiring rare earth metals are intrinsically far more efficient than what we are now using (60% vs. 15% currently available for instance) but since China currently has cornered the supply of many of these rare metals on the surface of the planet they are not really economically viable for us to use unless we can open fresh new reserves by mining them mining off planet.

Please do.. then come back to me and we take it up, for there. thank you!

At the distance of the earth’s orbit from the sun, an average flux of 1,358 watts of solar energy fills every square meter of space above the earth’s atmosphere. At the earth’s surface, this solar flux is reduced to about 990 watts per square meter. The total amount of power received by the earth from the sun daily works out to about 18,000 terawatts while global energy demand today is only about 9 terawatts.

Unfortunately, this energy flux is not quite as useful as it might at first appear. First, much of this solar flux falls on the oceans that cover roughly three quarters of the surface of the planet. The most efficient commercially available solar power collectors are only 28.5% efficient in producing DC electrical power so a space-based solar collector of this type can harvest only 380 watts of power, and when mounted at the surface of the earth a similar type solar array can harvest no more than about 280 watts of power. These highly efficient solar collector cells rely on expensive semiconductors using Germanium, Gallium Arsenide and Gallium Indium Phosphide, each of which absorbs solar energy at specific sets of wavelengths.

A new “Quantum Dot” technology promises efficiency increases by making a single-crystal semiconductor containing Copper, Indium and Selenium that might someday deliver an efficiency as high as 63.5%. Unfortunately most of the inexpensive solar collectors used today still employ multi-crystalline silicon that only delivers efficiencies of 10% to 15%. In addition, these ground-based solar panels can only collect solar energy during the daytime and have their efficiencies greatly reduced by cloud cover and low sun angle.

About forty years ago, physicists at Princeton University began designing architectures for a network of space-based solar power satellites that would collect solar energy in the vacuum of outer space and convert this into microwave energy that would have been beamed to ground-based rectannae on the surface of the earth where it could be used to feed the existing electrical power grid or to inexpensively electrolyze sea water to produce inexpensive hydrogen and oxygen for in green fuel cells to power automobiles. Today, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the Pentagon continues to pursue research into the feasibility of using this method to provide inexpensive and reliable electrical for military operations around the world.

Today, the average American home uses a little more than 10 kilowatts at peak demand. If it were possible to convert the solar flux arriving at the earth’s surface into electricity with a 63% efficiency using Quantum-Dot technology, each American home could be powered by a solar array measuring no more that about 25 square meters. A space-based network of solar power satellites might someday provide even greater quantities of solar energy to power the existing electrical power grid or to enable a hydrogen-based energy economy.

Proposals have also been made to blanket the deserts of the southwestern United States with commercial-scale solar power collectors, though at the risk of significant environmental impacts on fragile desert ecosystems. For the moment, in most latitudes outside the southwestern United States, solar power remains a supplemental power source that awaits investment in more efficient technologies and architectures.

With regard to fusion energy that is the subject of this article, I am very enthusiastic that electrostatic confinement fusion in particular is a promising path forward, especially for use in nuclear fusion propulsion systems for interplanetary, and even interstellar travel. I believe that nuclear fusion also will have great potential for power generation on the surface of the earth and on other planetary bodies throughout the solar system. I would very much like to see us move aggressively forward in developing mature technologies for space-based solar power, a new generation of thorium-based nuclear fission power, and nuclear fusion power because all three are very promising technologies that will each contribute to assist us in transforming ourselves into a truly interplanetary species.

" Today, the average American home uses a little more than 10 kilowatts at peak demand. " Take the time and do the math. how many square meters of roof space you have on YOUR house, and then look at the " average " home Most PV panels now on Market are at 16% Conversion " efficiency " is a misnomer eg: if i have enough room to have PV panels that give me, all the power Plus a little More, then that is 100% efficient, with a 16% conversion factor panels.

Now about " Space mounted PV power " the Best Microwave trasmission will have at Least 70 % loss, now add to that the Conversion factor loss from Both ends, the best conversion will have an average of 10% loss so that is 20 + 70 so we are at 90 % loss before we ever start, so then we have 10% from a space PV farm, while NOW we have a 16% from a Home Mounted PV panels, and the added advantage of a HOME mounted PV panels is Dispersed energy provision, that minimizes Brown outs and black outs, eg: Storm 50 miles away 30% of homes lose power but they are connected on the Grid, so YOUR excess power makes up for their loss, so no " Power Outages "

It seems to me that with your math you neglected a few not entirely insignificant little details. First, your house on the surface of the earth is at best only exposed to sunlight during the daytime, and only to maximum illumination during the middle of the day when the sun angles are optimal. Depending on latitude, those sun angles are also significantly impacted during the winter months. Here in Pennsylvania where I live, a significant number of days throughout the year also involve a large amount of cloud cover and thunderstorms and fairly large snow falls during the winter. While there are strategies for storing solar energy by using excess energy during solar peak periods to pump water to higher elevations for release when power is needed at night and on rainy days, this would have a significant environmental impact because there only limited amounts of land available for building such large scale and expensive hydroelectric installations that further lower your overall solar efficiency efficiency.

As an aside, here in Pennsylvania the recent large-scale extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Share formation is providing us with a welcome reprieve in fuel prices until we can fully develop space-based solar power, a new generation of thorium-based fission reactors, and down the road, the kind of fusion-based power plants described in this article. We are also, incidentally, home to Westinghouse Electric Company, the world's largest producer of nuclear power plants, including the new Generation III AP-1000!

Stan, get in touch with your Local University and ask for a PV Efficiency for Your House, as i said earlier " when i get more then 100 % of the electricity i need from PV panels that is 100% Efficient " sure at times i might need to have more panels then other times, but since the PANELS pay for themselves and provide FREE power with No pollution, and as i understand it they are guranteed for on average 25 years, i know of panels that have been operational for well over 40 years, then as stated, we make better use of the " Fusion/fission " Generator known as the SUN, take the time and look at the Facts not the Propaganda.

See My Phtoto album and the Photo " Nuclear power fools paradise "