Timothy Birdnow

I'll buy some stock as soon as I get my dividend check from my Cold Fusion investments...

Startup Claims It's on The Way to Providing 'Unlimited' Energy

From the article:

An Australian fusion startup called HB11, a spin-off from the University of New South Wales, claims to have found a way to revolutionize current nuclear fusion technology, potentially laying the groundwork for a new era of power generation — without running the risk of a nuclear meltdown.

The startup's leadership doesn't mince words.

"We are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century," director Warren McKenzie told New Atlas.

In theory — right now it's not much more than a theory — HB11's approach is extremely simplified and significantly cheaper. The technique relies on hydrogen and a boron B-11 isotope — instead of extremely rare and expensive radioactive isotopes such as tritium — and employs a specialized set of lasers to get the reaction going.

Inside a "largely empty metal sphere," fuel pellets of HB-11 isotopes are shot at with two lasers to trigger an "'avalancee' fusion chain reaction," as the company describes it in a statement.

"You could say we're using the hydrogen as a dart, and hoping to hit a boron , and if we hit one, we can start a fusion reaction," McKenzie told New Atlas. "That's the essence of it."

"Creating fusion using temperature is essentially randomly moving atoms around, and hoping they'll hit one another, our approach is much more precise," he added.

The process even skips the "need for a heat exchanger or steam turbine generator" and can feed an electrical flow "almost directly into an existing power grid," according to the company's statement.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:07 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 331 words, total size 3 kb.

1 I love the statement that they will, "fire a laser hoping to hit a boron , and if we hit one, we can start a fusion reaction."

First of all, I would say that their odds of "hitting a boron," by which I assume they mean a boron atom, are about one in several billion. I have no idea why they think that would start an ongoing fusion reaction. Seems to me it would only affect the boron atom they hit. And finally, they don't say how they would contain and control the fusion reaction.

Posted by: Bill H at February 24, 2020 08:56 AM (vMiSr)

2 Cold fusion, eh? Isn't that another term for where stuff sticks together when the temperature is down in single digits? Like in Minnesota in the winter?

At least, that sort of thing actually happens, Bill. I know it's not what the scientific community's been talking about. . . Sorry.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at February 24, 2020 11:59 AM (qzo8l)

3 I saw fusion in action!  There's this hipster restaurant in town and they serve tacos with Thai stuff...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at February 24, 2020 03:02 PM (+wQqK)

4 I don't think that qualifies as "cold" fusion, Tim.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at February 24, 2020 04:36 PM (qzo8l)

5 You didn't taste it Dana! It was made last week, I suspect...

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at February 25, 2020 07:18 AM (Omteu)

6 True. I didn't. Haven't been to town.

I'm beginning to wish I knew how to crash a website. I'd get onto this Mr. Buy Oxycodone's site and wipe it!

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at February 25, 2020 07:15 PM (woo48)

7 Yeah; he's making me mad too. He couldn't be content with posting on older posts or just hitting one or two of the newer ones.  I may have to close comments for a week or two. 

I need to e-mail the administrator but my computer situation is such that I can't do it and I haven't been to work for several months.  I'm going to have to come up with something as soon as time permits.

I thought maybe I could spam HIM but it didn't work out.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at February 26, 2020 07:12 AM (vAUV7)

8 love this soo much! https://eyelashextensionslexingtonky.com

Posted by: Samy Mor at February 03, 2021 08:10 AM (e407W)

Hide Comments | Add Comment