Adam Curry's Daily Source Code DSC-758-2008-05-14

I recently listened to an episode of This American Life call "The Great Pool of Money" that sheds some interesting light on the credit woes of recent days. I recommend listening: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Adam:

I am aware of Bussard's work. Like many fusion concepts, at best it is something that will produce power that can compete against available fossil fuel sometime in the distant future.

I have many friends in the fusion research business; the honest ones tell me that they simply love the challenge but have no expectation of producing useful energy within the next 30-50 years. A couple of them have shown me some tongue-in-cheek tee shirts with the slogan "Fusion is the energy of the future, and it always will be."

Think about that for a bit.

However, I LOVE the NuClear suggestion! Once I polish it up, I will send you a link to a new Atomic Show to answer your show.

Rod Adams
Editor, Atomic Insights
Host, The Atomic Show Podcast
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.

PS - I have also made a presentation to Google engineers. You can find it by searching for "Fission is the New Fire".

Why we know less than ever about the world

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/248

a short video by alisa miller on how americans see the world via the news..

hi adam,

since you are interested in new energy solutions and nuclear energy i'd like to bring a different solution to your attention.

you have been trying to re-name nuclear fission to a few different thigs like 'moon juice' , 'new-clear' and fusion to make people think it is a safe, non-polluting way of generating energy.

you were so close when you mentioned 'fusion' but didn't keep going on what nuclear fusion instead of fission is.

fusion, the combining of two parts of a light element, to create a new heavier element, like what happens in the sun ( sun-juice :) generates a lot of energy, the only problem is that at this moment the engineers don't know yet how to control such a process on earth yet. They have been working on this

to combine two nuclei of a light element (such as hydrogen) you need to push them together with a lot of initial energy (they are both plus charged)

now there are different ways to get energy into the nuclei,

one way is to heat them up. they start moving faster and at some stage they will go fast enough to overcome the repelling force and they will hit each other, combine and pump out some extra energy... profit...

the ITER tokamak (think of a hollowed out donut , with a very hot plasma in the middle) is a international multi billion dollar project that tries this. the problem is that plasma is a very dynamic substance that doesn't like to be contained. by definition plasma it is unstable and even a lot of money (a lot of it from DOE) can't make it any less unstable.
http://www.iter.org

Now Dr Robert Bussard (who was a very well know physicists ) has been working on a different way. for the last 11 years with a tiny bit of navy funding he's been using a different technique.

think of a wiffle-ball (he calls it a polywell) with some very strong electro magnets around the outside that try to keep electrons in the middle of the ball. the average location of the electrons will then create a 'negative well' .. they drop in some nuclei which are attracted to the middle of this well.. they speed up and every now and again they will collide fast enough to fuse and expel a bit of extra energy


good things about this bussard poywell-wiffle ball:

- completely safe, seconds after switching it off you can sit on top of it (if it's not too hot :)
- no way of the process going out of control (like the chain reactions in fission)
- you can't build bombs out of them
- the fuel is everywhere. there is enough in the ocean to last us millions of years
- there is no heat-exchanger- > steam- > turbine combination needed with to generate electricity, it produces straight electricity

robert bussard build a few small scale models of the wiffle-ball and ironed out some problems

the last one he made proved the point before they had to shut the project because of lack of funding
(DOD cut back on all reasearch because of the money going into the irak war)

dr bussard made a presentation at the google campus which is available on google video, please watch this

After that Dr. Bussard got some more funding from the navy, he put together a project team and got them started just before he sadly died.

Dr Richard Nebel has picked up the task and is building a new version of this wiffle-ball to confirm the last results. results of the trial of Wiffle Ball 7 WB-7 are due in this August.

I'll keep an eye on this low budget project and will let you know because if this works (And we will know by august) look out for unlimited clean energy that will solve a lot of todays problems
http://www.emc2fusion.org

like:

Stop Greenhouse Effect
Eliminate Acid Rain Sources
Decrease Thermal Pollution Sources
Stop Nuclear Waste Production
Destroy Nuclear Waste Inventory
End Water Shortages Forever
Cheap Fuel Free Electric Power
Clean Low Cost System
Fresh Water From The Sea
Practical Space Flight
Global Economic Stability
Cheap, Clean Thermal/Electric Power Readily Available
Fixed Energy Prices Stabilize Economy
Third World Nations Can Become Economically Viable
Profitable Industrialization Possible
Destroys World Market For Gasoline
Eliminates Effect Of Oil Cartels
Oil States Suffer Drastic Income Losses (audience: laughter - ed.)
Desalinization Plants Allow Irrigation Of Arid Lands
Cheap Water Allows Effective Agriculture
Low Cost Power Stabilizes Industrial Nations
Oil Wars Vanish
Mid-East Stabilized by Economics
do you think this is something anyone would be interested in ?

cheers,
tom


links:

bussard presentation at google campus: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606
bussards research company: http://www.emc2fusion.org/

Twitter coming up in the Netherlands though. We are going to use that channel and the backchannels for our startup company we're working on, WPI (werkplekindex, workplace index). Greetings, Marcel

community podcast about finances ? or podcast abou finances by
journalists not specialized in finances? stupid ideas... but well,
eveyrbody should do what he/she likes.

nukular is not new-clear, such rebardning will not help.

emusic has small choice of musik - you should play some samples of
music available at emusic to convince people using it...

drunken Londoner - alcoholism is huge problem in UK and you Adam shouuldn'jt promote it.

all in all interesting podcast.


--
Comic Strip Blogger .

PS. Adam, have you noticed that Dvorak has saved the best stories about Korea for Twit and on NoAgenda he mentioned only shitty less interesting ones? Oh boy, this Dvorak is a whore that betrays his pimp, i.e. you!