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Published online 28 May 2008 | Nature 453, 577 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453577a
News in Brief
Plug pulled on stellarator fusion project
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The world is crying for more energy to improve the standard of living of people, especially the poor. Yet with the mad soar of oil price (compounded by the exponential increase in green house gases), most nations have no other alternatives but to search for cheaper and cleaner energy. This is precisely where fusion experiments come in, to provide abundant, affordable and abstergent energy for all. It is a good thing that the US Energy Department has decided to cancel the NCSX project, freeing up the funds for a more elaborate international experiment like ITER. I am absolutely sure that with strong determination and perseverance, scientists will eventually tame this wild yet awesome fusion (after several decades of intense research and relentless effort) for the benefit and better future of mankind. (Tan Boon Tee)
DOE is to be congratulated for this great news! Hopefully this signals an end to decades of public research funding by DOE, NASA, and NSF for projects that are based on wishful thinking and these false assumptions: = A = Hydrogen (H) accounts for almost 90% of all atoms inside the Sun, although independent and quantitative measurements [1-3] have directly falsified this claim. = B = H-fusion powers the Sun, but measurements detected only 35% of the number of solar neutrinos that H-fusion would generate [4]. = C = Neutrinos from H-fusion in the Sun magically disappear before reaching DOE detectors [4]. The actual origin, internal composition, source of energy, and operation of the Sun have been determined and reported by others [5,6]. REFERENCES: 1. O. K. Manuel and Golden Hwaung: 1983, "Solar abundance of the elements," Meteoritics 18, p. 209 to 222. http://www.omatumr.com/archive/SolarAbundances.pdf 2. O. Manuel: 1998, "Isotope ratios in Jupiter confirm intra-solar diffusion", Meteoritics and Planetary Science 33, A97, abstract 5011. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/metsoc98/pdf/5011.pdf 3. O. Manuel, M. Pleess, Y. Singh and W. A. Myers: 2005, "Nuclear systematics: Part IV. Neutron-capture cross-sections and solar abundance", J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chemistry, 266, p. 159 to page 163. http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2005/Fk01.pdf 4. Q. R. Ahmad and 177 co-authors: 2002, "Direct evidence for neutrino flavor transformation from neutral-current interactions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory", Physical Review Letters v. 89, 011301 . http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v89/i1/e011301 5. O. Manuel, S. A. Kamat and M. Mozina: 2006, "Isotopes tell origin and operation of the Sun," First Crisis in Cosmology Conference, Monçao, Portugal, AIP Conference Proceedings, vol. 822, page 206 to 225. http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0510001v1 6. O. Manuel, M. Mozina, and H. Ratcliffe: 2006, "On the cosmic nuclear cycle and the similarity of nuclei and stars," J. Fusion Energy 25, 107-114. http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0511051 -Oliver K. Manuel, Emeritus Professor, Nuclear & Space Studies, http://www.omatumr.com/
TTan Boon Tee - Members of the public who cry for more energy and bureaucrats in federal research agencies that squander $$$ billions on institutions that pretend to know all the answers are much alike. Instead of crying for more energy and more research funds, these parties should study this message that Nature recorded in the masses of the 3,000 types of nuclei that make up all visible matter in the universe: http://www.omatumr.com/Data/2000Data.htm - 2000 mass data They will discover, as we did several years ago [1-3], that neutron repulsion contributes to the nuclear energy stored in ordinary nuclei and that neutron-emission driven by repulsive n-n interactions releases a larger fraction of the nuclear rest mass as energy than does nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. REFERENCES: [_1_] Oliver K. Manuel, C. Bolon, A. Katragada and M. Insall, "Attraction and repulsion of nucleons: Sources of stellar energy", J. Fusion Energy 19, 93-98 (2001). http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts/jfeinterbetnuc.pdf [_2_]Oliver K. Manuel, Cynthia Bolon and Max Zhong, "Nuclear systematics: III. The source of solar luminosity", J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 252, 3-7 (2002). http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2001/nuc_sym3.pdf [_3_]Oliver K. Manuel, E. Miller, and A. Katragada, "Neutron repulsion confirmed as energy source", J. Fusion Energy 20, 197-201 (2003). http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2003/jfe-neutronrep.pdfOliver K. Manuel, Emeritus Professor, Nuclear & Space Studies, http://www.omatumr.com/
This closure comes as no surprise after the appeal (1) that saw the historic US withdrawal from the ITER Project. Call it coincidence, but the level-headed and pragmatic US ITER Project Manager, Dr Ned Sauthoff, couldn’t disagree with the simple and ultimate model that I presented him back in May 2006; see also (2). Sustainable fusion is not possible even in principle in our neck of the cosmic woods. The Sun is indeed a fission reactor. We now detect the solar wind of essentially protons and electrons. In the same breeze that blows our way from the corona, why not probe for an equal abundance of electron antineutrinos - the third product of decay of neutrons that are profusely produced in nuclear fission? (1)www.sittampalam.net/ITER.Letters.htm (2)www.sittampalam.net/NaturePreprint.pdf (3)www.sittampalam.net/TheAntineutrinoDebut.htm
I wonder whether its time to have another look at muon-catalysed fusion. It used to be thought that this approach wasn't viable because particle acceleartors weren't efficient enough. The energy costs in creating the muon beam were higher than the energy you got back from the fusion reactions, so that there was no net gain. However over the last decade there have been advances in accelerator physics. The wakefield schemes are past the pion production threshold and I seem to recall reading a few years ago about a scheme which involved bouncing electons of supersonic air jets. This approach wouldn't scale up to TeV ranges but was only a small integer factor away from the pion production threshold although there might be problems with beam collimation (and luminosity). Perhaps its time to see whether any of these new accelerators are efficient enough to allow a net gain from the catalysed fusion reactions? A table-top muon source would also be of interest to the material science community (to do muon spin relaxation studies) independently of whether it was efficient enough to drive a fusion reactor.