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http://pesn.com/2009/02/20/9501526_Lawrenceville_Plasma_Physics_funded/
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Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Receives $1.2 Million to Test Hydrogen-Boron Fusion
Eric Lerner's focus fusion project has received funding from The Abell Foundation and individual investors to undertake a two-year experimental project to test its scientific feasibility.
Adapted by Sterling
D. Allan
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Imagine a non-polluting power plant, the size of
a local gas station, that would quietly and safely power 4,000 homes, for a few
tenths of a penny per kilowatt-hour, compared to 4-6 cents/kw-h of coal or
natural-gas-powered plants. One technician could operate two dozen of
these stations remotely. The fuel, widely available, is barely spent in
the clean fusion method, and would only need to be changed annually.
That is what physicist Eric Lerner envisions with his focus fusion technology in
which hydrogen and boron combine into helium, while giving off tremendous
amounts of energy in the process. Hydrogen-boron fuel produces almost no neutrons and allows the direct conversion of energy into electricity.
The size and power output would make it ideal for providing localized power,
reducing transmission losses and large-grid vulnerabilities. The cost and
reliability would make it affordable for developing nations and regions.
We first reported on Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) Inc., a small research and development company based in West Orange, NJ,
back in Nov. 2, 2005. They were the very first technology we at the New
Energy Congress added to out Global Top 100
Clean Energy Technologies listing.
In December, LLP announced that they had received $1.3 million in funding for the initiation of a two-year-long experimental project to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion, controlled nuclear fusion using the Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) device and hydrogen-boron fuel.
The goals of the experiment are first, to confirm the achievement the high temperatures first observed in previous experiments at Texas A&M University; second, to greatly increase the efficiency of energy transfer into the tiny plasmoid where the fusion reactions take place; third, to achieve the high magnetic fields needed for the quantum magnetic field effect which will reduce cooling of the plasma by x-ray emission; and finally, to use pB11 fuel to demonstrate greater fusion energy production than energy fed into the plasma (positive net energy production).
In a phone interview on Feb. 10, Eric Lerner, President of LPP, said that they are under way, renting a facility, hiring two physicists, and ordering equipment.
The experiment will be carried out in an experimental facility in New Jersey using a newly-built dense plasma focus device capable of reaching peak currents of more than 2 mega-amps. This will be the most powerful DPF in North America and the second most powerful in the world. For the millionth of the second that the DPF will be operating during each pulse, its capacitor bank will be supplying about one third as much electricity as all electric generators in the United States.
A small team of three plasma physics will perform the experiments: Eric Lerner; Dr. XinPei Lu and Dr. Krupakar Murali Subramanian. Mr. Lerner has been involved in the development of Focus Fusion for over 20 years. Dr. Lu is currently Professor of Physics at HuaZhong Univ. of Sci. & Tech., Wuhan, China, where he received his PhD in 2001. He has been working in the field of pulsed plasmas for over 14 years and is the inventor of an atmospheric-pressure cold plasma jet. Dr. Subramanian is currently Senior Research Scientist, AtmoPla Dept., and BTU International Inc., in N. Billerica, Massachusetts. He worked for five years on the advanced-fuel Inertial Electrostatic Confinement device at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he received his PhD in 2004 and where he invented new plasma diagnostic instruments.
To help in the design of the capacitor bank, LPP has hired for two months a leading expert in DPF design and experiment, Dr. John Thompson. Dr. Thompson has worked for over twenty years with Maxwell Laboratories and Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation to develop pulsed power devices, including DPFs and diamond switches.
The $1.2 million for the project has been provided by a $500,000 investment from The Abell Foundation, Inc, of Baltimore Maryland and additional investments from a small number of individuals.
The basic technology of LPPs approach is covered by a patent application, which was allowed in full by the US Patent Office in November. LPP expects the patent to be issued shortly.
# # #
SOURCES:
Related Coverage by PESN
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Tragedy Could be Averted - The communications industry
pumps 25% of their revenue back into research. The result? Slim
iPhones and androids and many amazing communications wonders.
Meanwhile, we starve energy research for funds with just 0.3% of the
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- Focus
Fusion poses competition to Tokamak - Purports to be a far more
feasible and profoundly less expensive approach to hot fusion, in
contrast to what the international project (ITER) in France is
pursuing. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics is currently researching and
developing the Plasma Focus Device for hydrogen-boron nuclear fusion.
(PESN; Nov.
2, 2005)
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