Former US Fusion Energy Chief, Senior Researchers Say Start-up’s Fusion Program Merits Much Higher Level of Investment

An independent scientific review indicates that an economical and clean source of fusion energy may soon become reality.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Derek Shannon, Eric Lerner

Tel: 732-356-5900

E-mail: derek@lpphysics.com, eric@lpphysics.com

Dec. 10, 2013 - MIDDLESEX, N.J. -- In a major endorsement of the fusion energy research and development program of start-up Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP), a committee of senior fusion researchers, led by a former head of the US fusion program, has concluded that the innovative effort deserves “a much higher level of investment … based on their considerable progress to date.”  The report concludes that “In the committee’s view [LPP’s] approach to fusion power … is worthy of a considerable expansion of effort.”

Lawrenceville Plasma Physics has been developing an extremely low-cost approach to fusion power based on a device called the dense plasma focus (DPF). In contrast to the giant tokamak machines that have been the recipients of most fusion funding, a DPF can fit in a small room.  LPP’s final feasibility experiments and planned commercial generators will use hydrogen-boron fuel, which produces no radioactive waste and promises extremely economical clean energy.

The committee of researchers was led by Dr. Robert Hirsch, a former director of fusion research for the US Atomic Energy Commission and the Energy Research and Development Agency. Other members of the committee were Dr. Stephen O. Dean, President of Fusion Power Associates and former director of fusion Magnetic Confinement Systems for the Department of Energy; Professor Gerald L. Kulcinski, Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Professor Dennis Papadopoulos, Professor of Physics, University of Maryland.  The committee was organized by Dr. Hirsch at the request of Mr. Alvin Samuels, an investor in LPP’s effort, to give an objective assessment of the program.  Neither Mr. Samuels nor LPP had any control over the committee’s conclusions.

The committee’s report pointed to the “innovative thinking and experimental results achieved thus far by Mr. (Eric J.) Lerner and his team at LPP.”  At the same time, the scientists did not minimize the remaining work that still needs to be done to experimentally validate the predictions of LPP’s theory of DPF functioning and lay the foundation for commercial fusion generators.  Commenting on the report, LPP’s President and Chief Scientist Lerner said, “We agree with the review committee that several of our predictions still need to be proved in the laboratory, which is what we intend to do in the near future.”

The LPP team has stated that, given adequate funding, they can demonstrate in a year or two the scientific feasibility of fusion energy with the DPF and hydrogen-boron fuel, a combination the team calls “Focus Fusion.”  They expect that a working prototype generator can then be developed in a few years more.

The review committee broadly supported that short-term timeframe, concluding: “While a number of near-term physics issues remain to be resolved, it is likely that with adequate financial support these matters could be addressed in a relatively short period of time, e.g. a few years.”  If these issues are addressed, “the committee does not see any fundamental roadblock to power system viability.”  In other words, a functioning, economical and clean new source of energy may soon become reality.

Download the full Review Committee Evaluation here.  While the report is marked proprietary to LPP, we encourage you to share it--Please consider our posting it here as written permission!

Join the discussion of this news release at the Focus Fusion Society.

Italian physicist analyses Focus Fusion, sees promise

This story is part of LPP's November 4th, 2013 newsletter, available in PDF format here.  Join the discussion at the Focus Fusion Society here.

In a third independent analysis of the prospects for pB11 (hydrogen-boron) fusion with the plasma focus device, University of Genoa researcher Andrea Di Vita reports in the European Journal of Physics that ignition of the fuel should be possible, if there is substantial reflection of x-ray energy back into the plasmoid. Earlier, separate analyses by LPP researchers and Iranian researchers in the Journal of Fusion Energy had concluded that ignition and net energy production would be possible even with no reflection of x-rays. Also, in agreement with LPP work, Di Vita concluded that the injection of angular momentum into the plasma (for example by an externally-applied axial magnetic field, as in FF-1) should aid in achieving ignition.

Di Vita’s report makes clear the reason for the somewhat differing conclusions, although all three analyses agree that pB11 with a plasma focus (what LPP has termed “Focus Fusion”) is a promising line of approach to fusion energy. As Di Vita emphasizes, his analysis is based on certain “empirical scaling laws” that he has derived from the literature. As Di Vita writes, “Admittedly, the relevan[ce] of available scaling laws to our problem is questionable, to say the least. First of all, they are just rule-of thumb descriptions...”  These rules-of-thumb scaling laws differ significantly from the theoretically-derived scaling laws used by LPP, laws which have been significantly confirmed by experiment. For example, Di Vita’s scaling laws do not predict the observed I⁵ scaling of fusion yield, where I is peak current, while the LPP scaling laws do. Similarly, Di Vita’s calculations predict a constant current in the plasmoid or hot spots of about 0.4 MA, while the LPP believes its calculations and theory more accurately predict increasing plasmoid current with increasing peak current.

Following a friendly exchange on different models with LPP’s Lerner, Di Vita offered to predict the results of FF-1’s upcoming experiments with tungsten electrodes. Stay tuned for the exciting outcome!

Laser experiment gives new visibility to pB11 fusion

This story is part of LPP's November 4th, 2013 newsletter, available in PDF format here.  Join the discussion at the Focus Fusion Society here.

While FF-1 is still some steps away from switching to the hydrogen-boron fuel combination known as pB11, other approaches are proving the reality of pB11 fusion, which produces no neutrons in the main reaction and no radioactive waste. In a report published in Nature Communications and summarized in an October news item, a French and American team of researchers announced that they had succeed in increasing the fusion yield in a laser-driven pB11 experiment about 100,000-fold from earlier experiments in 2009. While the yield of about 0.3 millijoules was small compared with the 400 J of laser energy delivered and even smaller compared with the energy needed to drive the lasers, it was a step towards demonstrating the potential for pB11 fusion energy, and the publication in Nature Communications gave some needed visibility to aneutronic fuels.

In the experiment at the École Polytechnique in France, a laser pulse of a few nanoseconds first created a plasma from a solid chunk of boron. Then a much shorter and more intense laser pulse of just a picosecond hit a thin foil sandwich of plastic, aluminum and gold. The interaction of the short laser pulse with the sandwich generated a huge electric field that accelerated a beam of protons from the hydrogen in the plastic toward the boron plasma. When the protons and the boron-11 nuclei (80% of the nuclei in the boron target) collided, fusion reactions occurred.  Instruments then observed the alpha particles (helium nuclei) produced by the reactions.

The density of the plasma in these experiments, at 10²² ions/cm³, was higher than plasma densities yet achieved in FF-1 using deuterium, but the duration of the reactions of one trillionth of a second (10^-12 s) was much shorter than the lifetime of FF-1 plasmoids, some 10 ns (10^-8 s) or so. The 100,000-fold leap in fusion yield, however, is not atypical of the jumps in output that can occur in fusion research.

Pinch timing measures impurities and sparks international project

This story is part of LPP's November 4th, 2013 newsletter, available in PDF format here.  Join the discussion at the Focus Fusion Society here.

Recent research at LPP has shown the great importance of eliminating impurities in the plasma in order to obtain higher densities and fusion yields. These impurities, created by vaporization of the electrode materials, add enough mass to the sheath of plasma that carries the current that it slows its travel down the electrodes and delays the time of the pinch. This pinch is where the current merges together to form the plasmoid. Recent calculations by LPP Chief Scientist Eric Lerner showed that this delay in pinch time, which is very easy to measure, could provide a simple estimate of the amount of impurities. Simply put, the more impurities present, the longer the time to the pinch for a given current and fill-gas pressure.

 A computer simulation of the run-down time using the model of Dr. Sing Lee, one of the pioneers of plasma focus research, is a good way to predict what the time to the pinch will be for a given mass of plasma. By adjusting the “fill pressure” in the model so that the predicted run-down time matches the observed time, we can determine the total mass in the plasma. If we then subtract the actual fill pressure of deuterium from the pressure in the model, we get a measure of the mass of impurities.

 For FF-1, this exercise indicates impurity mass that is 50-70% of the mass of the deuterium, comparable with estimates made from spectroscopy and other methods. Significantly, the difference between predicted and observed time-to-pinch started to occur back in March 2010, when the first evidence of the “early beam” phenomenon showed up. This early beam was later identified as the signal that part of the current was not merging into the plasmoid, greatly reducing density and fusion yield. In fact the “short pulses”, which we now understand were those without large impurities, had ten times the fusion yields of the “long pulses” which did have impurities.

What caused the impurities to suddenly turn up? At that time, improvements in switch functioning were increasing FF-1’s current. When current density (current per unit area) passed a critical threshold, around 2 MA/cm², electrode evaporation started to occur, releasing the impurities.

These measurements are so easy to do and to analyze that they can be done on any plasma focus device. Last month, Lerner circulated the proposal that other groups duplicate these measurements to the members of the International Center for Dense Magnetized Plasmas, an international group of plasma focus researchers. Initial reaction was very favorable, and new results should be emerging in the coming months. It will be very interesting to see if there is the same critical current density separating the machines with impurities from those without and if there is the same large difference in fusion yield.

Tungsten passes erosion, first thermal shock tests

This story is part of LPP's November 4th, 2013 newsletter, available in PDF format here.  Join the discussion at the Focus Fusion Society here.

New laboratory tests on the existing tungsten plate in FF-1’s cathode (outer electrode) have increased LPP researchers’ confidence that the planned all-tungsten electrodes will both cure the impurity problem and survive many shots. In the first test, the LPP team measured how much erosion had occurred on the tips of the tungsten teeth where the current starts to flow. These tips suffer from the highest erosion of any parts of the cathode, because of the high concentration of current to which they are exposed. The team compared enlargements of photographs of the tip of the teeth taken when the plate was first installed in November, 2012, with photographs taken this month, after some 340 shots had been fired.

As seen in Figure 1, the tip started out with a 400-micron radius curve. After the 340 shots, the curve remained the same, within the estimated 15-micron accuracy of our measurements. Since any erosion would have flattened the curve, the same way wear blunts a knife-edge, the erosion is estimated at 15 microns or less. Photos of several different teeth failed to show any measurable erosion. If erosion from the anode is approximately as great, an upper limit on total impurity from the tungsten amounts to only about one tungsten ion for every 8,000 deuterium ions, well within the limits that LPP has calculated will be acceptable and have no significant effect on the plasma’s properties. By contrast, the present silver-plated copper electrodes erode so rapidly that there is about one impurity ion for every 50-70 deuterium ions. So the tungsten electrode is expected to lead to a 100-fold drop in impurity levels.

Figure 1: At left, a tungsten tooth in November, 2012; at right, a tooth in October 2013

A second test was to see if the tungsten plate suffered small-scale microcracks due to the thermal shock of being heated suddenly by the plasma. To increase the total energy that the tungsten was exposed to, the LPP team attached four more capacitors to the FF-1 circuit, bringing it back up to the maximum of 12 capacitors. We fired four shots at 35 kV and then disassembled the electrodes. We observed no microcracking. Others’ research with tungsten has shown that microcracking either starts in the first few shots, or is postponed for several hundred shots. So this test is also encouraging. However, we will soon do another round of tests at 40 kV, close to the 45 kV maximum power of FF-1.

We have now received a bid on the manufacture of our tungsten electrodes, so we expect to have them in hand by February, 2014, assuming adequate finances.

Motherboard features LPP’s role in fusion race

This story is part of LPP's November 4th, 2013 newsletter, available in PDF format here.  Join the discussion at the Focus Fusion Society here.

LPP's Focus Fusion research has been featured in an article by Sam Roudman for Motherboard, which declares that "The Nuclear Fusion Arms Race is Underway."  Time's Newsfeed noted the story as some of the day's most fascinating news.  The article also featured input from NextBigFuture's Brian Wang, who has been consistently covering Focus Fusion and other innovative fusion approaches for many years:

Despite scant funds, the potential economics of LPP reactors make them more appealing than other approaches.

“If you have another clean way to produce [energy] at 2 to 10 cents per Kw/Hr, the world does not change,” says Brian Wang. In that range, the fusion energy would be cost competitive with other renewables, as [well] as fossil fuels.  But it would not be cheap enough to prevent investment in new capacity for dirty energy.  New coal plants and oil refineries would continue to be built. “Only [with] LPP, if they can get it down to .1 cent per Kw/Hr does the world change.”

Check out our Media section for other news coverage of Focus Fusion.

Open letter on fusion

We, the undersigned scientists, urge that the United States, the European Union and Japan fund a much broader fusion energy research effort, expanding the program to include a large number of promising devices and fusion fuels in order to maximize the chances of getting economical fusion power as soon as possible.

 The present international fusion effort is focused almost exclusively on a single device, the tokamak, and a single version of that device, the ITER experiment. We believe that near-exclusive focus is a mistake. We do not yet know if ITER will lead to an economical fusion generator. We do not yet know which of the many fusion devices now being researched will work, which will be fastest to achieve or which will produce the most economical energy. So a focus on a single experiment is not the surest and fastest way to fusion power.

There are now many fusion devices, both other approaches to tokamaks, and entirely different devices, funded primarily by private companies, universities or other governments, that have produced very promising results. All of them are either cheaper or faster to develop than ITER, or promise more economical power generation, or both.  In addition, there are fusion fuels other than the deuterium-tritium fuel to be used in ITER. Aneutronic fuels, such as hydrogen-boron, which produce no neutrons, could potentially produce energy cheaper than any existing energy source and have other advantages in safety and materials. In some ways these fuels are more challenging, but we do not yet know if they or DT fuels are the fastest overall route to commercial generators.

The benefits of achieving practical fusion power generation are immense. Such an energy source would eliminate the threat of climate change as well as the many environmental drawbacks of other energy sources. Fusion power could ultimately save trillions of dollars in energy and environmental costs. By contrast, an increase of fusion research funding to include alternative devices and fuels would cost only an additional $300 million per year—30 cents per year per person. This is a tiny amount of money considering the benefits.

We therefore strongly urge the US Congress and the European and Japanese parliaments to immediately hold hearings on the direction of the international  fusion program, looking at the wisdom of a much broader-based program. Such hearings could be the first step to legislation allocating an additional at least $300 million per year to research on alternative fusion approaches, devices and fuels.

To sign this letter, please send your name and institutional affiliation to us at lpp@lpphysics.com with a note saying you want to sign this letter (with “sign fusion petition” as the subject). When we have 100 signatures from scientists, we will seek to publish this letter prominently. If you are not a scientist and want to sign, please send us a note, too. We will have a separate list of non-scientist supporters.

Scientist Signers (institutions for identification only) :

Eric Lerner, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (USA)

Pavel Kubes, Czech Technical University Prague

Alireza Talebitaher, National Technical University Singapore

Alain Bernard, French Atomic Commission (ret.)

Igor Garkusha, Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology

Helmut Schmidt, University of Stuttgart, (ret.)

Marek Sadowski, Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (Poland)

Pawel Nadvowski, Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (Poland)

Alexander Blagoev, Sofia University

Wlodzimier Stepniewski, Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (Poland)

Ryazawd Miklaszewska, Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion (Poland)

Vyaeheslav Krayz, Kurchatov Institute, Moscow

Ondres Sila, Czech Technical University

Jiri Kortanek, Czech Technical University

Jakub Cikhardt, Czech Technical University

Balzhima Batobolotova, Czech Technical University

Karel Kolacek, Czech Institute of Plasma Physics

Tomas Lindén, Helsinki Institute of Physics

Ron Balsys, School of Engineering & Technology, Central Queensland University

Maurizio Samuelli, Italian National. Agency for New Technology

This update is part of the September 23rd, 2013 Focus Fusion progress report.  Download the full report in PDF format here, for the following additional updates:

• Open letter for fusion funding gains support
• LPP and FFS begin planning for crowdfunding effort
• Design of monolithic tungsten cathode finalized—to cure impurities
• LPP participates in Plasma 2013 conference, releases database

Join the discussion of this report on the Focus Fusion Society forums.

Spectra confirm metal impurities in FF-1 plasma

Our research team believes that the main problem impeding higher density and yields in LPP’s FF-1 device is metal impurities in the plasma. We have estimated the level of these impurities in various ways, but have not until now actually measured them. Now, thanks to a new optical-UV spectrometer from Ocean Optics, we have measured the impurities and confirmed what they are and their amounts. This important step forward was taken with the able help of summer Research Associate Kyle Lindheimer, a student at Penn State University, under the direction of LPP Lab Director Derek Shannon.

With an optical spectrum, elements can be identified by the characteristic wavelength of light they emit in concentrated “lines” that show up as peaks in the spectrum.

Figure 1.  In this spectrum, recorded on Sept. 11, 2013, the X-axis is the wavelength of light in nanometers while the Y-axis shows relative intensity. The tallest peaks are identified as those of deuterium, the main fill gas. The second largest peaks are silver, and the smallest ones are copper. While we need to and will obtain additional spectra, current calculations from the relative strength of these lines (area under the peaks) indicates that about 2% of the ions in our plasma are silver and perhaps 0.5% are copper. Since silver ions are 54 times as massive as deuterium ions, as much as half the total mass of the plasma may be silver. This is consistent with earlier simulations that showed the plasma sheath moving much slower than anticipated. This is also more than enough silver to disrupt the plasma filaments and prevent higher density plasmoids and more fusion yield. Our solution is to eliminate the silver and copper in the electrodes and replace them with tungsten.

Figure 2. Doing the twist: A recent photo of the pinch in our FF-1 device gives some of the clearest evidence yet for the kinking that forms the plasmoid (bright central spot). See the spiral-staircase (helical) patterns above and below the plasmoid, where the current filaments kink up.

In keeping with its policy for making public its scientific research, either through publication or patent applications, LPP has made publically available a complete data base of the experimental results from its FF-1 device from 2009 to mid-2013. The data base contains data from as many as ten instruments for each of more than 1800 shots. We invite scientists wanting to access this unprecedented body of data from a dense plasma focus device to contact us at data@lpphysics.com. We ask that all those downloading this database share their analyses with LPP, publish their results and of course cite our work accordingly.

Summary:

• LPP at Google Solve for X Fusion Brainstorming conference—still leading the field
• Moving the goal posts closer: quantum “herding” may allow net energy with not-quite-so-high density
• Monolithic cathode planned to achieve plasma purity, higher density

LPP leads the field at Google Solve for X Fusion Brainstorming conference

On June 11, 2013, LPP participated in Google’s Solve For <X> Fusion Brainstorming Conference in Mountainside, California.  Solve For <X> encourages projects to solve the toughest technological challenges of our day.  The participants were scientists from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. and three other leading fusion energy research companies: Tri-Alpha Corporation, General Fusion, and a project supported by giant multinational Lockheed-Martin.  Teams of three presenters from each participating company were joined by a panel of nine fusion experts from top academic and national fusion laboratories: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, MIT, the University of Wisconsin, and UCLA. The presentation has been posted  at solveforx.com here.

See full report

Our latest round of experiments have convinced us that we will not be able to achieve the level of purity in the plasma we need for high density as long as we have joints between metal pieces in the cathode. Even with our very careful use of indium, sufficient contact resistance remains to cause significant vaporization of copper. So, despite the additional expense involved, we have decided to upgrade the cathode to a single monolithic piece of tungsten. This single piece will incorporate the cathode plate, the cathode rods and the underlying plate that attaches to the transmission plates that carry the current back to the capacitors. Thus the plate will only have a current connection outside the vacuum chamber. Both our experimental experience and materials theory indicates that vaporization from the tungsten itself should be minimized, and should fall well below the requirements we need. As far as we know, such monolithic construction is new for plasma focus device design.

However, a key consideration in the new cathode design is the brittleness of tungsten. Complex tungsten pieces like ours are formed by sintering—pressing together tungsten powder. This process does not give the tungsten its full strength and makes it vulnerable to sudden impacts. When the current flows through the electrode, the magnetic field will force the cathode outwards while it pinches the anode inwards. So we have to design the new cathode to withstand repetitive sudden stresses of this sort.  On possible design involves replacing the rods with vanes that will be much more resistant to stresses, as shown here.

One of our student research associates this summer, Arya Ghaseminejad, is helping to prepare various design alternatives. These will be tested with CAD simulations with the help of LPP Board of Advisor member Rudy Fritsch.  In this way we can ensure in advance that a new and more expensive monolithic cathode will also be long-lasting.

In order to measure in real time the amount of metal impurities in the plasma, we have purchased a digital UV spectrometer. From the ratios of the strengths of the bright lines produces by deuterium and by the metals we should be able to calculate the impurity levels for each shot.  Our other student research associate, Kyle Lindhiemer, will be calibrating this spectrometer and we will probably be doing some shots with the old cathode to get a baseline comparison for our monolithic model.

This news item was part of LPP's July 15th, 2013 Focus Fusion report.  See full report.

Increasing the density of the plasmoid is the “long pole” in our fusion tent—what we need to do to get to net energy production. We know we must increase density a long way from our current results. But now it seems the goal post have moved somewhat nearer. New theoretical calculations indicate that an effect that was left out of previous calculation increases the fusion reaction rate at high magnetic fields and thus requires only about one third the plasma density we previously calculated. This reduces the improvement needed in density from about 10,000-fold to about 3,000-fold.

The new calculation is again based on the quantum magnetic field effect that LPP Chief Scientist Eric Lerner first applied to the dense plasma focus in 2003. This effect causes ions—nuclei—moving in extremely strong magnetic fields to transfer energy slowly to electrons.  Back in 2003, we realized that this would keep the electrons cooler, so they would radiate less x-ray energy, making it easier to achieve the extremely high temperature needed for hydrogen-boron fusion. But until recently, we overlooked another beneficial effect.

In a typical plasma at low magnetic field, the nuclei move almost randomly on the microscopic level, so when two nuclei collide only about one third of their energy is directed along the line that connects them. But recently, we realized that at very high magnetic fields, the situation is different. The nuclei in that case are moving almost exactly along the direction of the magnetic fields. So when they collide head-on, their full energy goes into the collision. Since the fusion reaction rate rise with energy, up to a very high energy, the more-head on collisions speed up the reactions for a given density. Equally, they allow the same reaction rate at a lower plasma density.

The reason this alignment along the magnetic field line happens at very high magnetic fields is because the quantum magnetic field effect operates only for ions moving in the same direction as the electrons—along the field lines. If the ions randomly move across the field lines, they lose energy much more rapidly to the electrons, forcing the ions back onto the field lines. Thus the electrons, through the quantum effect, act as sheep dogs, herding the ions in the magnetic field direction, where they collide with each other head-on.

The result is to allow us to reach net energy production with somewhat less demanding density conditions—making our path shorter and easier. We’ll be publishing a paper on this in the coming months.

This news item was part of LPP's July 15th, 2013 Focus Fusion report.  See full report.

LPP and Focus Fusion Society will, in the next few months, be initiating a major crowd-funding project to help fund our work to achieve inexpensive, clean, eco-safe and abundant energy. We need volunteers to help us teach the world about this great project. We need YOU!

We have come a long way in the past few years and many of you have contributed a great deal of time and energy. Our private investors have been crucial to our progress, and we can't thank them enough for getting us this far. Completing the demonstration of the scientific feasibility of our focus fusion approach—getting more energy out than we put in-- requires a new approach to funding.

Our fusion research is now the closest of any in the world to achieving aneutronic fusion--fusion with no radioactive waste. (See our presentation at Google’s Solve for X Fusion Brainstorming Conference and a longer presentation last year). Our scientific peers see this work as important—our paper announcing record-breaking results was the most read of the last year in the field’s leading journal. But, despite this progress, we need more resources to achieve net energy in a year.

This is your chance to personally make a difference in the future of energy and power production. By pursuing a crowd-funding project, we will be injecting additional funding into the final milestones of the work being done. We will also spread the word to a larger group of people interested in funding the research needed for safe, clean, abundant and inexpensive energy.

With your help on this project, we hope to teach hundreds of thousands of people around the world about aneutronic fusion.  To help us launch this project, we need to figure out who wants to help and how you wish to volunteer your talents. Your ideas are important and we need to hear from you. And we need you to start spreading the word NOW to get others involved—starting with just two or three people you know and re-posting this announcement.

Right now we need people to help with videos, educational articles, blogs and stories and, above all, in getting the word out to hundreds of websites and thousands of people who care about the impact of clean energy on the environment, for ending world poverty, for peace and for the future of all of us.

If you can help, tell us what you can do to teach others, email us at Lpp@lpphysics.com 

To join a discussion click here.

We will have more announcements as details come together.

Thanks, and stay tuned!

By Eric Lerner

On June 11, 2013, LPP participated in Google’s Solve For   Fusion Brainstorming Conference in Mountainside, California.  Solve For    encourages projects to solve the toughest technological challenges of our day.  The participants were scientists from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. and three other leading fusion energy research companies: Tri-Alpha Corporation, General Fusion, and a project supported by giant multinational Lockheed-Martin.  Teams of three presenters from each participating company were joined by a panel of nine fusion experts from top academic and national fusion laboratories: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, MIT, the University of Wisconsin, and UCLA. The presentation has been posted  at solveforx.com website here.

The reports given by the participants confirmed that, at the moment, LPP has achieved the best fusion results by far.  LPP reported a density-time-temperature product over 2,000 times higher than that of Tri-Alpha, despite Tri-Alpha’s much larger, 150-person research team.  Both of the other efforts are at considerably earlier stages of development.  Professor Masaaki Yamada of Princeton commented on the great progress LPP had made since Dr. Yamada had last looked at the project after LPP’s 2007 presentation at Google Tech Talks.  In particular, LPP’s results with confined plasma temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, reported last year in the leading journal Physics of Plasmas, were far higher than the 6 million degrees reported by the Tri-Alpha team.

Two proposals emerged with broad support out of a lively discussion of the direction of fusion research.  One was to draft an open letter to the US Congress urging that the US fusion energy research effort be expanded to include alternatives to the now almost-exclusive focus on the ITER tokamak project.  Participants were united in their views that the present fusion program is too narrowly based.  A draft of this letter is now being circulated for comments and finalization. A second proposal was some form of joint collaboration on simulation and data analysis.  Participants made no firm decisions, but agreed to carry on further discussion about these and other proposals for action.

There was also a good exchange of views covering the benefits and challenges of aneutronic fusion. Both LPP and Tri-Alpha are aiming for fusion with aneutronic fuels that produce no neutrons, and thus no nuclear waste.  LPP’s President and Chief Scientist, Eric J. Lerner, pointed out in his presentation that aneutronic fuels also could potentially be much cheaper than any existing energy sources, as energy could be converted directly into electricity, avoiding the cost of steam turbines and generators usually used for conversion.  Other scientists agreed that eliminating neutrons from the main reaction would greatly simplify materials problems encountered using neutron-reducing fusion fuels like deuterium-tritium.  Neutrons tend to destroy the materials that a DT reactor is made of, and aneutronic fuels avoid this problem.  On the other hand, aneutronic fuels require higher temperatures than DT does.  The event was a great opportunity to see the progress in fusion research, and an important step forward in beginning cooperative actions.

This news item was part of LPP's July 15th, 2013 Focus Fusion report.  See full report.

I have to report with deep sorrow the death on Sunday, July 28 of my colleague and friend, Dr. John Guillory. The cause was cancer. John had helped LPP’s focus fusion effort mightily over the years with his theoretical insights, especially with our ongoing effort to simulate the functioning of the plasma focus device. He will be greatly missed by many.

John Guillory was one of those very rare individuals who was able to excel in both science and the arts, being an excellent plasma physicist and a talented and active musician as well. Few people indeed can leave behind them, as John has, a body of work including over 100 physics publications, more than 30 musical compositions and 20 scholarly works on the history of music. John was Senior Contract Professor (and then Professor Emeritus) in the School of Computational Sciences at George Mason University.  In 1974, he founded Musical Antiqua, an ensemble that performs music of the Renaissance and Middle Ages. He served as director, musicologist, producer and performer with the group until he retired in 1999. He was also director of the Duke of Berry Ensemble, director of the Cor d'Hier Ensemble, and president of the Washington Early Music Society. He had an extensive collection of replicas of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments, and was known for his demonstrations of these instruments. He also performed with the Story Minstrels, a quartet of musicians who visit schools to present period stories and music.

John received a B.A. in Physics at Rice University (Phi Beta Kappa, honors) and a Ph.D. in Physics at University of California, Berkeley. He was active in plasma physics research for forty years, and became one of the leading experts in the study of ion and electron beams.  This is a field that has extensive applications in astrophysics, as vast beams of particles are emitted from stars during their formation, and from the centers of galaxies. Beams also have particular relevance to the dense plasma focus device. Last  year John was immensely helpful to our efforts to improve our theory of how beams help to heat the tiny plasmoid where fusion reactions occur in the plasma focus.   He studied theoretically the many instabilities that plasmas are capable of, instabilities that have contributed to the formation of stars and galaxies and that here on earth are central to the effort to develop fusion energy.

John also became one of the leading experts in the extremely complex field of computer simulation of plasmas. He developed the “snapshot” technique for multistage plasma simulations.  This was a very clever way to simulate plasma processes that went on at very different time scales. Beginning in 2008, he was the key physicist in LPP’s effort to simulate our device, first in collaboration with his former graduate student Dave Rose and later with LPP’s contract computer scientist, Dr. Warwick Dumas. In this still ongoing process, John developed an original theory of the initiation of filamentation in plasma, and, working with me, helped to uncover some errors even in the “bible” of plasma physics, the Naval Research Laboratory’s Plasma Formulary. The initial simulations developed in this work have already led to significant re-designs of FF-1’s electrodes and, we believe, improvements in its performance.

In this work with us, John showed his immense strengths as a physicist and teacher. He combined a deep understanding of the physical processes that mathematical formulae describe, a great facility with math and a thorough knowledge of computer simulation methods. That combination was invaluable in working with Warwick, whose background is in math and computer science. While Warwick would often zoom far head of John and myself in developing computational schemes, he needed to be brought up to speed on many of our physics problems, and John was able to do that with a clarity and depth that was a pleasure to see.

I first met John a decade ago, through our mutual interest in problems of cosmology, and have worked intensively with him over the past five years. He was not only an immense pleasure to work with; he was a man of extraordinary equanimity.  Even when confronted with his own imminent death from a painful disease, he seemed to never lose his internal balance. When I last talked to him on his 73rd birthday, two weeks before he died, he described with enthusiasm his “Bastille Day” party the day before, celebrating the fall of, as he said, “that thieving French monarchy”. Despite his increasing pain, he was able to participate in the music-making of the party. He told me then that he had little time left but said that he was satisfied with and proud of the work that he had done in physics and in music. He had every right to be proud—and the work and the memories he has left with those who have known him will live on. While it will become more difficult without his help, we here at LPP will carry on with the simulation work he so ably advanced. John wanted that and at the end wished us all success.

For those who want to learn more about John, we expect to be posting a list of his publications and compositions in the near future.

-By Eric Lerner

Summary:

• Plasmoid density triples, fusion energy rises with purer plasma
• But not pure enough—LPP tracks down what disrupted the filaments
• LPP has new paper for Spain conference
• US Department of Commerce finds all in order with LPP-Iran Scientific “Fusion for Peace” Collaboration
• LPP has rendezvous with Chu as Congress sets eye on ITER costs

Plasmoid density triples, fusion energy rises with purer plasma 

The density of the fusion-producing plasmoid is the key factor that must be increased for LPP to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of net energy production from Focus Fusion—net energy meaning more energy out than is lost in making that energy.  In the past month’s experiments, LPP’s research team has demonstrated the near-tripling of ion density in the plasmoid to 8x10¹⁹ ions/cc, or 0.27 mg/cc. At the same time, fusion energy output has moved up, with the best three-shot average increasing 50% to one sixth of a joule of energy. These results are not flukes, but part of an upward trend in density and energy since late February (see Figure 1), as the team reduced leaks in the vacuum chamber by over a hundred-fold. This reduced impurities entering the plasma from insulating oxide layers on the electrodes, thus improving the compression of the plasma.  In addition, at the end of March, LPP’s Derek Shannon refurbished the switches on FF-1, replacing worn plastic insulation, thus allowing the switches to fire in closer coordination.

The greater increase in density than fusion energy is expected, because as compression improves and the plasmoid gets smaller, its lifetime also decreases. So while density improves roughly as 1/r³, where r is radius, lifetime decreases proportional to r and energy output increases roughly as the product of the two, or 1/r².

The higher density was determined by combining measurements of the total fusion energy and ion temperature derived from our neutron detectors, and measurements of plasmoid size from our ICCD-camera images. The LPP team has moved the camera to a new position, looking up close to the axis of the electrodes instead of side-on as previously (see next section). Our very first image from this direction (Figure 2) shows our smallest plasmoid yet observed with a core radius of only150 microns and core length of about 1.5 mm.

Summary:

• LPP’s paper ranked #1 most- read in 2012 by the leading journal Physics of Plasmas
• Ion beam peak power jumps four-fold to almost 400 GW, a new record
• Compression improves, producing FF-1’s tiniest plasmoid, thanks to dramatic leak reduction

Recently published but not yet mentioned in monthly reports:

• New collaboration begins with Japanese simulation group
• Abell Foundation, LPP, Focus Fusion Society call for Senate hearings on US fusion program; letter-writing campaign begins

LPP’s 150-keV confinement breakthrough was the most-read article in 2012 among plasma physicists

On March 6, Physics of Plasmas, the leading international journal for fusion scientists, released a “ Listing of the Most Read Articles in 2012 Published in Physics of Plasmas”. The number one article, most read out of the thousand published by the journal, was not from a giant national laboratory nor a large university group. No, it was “Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus plasmoid”, from LPP’s small team:  Eric J. Lerner, S. Krupakar Murali, Derek Shannon, Aaron Blake and Fred Van Roessel. The paper described the confinement in a tiny plasmoid of ions  at a temperature of 1.8 billion ºC for  tens of nanoseconds, representing two of three conditions needed to produce net energy from hydrogen-boron fusion.  We had already known that this achievement was widely discussed among our fellow physicists. But this announcement shows that our peers considered this among the most interesting developments in the field during the past year, the one most worth their time to read. Better yet, with all those skeptical physicists reading our work, not one has sent us any criticism or correction. Many have offered congratulations and encouragement.

See the full report here.

Over the past few months, LPP’s experimental team has been trying to improve the symmetry of the compression that creates the plasmoid, so that the plasmoid will become smaller and denser. Higher density will make the fusion fuel burn faster and produce more energy output. Up until now, the core of our plasmoids, which are shaped like the sugar glaze on a doughnut, was no smaller than 300 microns in radius. Although this sounds pretty tiny, our goal was to get it down to 50 microns radius, with much higher density. We know that this is possible, as other researchers using similar plasma focus devices have observed and measured plasmoids this small. We also know that other researchers have achieved ion densities up to a few thousand times higher than what we have achieved, (hundreds of milligrams/cc vs our 0.1 milligram/cc) so we know that this too is possible.

A few shots after we got a record beam, on shot 7 of February 28, we also imaged our smallest plasmoid yet, shown in Figure 2, with a core radius of only 200 microns.  This image was taken several ns before the point of maximum compression, so the plasmoid has not fully formed and the smallest radius is probably somewhat smaller than 200 microns. The plasmoid core is seen forming at the narrowest “waist” of the pinch column, before the current has twisted itself up into the fully formed plasmoid. Like the “Big Beam,” we interpret this smaller plasmoid as the result of improved symmetry in our compression, due to our progress with the vacuum system.

Leaks squeezed down by 100-fold

When 2013 began, FF-1 was beset by persistent leaks.   These leaks were allowing oxygen to be present during our shots, so that the copper on the anode was rapidly oxidized in uneven patterns. Since copper oxide is an insulator, the current filaments had to cut through this oxide layer to reach the copper below.  In the process the filaments would wander around, getting closer to each other in some places and farther in others.  This in turn led to asymmetric compression and the “early beam” phenomenon, where energy would be released in filament collisions before compression was complete.

By early March, with the help of consultants and investors, LPP Chief Scientist Lerner and Lab Coordinator Derek Shannon had cut the leak down from 30 milliTorr/min at the beginning of January to only 0.3 milliTorr/min, by the beginning of March. First we got help from our new consultant, Brian Bures, who has had years of experience with small plasma focus devices. Then, we used an idea suggested earlier by LPP investor Rudy Frisch, who is a mechanical engineer. He suggested putting a Teflon restraining ring around the rubber O-ring that seals to the anode, forcing it to have a good seal when it is compressed. That got us a good seal before we fired, but a large leak re-opened after the first shot.

Another investor, Walter Rowntree, came to the rescue by acquiring on LPP’s behalf a Residual Gas Analyzer, a sensitive instrument that analyses and identifies the gas in the chamber. Using the new RGA, Shannon rapidly identified the main leak gas as isopropyl alcohol. We had been using the alcohol to check for leaks and it had gotten trapped in a cavity in the anode, bursting out when heated by the current in the anode. Draining the cavity solved the problem.

We are not quite through with leaks as we still have some oxygen in our chamber. But, as with previous engineering challenges such as arcing and high voltage switching, we expect that our growing understanding of the issues will enable us to solve the remaining leaks soon.

The ion beam produced by a plasma focus device will be the primary means of getting electric power out of the device. On February 28, while firing Focus Fusion-1 (FF-1), LPP’s experimental plasma focus device, the team observed a record 380 GW peak power in the ion beam. The previous most powerful beam observed had a peak power of 93 GW, so the new beam is a four-fold improvement.  In addition, this was the first beam observed that, at least in part, went all the way down the meter-long drift tube that is attached to the underside of the FF-1 vacuum chamber. It was also the first beam that equaled or exceeded our theoretical predictions. Both the higher peak power and the beam’s more vertical direction are signs of increasing symmetry of the compression that forms the plasmoid, a key goal of LPP’s current efforts.

To give some context for this large power output, the peak input power to FF-1 device from its capacitor bank is currently around 53 GW while the total average electric power used in the United States is 440GW. Indeed, the beam was probably considerably more powerful than the figure we measured, as LPP’s Chief Scientist Eric Lerner calculated that about half the beam spread out beyond the 1-cm wide entrance hole to the drift tube. We believe this is the most powerful beam ever measured from a plasma focus device, although we will have to search the literature more thoroughly to make that claim with certainty.

Of course, the beam only lasted 5-ns, so it and the equally powerful electron beam emitted in the opposite direct carried only about 4 kJ of energy, about 1/15^th of the total energy fed into the electrodes during the much longer 2-microsecond rise-time of the current from the capacitors. To get more energy out of the beam than is put in will require much higher fusion yield than is presently obtained in FF-1. 

Fig. 1 The Big Beam of shot 4, Feb.28 as recorded by the Upper Rogowski coil. (This is actually an integrated signal, as the coil signal is proportional to the rate of change of the current.)

The LPP team measured the ion beam with two Rogowski coils near the top and bottom of the drift tube. When a beam of ions or electrons passes through these coils, a current is induced in them, creating a signal that is stored on an oscilloscope.  Figure 1 shows the signal from the Upper Rogowski coil, close to the plasmoid, with the large beam to the left and a smaller subsequent beam on the right some 35 ns later.  The dips following the beams show a reverse current of electrons drawn along behind the ions.

The height of the integrated Rogowski signal gives the peak current in the beam. The difference in timing between the two Rogowski signals gives the velocity of the beam and thus the energy of its ions—in this case 3MeV (million electron volts), again a new record for FF-1. We can check this energy by comparing the timing of the Rogowski coils with the timing for the signal from an x-ray detector, or photomultiplier tube, that detects when the electron beam hits the anode. Again the result is the exact same energy of 3 Mev. By multiplying the average energy by the peak current of 127 kA, we get the peak beam power of 380 GW.

On March 6, Physics of Plasmas, the leading international journal for fusion scientists, released a “ Listing of the Most Read Articles in 2012 Published in Physics of Plasmas”. The number one article, most read out of the thousand published by the journal, was not from a giant national laboratory nor a large university group. No, it was “Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus plasmoid”, from LPP’s small team:  Eric J. Lerner, S. Krupakar Murali, Derek Shannon, Aaron Blake and Fred Van Roessel. The paper described the confinement in a tiny plasmoid of ions  at a temperature of 1.8 billion ºC for  tens of nanoseconds, representing two of three conditions needed to produce net energy from hydrogen-boron fusion.  We had already known that this achievement was widely discussed among our fellow physicists. But this announcement shows that our peers considered this among the most interesting developments in the field during the past year, the one most worth their time to read. Better yet, with all those skeptical physicists reading our work, not one has sent us any criticism or correction. Many have offered congratulations and encouragement.

This interest is validation by our peers of LPP’s own view, expressed in our last report, that we are the leading R&D laboratory for aneutronic, radioactive-waste-free fusion, the only known means that can produce safe, nonpolluting, and unlimited energy at a cost well below that of existing technology.