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The Front-Runners In Fusion Energy Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/12/2015 15:14 -0400 Reality     inShare1   Submitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com,Fusion power has been something of a holy grail in the energy field for decades. The idea of harnessing the same energy that powers the sun naturally excites many. At the same time, despite decades of research, fusion energy has yet to come close to being a reality. The only significant practical advance in fusion reactions has been the development of thermonuclear weapons like the hydrogen bomb which, for all intents and purposes, serve the same purpose...

Recent news that Lockheed Martin has made a nuclear fusion breakthrough has come with its fair share of sensational headlines. Claims have been made that it could change the world and forever alter the future of humanity. And for once, those headlines could be accurate, assuming that Lockheed Martin's claims are viable. A compact nuclear fusion reactor, especially one as small as Lockheed Martin is claiming, could change the world as we know it. But before we can get a handle on what such a breakthrough could mean, let's first get a hold of what exactly is being claimed. In...

Science The Future May Be Getting Close to Reality in Vancouver, With D-Wave and General Fusion March 18, 2014, 2:11 PM PDT By Liz Gannes   Vancouver is a land of scenic harbors, tall mountains and startups trying to harness the limits of physics.In town for the TED conference, I had the occasion to visit two such companies yesterday: D-Wave and General Fusion. D-Wave, a quantum computing company, is all about the very cold and the rather tiny. It has built enormous refrigerators that each house a single chip, laced with “qubits” that can be in the superposition of...

Amazon Founder invests in Canadian Fusion Venture August 12, 2011 http://coldfusion3.com/blog/amazon-founder-invests-in-canadian-fusion-venture American billionaire, Jeff Bezos, the man behind Amazon.com has reportedly invested in a Canadian company that is trying to develop a cold fusion process that uses hydrogen and seawater. General Fusion based in Vancouver, British Columbia, reportedly raised $19.5 million in venture capital for the development of a cold fusion or Low Energy Nuclear Reaction process in May. Part of this money apparently came from Bezos’ company Bezos Expeditions. Jeff Bezos The funds will be used to finance the building of a plant to demonstrate General Fusion’s cold...

This is the fusion company that PopSci said might save the world Bring up the prospect of fusion power, and often eyes glaze over. It’s not that it’s not a thrilling prospect--cheap and inexhaustible energy would solve a lot of problems here on planet Earth--but it’s been such a pipe dream for so long that it’s often hard to make people care. But at least one person with a proven track record in recognizing potential when he sees it has taken an interest in a fusion-powered future: Amazon founder and gazillionaire Jeff Bezos has thrown $19.5 million to Canada’s General...

A startup snags funding to start early work on a low-budget test reactor.By Tyler Hamilton General Fusion, a startup in Vancouver, Canada, says it can build a prototype fusion power plant within the next decade and do it for less than a billion dollars. So far, it has raised $13.5 million from public and private investors to help kick-start its ambitious effort.Unlike the $14 billion ITER project under way in France, General Fusion's approach doesn't rely on expensive superconducting magnets--called tokamaks--to contain the superheated plasma necessary to achieve and sustain a fusion reaction. Nor does the company require powerful lasers,...

Two desktop-printer engineers quit their jobs to search for the ultimate source of endless energy: nuclear fusion. Could this highly improbable enterprise actually succeed? The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian. According to a diagram, printed on a single sheet of white paper and affixed...

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.--Nuclear fusion will move from the lab to reality in a few years, a noted venture capitalist says. "Within five years, large companies will start to think about building fusion reactors," Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, said in an interview at the Clean Tech Investor Summit taking place here this week. In three to four years, scientists will demonstrate results that show that fusion has a 60 percent chance of success, he said. If van Lierop were some crazy guy off the street with an old stack of Omni magazines, you could dismiss him....

A picture from the patent filing for what General fusion is trying to build with backing from Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. GF will build a ~3 meter diameter spherical tank filled with liquid metal (lead-lithium mixture). Rams use compressed steam to accelerate pistons to ~50 m/s. Make compression wave in the liquid metal. Microsecond of fusion once per second. Note: This could be considered like a variant of "steam punk nuclear fusion" made real if it works.

Remember the public debate last year over whether the state should raise the gasoline tax or tolls to pay for the rotten roads around here? Well, the debate’s over. There’s been a compromise. We’re going to raise both the tolls and the gasoline tax. Or so says the Mass. Transportation Finance Commission. They haven’t officially come out and said they want higher gas taxes and tolls. First they’re going to have the traditional “public hearings.” Of course it’s all a complete bag job. Just look at the tell-tale phrases in the news stories about the “shocking” conditions of the state’s...