Interview Dr. Richard Nebel of IEC/Bussard Fusion Project by Sander Olson

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http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/interview-dr-richard-nebel-of.html

May 05, 2009

Interview Dr. Richard Nebel of IEC/Bussard Fusion Project by Sander Olson

EMC2 Fusion is the company that Dr. Richard Nebel is leading to develop IEC/Bussard Fusion. This interview was conducted by Sander Olson as an exclusive for Nextbigfuture.

http://nextbigfuture.com/search/label/iec%20fusion">This site has many articles on IEC fusion and other nuclear fusion efforts.

Question: Could you provide an overview of your nuclear fusion process?

Answer: Our machine is a hybrid machine - part magnetic confinement and part electrostatic. Our approach involves holding plasma together and heating with electrostatic fields. With the parameters that we have put into this device, we have gotten the results that we expected. We are currently using low magnetic fields, and the major issue with this is to what degree it will scale. At this point we don't know the answer to that question.

Question: How is your concept for nuclear fusion different than that of the Government's tokamak project?

Answer: Tokomaks are pure magnetic confinement devices, so the physics on our devices are considerably different than for Tokamaks. The advantage of our system is that high temperatures are not difficult to obtain, but we struggle to get the high densities that magnetic confinement devices do easily. We have disadvantages as well - the things that are difficult for us are easy for them and vice versa. But overall we believe we have a superior concept for several reasons. First, our hybrid system uses PB-11(proton-boron 11) for fuel, which doesn't produce radioactive material. Second, our system is compact, and could be portable enough to be used on ships. Third, this system is cheap to develop and to run - we don't require enormous development budgets like the tokamak does.

Question: How close are you to creating a fusion machine capable of actual energy generation?

Answer: We are hoping to have a net energy production product within six years. It could take longer, but this definitely won't be a 50 year development project.

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Question: When is the earliest that an actual fusion plant based on your concept could be built?

Answer: The project that we hope to have out within the next six years will probably be a demo, which won't have the attendant secondary equipment necessary for electricity generation. Hopefully the demo will demonstrate everything that is needed to put a full-scale working plant into commercial production. So if the concept works we could have a commercial plant operating as early as 2020.

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