[FPSPACE] Latest update on Bussard Fusion Prototype WB7

[LARRY KLAES]

Latest update on Bussard Fusion Prototype WB7

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/latest-update-on-bussard-fusion.html

June 12, 2008

The Emc2 team has been ramping up its tests over the past few months, with 
the aim of using WB-7 to verify Bussard’s WB-6 results. Today, Nebel said 
he’s confident that the answers will be forthcoming, one way or the other.

“We’re fully operational and we’re getting data,” Nebel said. “The machine 
runs like a top. You can just sit there and take data all afternoon.

Nebel may be low-key about the experiment, but he has high hopes for 
Bussard’s Polywell fusion concept. If it works the way Nebel hopes, the 
system could open the way for larger-scale, commercially viable fusion 
reactors and even new types of space propulsion systems.

“We’re looking at power generation with this machine,” Nebel said. “This 
machine is so inexpensive going into the 100-megawatt range that there’s no 
compelling reason for not just doing it. We’re trying to take bigger steps 
than you would with a conventional fusion machine.”

EMC2 built the laboratory and an experiment in nine months. If a working 
scaled up production system could be built in comparable time then the main 
part (not the site preparation and power lines) of any new reactor could be 
produced in 9 months or less.

This site had an article about the space propulsion breakthrough that this 
fusion system would enable if it is successful:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/11/fusion-propulsion-if-bussard-iec-fusion.html