Math student builds fusion reactor at home with help from Claude AI and $2,000

[Rudyduu]

This kid has figured out, and thwarted the sabotage that big oil, and big energy has done to the fusion effort.

He created plasma, only. He didn't create a fusion reactor or get that close to something that produces more energy then it consumes. I don't know why anyone would think a single person with a small budget could create something people have spent billions on where only two tests have produced more energy than they consumed.

Do you have any hard data supporting your claim that "big oil" and "big energy" are actively sabotaging any efforts to advance fusion energy production? Would love to see it if it actually exists.

 

[wiyosaya]

Fusion reactors still generate radioactivity, albeit at a significantly lower level than fission. Which, unfortunately, means that even when they become practical energy sources, environmentalists will still oppose them.

I wish I had your crystal ball. I would win MegaMillions!

Anyway, I would not count on environmentalists of the future opposing commercial Fusion reactors. Commercial fusion reactors are still a long way off, and by that time, the impact from other issues related to climate change (and I know you don't have the same view on climate change that I do, so I'm not engaging in a debate about it) will likely be severe enough that the environmentalists of that future time will see the writing on the wall and relax their objections to commercial Fusion reactors.

 

[Endymio]

...I know you don't have the same view on climate change that I do, so I'm not engaging in a debate about it) [but] the environmentalists of that future time will see the writing on the wall and relax their objections to commercial Fusion reactors....

I'll grit my teeth and respect your wishes on the climate debate. Regarding energy per se, though, the environmental movement's opposition to it long predates climate talk. Here's a quote from famed 1970's environmental icon Paul Ehrlich:

"...giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the moral equivalent of giving an ***** child a machine gun."

The ironic thing is that environmentalists, by killing nuclear power in the 1980s, kept coal-fired plants in operation decades longer. CO2 concerns aside, coal plants emit countless heath-affecting toxins ... as well as releasing more radiation than nuclear plants do, from the uranium and thorium found naturally in coal ash.

 

[hwertz]

Not to nitpick but actually a Tokamak and a Fusor are entirely different designs.

It's kind of surprising too, the Dept. of Energy has spent many billions on Tokamak designs over the years, whereas one group who spend $1-$2 million testing desktop fusor designs (and getting the results they expected up to that point), they estimated they'd need something like $20 million to do a full scale test and see if they could produce significantly more power than it's taking to operate; the money was all earmarked for Tokamaks so they could not get their funds.

 

[wiyosaya]

The ironic thing is that environmentalists, by killing nuclear power in the 1980s, kept coal-fired plants in operation decades longer. CO2 concerns aside, coal plants emit countless heath-affecting toxins ... as well as releasing more radiation than nuclear plants do, from the uranium and thorium found naturally in coal ash.

All I have to say about this is that humanity, in general, does stupid stuff, with good intent (we all know that saying about good intent), without thinking about the consequences and then laments the consequences later. For example, drinking water from lead cups. Few, except perhaps a few indigenous cultures, had the wisdom to ask a question along the lines of "will this be good for the next seven generations" and if their answer was no, then not doing whatever it was.

While I might agree with the environmentalists of the 70's about nuclear power, I do know that there are better designs of nuclear reactors now - at least in the aspect that past issues should have taught the nuclear industry a lesson about what really works and why the failures happened hopefully bringing improvements in design. I don't know whether safer reactors existed then, however, I am reasonably sure that they exist now.

 

[Endymio]

... they estimated they'd need something like $20 million to do a full scale test and see if they could produce significantly more power than it's taking to operate.

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true at all. There are numerous, numerous technical reasons why no fusor will ever reach a Q factor anywhere near unity. It's like claiming that, with a little more work, your turbocharged Mustang can exceed the speed of light.

All I have to say about this is that humanity, in general, does stupid stuff...For example, drinking water from lead cups.

Side issue, but the Romans drank from lead pipes for centuries without ill effects (it is, in what why we call "plumbers" such, after the Latin word for lead) and, even today in places like the Ozarks, people drink water from lakes that lie directly atop massive solid lead outcroppings. It wasn't until the Romans began storing their highly-acidic wine in lead jugs that they began having health effects.

 

[wiyosaya]

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true at all. There are numerous, numerous technical reasons why no fusor will ever reach a Q factor anywhere near unity. It's like claiming that, with a little more work, your turbocharged Mustang can exceed the speed of light.

Mine can!
But seriously, I wonder whatever happened to this - https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html Someone smoking something too strong?

Side issue, but the Romans drank from lead pipes for centuries without ill effects (it is, in what why we call "plumbers" such, after the Latin word for lead) and, even today in places like the Ozarks, people drink water from lakes that lie directly atop massive solid lead outcroppings. It wasn't until the Romans began storing their highly-acidic wine in lead jugs that they began having health effects.

Interesting. From what I have heard, lead pipes develop an internal oxidation, IIRC, that prevents the effects of lead poisoning. At least that is what municipalities that are currently engaged in mitigating the issue say. Its when that oxidation flakes off that the problems occur. Then again, I'm not a plumber. I would think that its the same with the water in the Ozarks - although, it would seem less likely that an oxidation layer would flake off an underlying lead outcropping.

 

[Endymio]

Mine can!
But seriously, I wonder whatever happened to this - https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html Someone smoking something too strong?

That's magnetic confinement, whereas fusors work off electrostatic acceleration.

On (yet another) side note, one of the most exciting recent developments in magnetic-bottle fusion is -- rather than the old approach of preventing all plasma instabilities -- to use an AI model to predict them as they're developing, then counter them reactively.

 

[hwertz]

While I might agree with the environmentalists of the 70's about nuclear power, I do know that there are better designs of nuclear reactors now - at least in the aspect that past issues should have taught the nuclear industry a lesson about what really works and why the failures happened hopefully bringing improvements in design. I don't know whether safer reactors existed then, however, I am reasonably sure that they exist now.

Yeah actually one of the controversies on these older reactors, like the one at Fukashima and here in Iowa at Duane Arnold.. (the one here was finally retired last year... it was averaging several scrams a year for at least the last decade versus the industry average of 0.1 ... ). The General Electric Mark I, designed in the 1970s with first built in the early 1980s. Indeed, the designers recognized design flaws (and had a fix ready for them) as they were going through the approval phase, before a single bit of concrete had been layed for the ones that were in the permitting stages. GE decided they were too far through the approval to allow design changes and at least one of the designers actually quit over it. So even the early flawed designs there were known ways to make them safer.

Indeed modern designs are inherently safe, they use more passive safety systems (I.e. no power or operator control needed, like relying on gravity or evaporation etc.). And the coup de gras, most if not all current designs, the fissionable material is set up so it expands enough as it heats up, that the expansion slows down the fission enough to keep it from heating up even more. The maximum temperature is inherently limited to below the point it's going tohave ameltdown, they're designed so no combination of failures will cause a steam explosion, etc.

 

[Trystian]

I must have missed something. The title says "student builds fusion reactor", yet in the article he admits, "this homemade fusor didn't quite make it to inducing fusion this time, so it doesn't technically emit neutrons".

So there is no fusion, no fusor, and no Bremsstrahlung. Pretty light show though. Farnsworth–Hirsch would be proud.

Some day perhaps...with a new design.

Cheers.

"I keep telling you, stop touching the bare wires." - Albert Einstein's Barber

 

[Endymio]

... it doesn't technically emit neutrons".

So there is no fusion, no fusor, and no Brremsstrahlung.
Some day perhaps...with a new design.

There is a fusor, and there is bremsstrahlung. And even multi-billion dollar tokomaks and laser-confinement reactors don't produce fusion if loaded with ordinary hydrogen. If he loaded it with deuterium, he'd likely get some small amount of flux.

 

[TomVA]

A fusor fuses deuterons -- ionized nuclei -- not electrons. And of hydrogen, not helium. Fusors can and do operate in the 0.02 Torr range. See link:

https://libjournals.unca.edu/ncur/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2356-Garofalo-Aaron-FINAL.pdf#:~:text=The%20low-power%20fusor

The bremsstrahlung glow you see is primarily from the electrons as they collide with ionized nuclei and gaseous impurities in the chamber (less mass, same charge = greater acceleration) -- it is in the x-ray range (an ordinary x-ray tube isn't terribly different from a fusor chamber).

There's also some plasma glow which peaks in the UV. Both follow an ordinary Maxwellian distribution though, which means some visible spectrum light is emitted, and cross-scattering produces more.

Does he have deuterium in the chamber? Assuming it is just a normal gas what they built is a hollow cathode discharge. The ball of plasma in the center of the hollow cathode and a plasma "stream squirting" out the end of the "hollow" is typical of a hollow cathode discharge.

"Stream squirting" is a misnomer unless one actually builds the hollow cathode discharge chamber with gas flow from an orifice at the base of the cathode tube.

I can accept that if one of the things that you can do with such a device is fuse deuterium but that does not change the fact that what the student made was a hollow cathode discharge chamber.

 

[Endymio]

I can accept that if one of the things that you can do with such a device is fuse deuterium but that does not change the fact that what the student made was a hollow cathode discharge chamber.

I'm not quite sure of your objection. A Farnsworth fusor is essentially a (slightly) modified X-ray tube, which is itself just a powerful cathode tube.

 

[only1miller]

We're missing the obvious application of this device.. and that as a convenient excuse to lower the lights when he's got a date in his room. It is college, after all