Don't get your hopes up. The Democratic party is in thrall to the greens, and to them anything that involves atoms is "icky".

Besides, fusion might work, and then where would we be? Cheap energy? That's the LAST thing the greens want.

They could always forbid us to use it here, but sell it to the chinese.

Steven Chu was my undergrad advisor, back when he was a physics professor at Stanford. I think he will be an excellent energy secretary.

First, he is a consummate scientist, with no great interest in politics. Conferences at Davos, yes, but his reputation and career have been built outside of the political realm. He owes no favors, and he is free to gore any sacred cows he chooses. In private conversation, he has been extremely critical about corn ethanol, which is wonderful.

Second, he is apolitical. With respect, he appears to hold the mild liberalism that most educated coast elites have, before they consider politics in a deep way. His integrity as a scientist, and the immunity to spin that statistical literacy bestows, will insure that he has a independent opinion.

With regards to Bussard Fusion - to be blunt, don't get your hopes up. It's not mainstream science, and I personally am deeply skeptical. There are a lot of extremely intelligent plasma physicists in the world, and to think that they would spend decades on a tokamak if something as simple as electrostatic confinement would work beggars belief.

That said, Steven Chu has done a lot of work in atomic confinement, using lasers to trap and cool atoms, so he might be more receptive to Bussard's concept. He has also proved to be a bit of a maverick himself, deftly moving from low-temperature physics to molecular biology. Of all the people who could be energy secretary, Steven Chu probably has the most open mind to other fusion ideas.

My personal take is this - if someone said you could buy a lottery ticket for 10-100 million dollars, with a 1% chance of getting nuclear fusion, would you take it? Yes, absolutely. Given the potentially huge payoff, this is a good gamble to take.

Rough transcript from about 1:01:34:

(asked if he's evaluated Bussard's fusion technology)

“Partly. (chuckle) And, I was discussing with people at Google for, I don’t know, an hour, hour and a half, and it’s continuing, and… let me just say, so far, there’s not enough information, so I can give an evaluation of the probability that it might work, or not. But I’m trying to get more information, I’ve talked to them a little bit.”

My personal take is this - if someone said you could buy a lottery ticket for 10-100 million dollars, with a 1% chance of getting nuclear fusion, would you take it? Yes, absolutely. Given the potentially huge payoff, this is a good gamble to take.

We've spent a lot more and gotten a lot less before, and it looks like we're doing it yet again now with these bailouts!

$100MM to prove or disprove polywell fusion's utility is my kind of corporate welfare (for smart people doing interesting things that MIGHT change the world for the better).

Former student,

First - the Tokamak approach has been a jobs program for physicists.

Second - Tokamaks have an ELM problem. Well known for 20 years. A solution was not even contemplated for ITER. They are adding one but it is an ad hoc after the fact attempt. One that could have been researched on a much smaller machine.

Third - just because main stream physics thinks the idea is a bad one does not make it true. The main stream guys think temperature. Rider who "debunked" the Bussard concept analyzed it on the basis of temperature and a general solution. However, he had some caveats in his analysis (if this can be done ... then it might work). Bussard has attempted to do exactly the thing that would overcome the Rider objections.

Fourth - Art Carlson (a physicist from Europe) looked at the Bussard work and came in an extreme sceptic. He now says - maybe. He says more data is needed - I agree.

MS:

Chill, we're on the same side. They ("we") should be funding Bussard.

I disagree with your assertion that the tokamak is a make-work program. I'm no expert in plasma physics, but I do know that a lot of good papers have come out of tokamaks, and I think that scientists involved are fundamentally honest researchers. There has been slow but systematic progress.

I agree mainstream science is often wrong, and consensus doesn't make science (See: Anthropogenic Global Warming). But these guys have no incentive to stick to flawed models. Failure makes the next round of funding harder. When a lot of extremely intelligent people whose self-interest is in finding a viable fusion reactor choose a tokamak design, that tells me something.

All I'm saying is, alternative fusion research has a better chance of getting funding under Steve Chu than anyone else, but don't hold your breath for it. DoE grants are extremely competitive.

Former Student,

I'm not against tokamak work either. I have used a lot of their work (esp. the first wall problem) in my preliminary work on Bussard Reactors.

But ITER is an attempt to rush for results before the foundations have been properly set.

Read the Vincent Page paper linked here:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/07/iter-is-no-damn-good.html

The cost of energy using the ITER approach will be 5X to 10X the cost of coal. Assuming ITER will work - which is no more a sure thing than Bussard fusion. The Bussard approach gives electrical costs of 1/2 to 1/10th that of coal.

The one thing the Tokamak approach has going for it is that the calculations are easier.

And it is sucking all the money out of all the alternative approaches.

BTW you should join the discussion at:

Talk Polywell

Give me a heads up (or have a look at the admin section there) if your registration doesn't go through in a couple of days. Spam problems.