Amateur 'Fusioneers' Explore Energy Future

Small basement reactors aren't power source, yet

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 18, 2008 11:36 AM CDT

(Newser) – Frank Sanns has an unusual hobby: He’s trying to prove nuclear fusion is a viable energy source. At the center of his search is a working, homemade nuclear reactor. “I’m a dreamer,” the Pittsburgh native tells the Wall Street Journal. Sanns is part of an exclusive cadre called the “Neutron Club”—in which all 42 members have built homemade reactors.

Fusion, which produces energy by mashing atoms together rather than ripping them apart, has long been energy’s holy grail, producing marginal pollution or nuclear waste. But the fusors these hobbyists build use far more energy than they produce, and some aren’t optimistic they’ll ever do more. “It's almost like, over the gates of hell,” says one longtime club member, “‘Abandon hope all ye who enter.’”

[Images (2)]

[Videos (2)]

This image taken from YouTube shows a homemade fusion reactor - known as a Farnsworth Fusor - reacting to a magnetic field. (YouTube Screenshot)

This YouTube screen capture shows a Farnsworth Fusor reactor at work. (YouTube)

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A 15-year-old shows off his homemade fusion reactor. (stephendonnelly88)

Fusion Reactor First Test Run:We are a group of students at UMass Lowell that are building a type of fusion reactor called a Farnsworth Fusor.Fusion has been conventionally done by heating a gas to such a high temperature that the average particle of gas has enough energy to overcome the coulombic repulsion of another particles nucleus so that it can fuse.Instead we use 2 concentric spherical grids one of which is at a high negative potential to produce an electric field that accelerates the ionized gas to high... (userjjb)

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Amateur 'Fusioneers' Explore Energy Future