Next Big Future - Latest Comments in Update on General Fusion : Steam Punk Approach to Nuclear Fusion

Re: Update on General Fusion : Steam Punk Approach to Nuclear Fusion

carpet cleaning miami — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:10:54 -0000

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Re: Update on General Fusion : Steam Punk Approach to Nuclear Fusion

nextbigfuture — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:23:08 -0000

I will try and email the company and ask them about your design question. Also adding another article. Popular Science 2009 had several pages on them. Added a funding update and some more info. More pictures of the current system

Re: Update on General Fusion : Steam Punk Approach to Nuclear Fusion

Tom_Craver — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:26:02 -0000

Cool idea - but why use so many pistons? Why not use a smaller number, and use acoustic lenses to focus the pulse delivery? Seems like that'd be simpler, cheaper, more reliable, possibly even more effective (since you might be able to design a lens with better focusing characteristics than any finite number of un-focused annular pistons can achieve). If a cubical configuration is too crude, dodecahedral is pretty close to approximating a sphere, and from the picture it looks like that'd be about 1/25th as many pistons. It might be somewhat larger, but probably not a lot, especially if fresnel lenses were used, with materials of different speed-of-sound for each shaped ring - fast for outer rings, slower for inner rings, to make the pulse front curve from flat to spherical, yet still all arrive at the compression point at the same time.