'..the next step will be to engineer a production reactor. They figure that will take about four years and US$50 million, and that investment will be easy to get at that point. So, production reactors by 2020 or so.'BH: OK. Let's think best case scenario.
The Indiegogo project is a success.
Focus fusion shows a net positive energy output. What's it like 20 years from now?
Dennis Peterson: If they get it working, the next step will be to engineer a production reactor. They figure that will take about four years and US$50 million, and that investment will be easy to get at that point. So, production reactors by 2020 or so.
BH: Decentralised? Will I have one in my basement?
Dennis Peterson: Not quite that decentralized. A reactor would be 5MW, enough for maybe a couple thousand homes. In the U.S. right now, coal is already losing a lot of market share just because natural gas is a bit cheaper. So with the cost advantage of focus fusion, we'd really see rapid change.
And climate scientists are saying we need that rapid change. We have to start cutting carbon emissions soon, in a big way, or we're going to have serious problems. Boron fusion is the only thing I know of that could really cut emissions as fast as they're talking about.
So we'd mostly solve climate change, we'd have an economic boom with energy so much cheaper, we could do things like cheap desalination. Twenty years from now we'd really be in good shape.
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Fusion power: this time for real? 28 May 2014
ContextFocus Fusion - '..it doesn’t always take billions to get earth-shaking inventions.((Hapto)praxeology) - 'Let us welcome The Human Age .. in our individual role to make Humanity sustainable..'