What's new on the fusion front?

Boris Horvat / AFP - Getty Images

A hardhat worker walks around the construction site for the ITER fusion experiment in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, France.

By Alan Boyle

The standard joke about nuclear fusion is that it's the energy technology of the future, and always will be. Well, fusion is still an energy option for the future rather than the present, but small steps forward are being reported on several fronts.?That even includes the long-ridiculed?campaign?for?"cold fusion."

Efforts by the Italian-based Leonardo Corp. to harness low-energy nuclear reactions (the technology formerly known as cold fusion)?have reawakened the dream of somehow producing surplus?heat through unorthodox chemistry. Today,?Pure Energy Systems News reported that Leonardo's Andrea Rossi signed an agreement with Texas-based National Instruments to build instrumentation for E-Cat cold-fusion reactors.

Will this venture actually pan out? The E-Cat reactors are so shrouded in secrecy and murky claims that it's hard to do a reality check, but most outside experts say that the concept just won't work.

Some observers are similarly pessimistic about the other avenues for fusion research. The basic physics of the reaction is well-accepted, of course. You can see the power generated when hydrogen atoms fuse into helium when you look at that big ball of gas in the sky, 93 million miles away, or when you watch footage of an H-bomb blast.

But no one has been able to achieve a self-sustaining, energy-producing?fusion reaction in a controlled setting on Earth, even after more than a half-century of trying.

Laser ignition
Researchers had hoped to reach?that?big milestone,?known as ignition,?at the $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility by the end of 2010. But in last week's issue of Science, Steven Koonin, the Energy Department's under secretary for science,?was quoted as saying "ignition is proving more elusive than hoped" and added that "some science discovery may be required" to make it a reality. (Coincidentally, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced this week that Koonin will be leaving his post.)

The big challenge is to tweak all the factors involved in?NIF's super-laser-blaster system to maximize the?energy directed?on tiny pellets of fusion fuel, and minimize the loss of energy through tiny imperfections or interference.?"We're at the end of the beginning," NIF's director, Edward Moses, told Science.

How much longer will it take??The new director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where?NIF is headquartered, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was convinced the facility would attain ignition "in this fiscal year" ? that is, by next October.

Magnetic confinement
If NIF hits that schedule, it'll be way ahead of the world's most expensive fusion experiment, the $20 billion ITER experimental project in France. ITER is taking the most conventional approach to creating a controlled fusion reaction, which involves magnetic containment of?a super-hot plasma inside a doughnut-shaped device known as a tokamak. The European Union and six other nations, including the United States, have divvied up the work load with the aim of completing construction in 2017 and?achieving "first plasma" in 2019.

Right now, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and US ITER are testing a fuel delivery system that would?fire pellets of?ultra-cold deuterium-tritium fuel into the?plasma.

"When we send a frozen pellet into a high-temperature plasma, we sometimes call it a 'snowball in hell,'" Oak Ridge physicist David Rasmussen said in an ITER report on the tests at the Dill-D research tokamak in San Diego. "But temperature is really just the measure of the energy of the particles in the plasma. When the deuterium and tritium particles vaporize, ionize and are heated, they move very fast, colliding with enough energy to fuse."

The tricky part has to do with shaping the pellets just right to produce the desired reaction. When it comes to snowballs in hell, the devil is in the details.

The politics of ITER is just as tricky as the technology. Considering the economic problems that are afflicting the world, and Europe in particular, will there be funding to support the development timeline? Last month, one of the leaders of the European Parliament's Green bloc called ITER a "ticking budgetary time bomb."

Wiffle-Balls and other wonders
Smaller-scale fusion research efforts, meanwhile, are getting a lot of good press. For example, the Navy-funded experiments in inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, also called Polywell fusion, are continuing at EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. in New Mexico. The latest status report for the $7.9 million project says that the test?reactor, known as a Wiffle-Ball because of its shape, "has generated over 500 high-power plasma shots."

"EMC2 is conducting tests on Wiffle-Ball plasma scaling law on plasma heating and confinement," the brief report reads.

Live Poll

When will fusion power go commercial?

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    In 10 years or less.

    16%

  • 167388

    10 to 50 years.

    51%

  • 167389

    More than 50 years, but it'll happen.

    25%

  • 167390

    Never: It's technologically impossible.

    3%

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    Never: It's economically uncompetitive.

    5%

VoteTotal Votes: 1736

The Polywell system is designed to accelerate positively charged ions inside a high-voltage?cage, in such a way that they spark a fusion reaction. If enough of the ions fuse, the?energy could exceed the amount put into the system.

In the past, leaders of the EMC2 team have told me that their aim is to build a 100-megawatt demonstration reactor.?Nowadays, EMC2 is more close-mouthed about their progress, primarily because that's the way the Navy wants it. But the report about 500 high-energy plasma shots brought a positive response from the Talk-Polywell discussion board, which has been following EMC2's progress closely. "I'd be drunk by now if those were shots of whiskey," one commenter joked.

Privately backed efforts are moving ahead as well: Last month, Lawrenceville?Plasma Physics reported reaching a record for?neutron yield with its "Focus Fusion" direct-to-electric generator. And this week, Canada's General Fusion?and its magnetized target fusion technology were featured in?an NPR news package.

"I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent sure it's going to work," General Fusion's Michel Laberge told NPR. "That would be a lie. But I would put it at 60 percent chance that this is going to work. Now of course other people will give me a much smaller chance than that, but even at 10 percent chance of working, investors will still put money in, because this is big, man, this is making power for the whole planet. This is huge!"

Is it a huge opportunity, or a huge waste ? especially considering that the energy technology of the future will have to compete with present-day technologies such as solar, wind, biofuel and nuclear fission? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 3:40 p.m. ET Nov. 11: Some commenters have rightly pointed out that there are many other nuclear fusion and high-energy plasma initiatives under way, including the Z Machine, a huge X-ray generator?at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. The journal Science quotes Sandia researchers as saying the machine could be used to start testing the feasibility of pinch-driven fusion, but?conducting a?definitive test would require a far more powerful?machine.

Science also notes that some researchers suspect NIF's indirect approach to laser-driven?fusion, in which fuel pellets are placed inside a pulse-shaping cylinder known as a hohlraum, may not?be as efficient as it needs to be. Research groups are investigating direct-drive laser fusion at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics in Rochester, N.Y., and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.?

More about fusion:


Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or following the Cosmic Log Google+ page. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/10/8740899-whats-new-on-the-fusion-front

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'Ghost worker' baby earned $150 a month

A newborn baby in Nigeria got added to a government payroll, earning about $150 a month for the last two or three years, a discovery indicative of the widespread corruption starving the oil-rich West African nation of much needed funds, authorities said.

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The baby was one of many so-called "ghost workers" found to be getting salaries without performing a job, said Garba Gajam, the attorney general of Zamfara state located in Nigeria's arid and impoverished northwest.

The employee was listed as being 1-month-old in government records, but Gajam said the child's father actually started collecting the salary before the baby was born. Records also show that the baby has a diploma.

Zamfara state has asked government workers to present their letters of employment and qualifications in a verification exercise meant to reverse a trend that has government workers giving fictitious jobs to family members to boost their pay checks.

"It's at the local government level that this is most rampant," Gajam said Friday. "Leaving the local government with nothing to execute projects."

The local government is responsible for maintaining roads, disposing of garbage and providing public transportation. But diversions of funds, such as to "ghost workers," means the majority of Nigerians are left with virtually no services from their government.

Offenders in Zamfara state will have to refund all the money collected over the years and will also most likely be prosecuted, said Gajam.

But analysts say the trend cuts across the country.

"There is no state in Nigeria that doesn't have ghost workers," says Thompson Ayodele, director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis in Lagos. "In this case, at least the baby is alive, what about the thousands of ghost workers who don't even exist?"

"Ghost workers" collect salaries and eventually qualify for pensions as well. The money is actually paid into the accounts of the people who created the identities.

"(Government workers) even continue collecting the pensions of dead people," says Ayodele who authored a book on the issue.

Eight people are standing trial at the moment for diverting pension funds using "nonexistent" persons, said Femi Babafemi, spokesman for Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

"Meanwhile, the real pensioners who earned these funds were left unattended to," he said.

Nigeria, a top crude oil supplier to the U.S., has a long history of corruption, with one official once estimating the country has lost more than $380 billion to graft since gaining its independence from Britain in 1960. Corruption trickles down from politicians in the capital city of Abuja to the lowest police officer who shake down bribes at traffic checkpoints.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45268439/ns/world_news-africa/

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'Ghost worker' baby earned $150 a month

A newborn baby in Nigeria got added to a government payroll, earning about $150 a month for the last two or three years, a discovery indicative of the widespread corruption starving the oil-rich West African nation of much needed funds, authorities said.

  1. Only on msnbc.com

    1. Updated 55 minutes ago 11/13/2011 2:24:13 AM +00:00 Iran, defense likely on the table in GOP debate
    2. Kim K.'s ex-publicist says wedding was staged
    3. Penn State investigations, costs piling up
    4. What's legal, what's right in reporting abuse?
    5. When abusers are 'like us,' how can they be stopped?
    6. Carrots and bananas for Berlusconi's last supper?
    7. Carbon monoxide fumes help city dwellers chill out

The baby was one of many so-called "ghost workers" found to be getting salaries without performing a job, said Garba Gajam, the attorney general of Zamfara state located in Nigeria's arid and impoverished northwest.

The employee was listed as being 1-month-old in government records, but Gajam said the child's father actually started collecting the salary before the baby was born. Records also show that the baby has a diploma.

Zamfara state has asked government workers to present their letters of employment and qualifications in a verification exercise meant to reverse a trend that has government workers giving fictitious jobs to family members to boost their pay checks.

"It's at the local government level that this is most rampant," Gajam said Friday. "Leaving the local government with nothing to execute projects."

The local government is responsible for maintaining roads, disposing of garbage and providing public transportation. But diversions of funds, such as to "ghost workers," means the majority of Nigerians are left with virtually no services from their government.

Offenders in Zamfara state will have to refund all the money collected over the years and will also most likely be prosecuted, said Gajam.

But analysts say the trend cuts across the country.

"There is no state in Nigeria that doesn't have ghost workers," says Thompson Ayodele, director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis in Lagos. "In this case, at least the baby is alive, what about the thousands of ghost workers who don't even exist?"

"Ghost workers" collect salaries and eventually qualify for pensions as well. The money is actually paid into the accounts of the people who created the identities.

"(Government workers) even continue collecting the pensions of dead people," says Ayodele who authored a book on the issue.

Eight people are standing trial at the moment for diverting pension funds using "nonexistent" persons, said Femi Babafemi, spokesman for Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

"Meanwhile, the real pensioners who earned these funds were left unattended to," he said.

Nigeria, a top crude oil supplier to the U.S., has a long history of corruption, with one official once estimating the country has lost more than $380 billion to graft since gaining its independence from Britain in 1960. Corruption trickles down from politicians in the capital city of Abuja to the lowest police officer who shake down bribes at traffic checkpoints.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45268439/ns/world_news-africa/

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Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert Win CMA Awards!

Talk about marital bonding! Newlywed country stars Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert keep having the year of their lives, each winning a Country Music Association Award for  Male and Female Vocalist of the Year Wednesday night.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/blake-shelton-and-miranda-lambert-win-his-hers-cma-awards/1-a-401305?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ablake-shelton-and-miranda-lambert-win-his-hers-cma-awards-401305

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After getting Twitter bonus, Forrest Griffin tweets rape joke

After getting Twitter bonus, Forrest Griffin tweets rape joke

The UFC recently rewarded Forrest Griffin $5,000 for his "creativity" on Twitter, but he went too far on a tweet yesterday, saying, "Rape is the new missionary."

When a fan unfollowed him and called him out on what he considered a joke, he responded, "Keep it to yourself." Later, he deleted the tweet and said, "I'm sorry, I'm gonna go ahead and put myself on Twitter restriction until next week."

Yep, when "creativity" leads to jokes about sexual assault, that's a good time to keep your mouth shut.

Let's just be 100 percent clear on something: rape isn't funny. Every time a joke is made about it, victims are reminded of their trauma. If you think it's funny, you clearly have never been held down and forced to have sex against your will. If you think it's funny, you've never seen the path of destruction it causes in a victim's life. If you think it's funny, you have no empathy for the 81K reported rape victims in the U.S. every year.

I don't think Forrest Griffin is that cold of a person, but he does need to learn that what he said is not OK, and that his words have weight. Taking that UFC Twitter bonus and giving it to a rape victim's group like R.A.I.N.N. would be one way to properly apologize.

If he doesn't do it, the UFC should step in and fine him. They've been reluctant in the past to step in when fighters or any other representatives step over the line, but they just gave Griffin $5,000 for what he tweets. Letting him keep that cash would be condoning more of the same from him in the future.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/After-getting-Twitter-bonus-Forrest-Griffin-twe?urn=mma-wp9193

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Unlocked iPhone 4Ss Are Available Now, But They?ll Cost You

iphone4sIf winter's approach finds you yearning for warmer climes, Apple's got you covered no matter which tropical locale you've got your eye on. As promised way back when, Apple has begun to sell unlocked versions of all iPhone 4S models in their online store. Here's hoping you managed to get a good deal on that plane ticket, because Apple's globetrotting 4S comes with some hefty price tags. As expected, the base level 16GB iPhone 4S will run customers $649, while the 32 and 64GB variants will cost $749 and $849 respectively.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/S8ttWopLnCM/

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Griffin’s Beacon Lets You Channel Surf From Your Android Device

gbeaconA handful of new Android tablets can take control of your television thanks to their built-in IR blasters, but Griffin has just come through with a solution for those of you stuck with less versatile hardware. Enter the Beacon, a standalone IR transmitter that helps turn your Android device into a remote control. Setting up the Beacon itself is pretty straightforward -- just pop in four AA batteries (ugh), pair it with your phone via Bluetooth, and you're off to the races.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/4JMr8LD-4CU/

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Brian Grazer Steps In As Oscar Producer

'He will certainly bring his tremendous talent, creativity and relationships to the Oscars,' Academy Awards president Tom Sherak says
By Kara Warner


Brian Grazer
Photo: MTV News

With all the Oscar news making the rounds this week, you would think that the 84th annual Academy Awards were just around the corner. Luckily, we still have more than three months until the live telecast on February 26, and more than a month until nominations are announced.

The latest news coming straight from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is that Brett Ratner, who tendered his resignation on Tuesday, has been replaced with producer Brian Grazer, who will co-produce the telecast with industry veteran Don Mischer.

"Brian Grazer is a renowned filmmaker who over the past 25 years has produced a diverse and extraordinary body of work," Academy president Tom Sherak said in a statement posted on Oscars.org. "He will certainly bring his tremendous talent, creativity and relationships to the Oscars."

"I am thrilled to welcome Brian Grazer as my partner and that we will be collaborating to produce an outstanding show," echoed Mischer in the statement.

"It's very gratifying to be part of a show that honors excellence in the medium to which I have devoted so much of my career," said Grazer. "Don is a legend, and I am excited to work with him."

Grazer's credentials seem a good fit for producing Hollywood's "biggest night." He's been nominated four times (for writing "Splash," and Best Picture nods for "Apollo 13" and "Frost/Nixon.") and won the Best Picture Oscar in 2001 for "A Beautiful Mind."

Coincidentally, Grazer has worked with recently resigned host, Eddie Murphy, on "The Nutty Professor" and "Tower Heist." Rumor has it that the Academy and Grazer hope that Murphy will reconsider his decision not to be involved in the program.

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1674080/brian-grazer-academy-awards-oscar-producer.jhtml

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'Technical Fix' for Social Security Will Shrink Benefits to the Poor (The Nation)

The Nation -- The newspapers say the congressional super-committee is stalemated on how to reduce the federal deficits, but Democrats and Republicans already agree on one thing. Both parties want to whack Social Security, hoping the old folks won?t notice. Some policy wonks have shown the politicians a sly way to shrink Social Security benefits and call it a ?technical fix.? By changing the formula for calculating the annual cost-of-living increases that beneficiaries normally receive, small differences add up to big pain for old folks. The same adjusted formula would be applied to disability benefits and military and veteran pensions.

The beauty of this gimmick is that it looks trivial at first and most people probably wouldn?t notice. But the impact compounds every year afterwards. The personal loss gets larger and larger the longer retired people live on. The Congressional Budget Office calculates savings for government of $217 billion over ten years, barely a scratch in a federal budget of $13 trillion.

But the ugly part of this gimmick is that it punishes most severely the very people who most need help ? the lame and the halt and the poor. In the austerity hysteria that grips Washington, that has been a standard approach to deciding who accept sacrifices. If someone must lose, the poor are an easy target ? a lot easier than raising taxes on the affluent and super-rich or whacking away at the bloat and waste at the Pentagon.

In the first year of this fix, Social Security recipients at retirement age would lose only about $100 in expected benefits. Ten years later, they would be losing $560 a year. If they are fortunate enough to be alive in their 90s, they would lose $1,400 a year or 9.2 percent of their Social Security check. This is perverse public policy ? the older people get the more they will need for medical expenses and the more income they must sacrifice to please the budget cutters.

An advocacy group called Strengthen Social Security defined the losses in everyday terms familiar to poor people ? shopping for groceries. After ten years in retirement, the COLA cut would cost recipients 12 weeks of food expenditures. After two decades, it would cost 21 weeks of groceries. For millions of Americans, that will not sound trivial.

Republicans always seem ready to go for deals that punish the poor first. What?s shocking is the Democrats. The six Democrats on the super-committee included the Social Security COLA cut in the package they proposed to their Republican counterparts. That list was blessed by Majority Leader Harry Reid even though Reid had previously ruled Social Security off the table. Senators Max Baucus of Montana and John Kerry of Massachusetts were reportedly most zealous in promoting the hit on Social Security.

Not to worry, some Democrats insisted privately. They included Social Security as an eligible target, they explained, only to entice Republicans to make a deal that includes tax increases for the wealthy. The Dems expect Republicans to reject the offer and so Social Security is safe.

Nevertheless, this is dangerous politics because we know from previous episodes that Democrats are rather inept at the game of bargaining. Republicans will stand their ground and call the bluff. In the end, the Democrats? initial concession becomes only an opening bid. Republicans always respond with higher demand. So Dems yield by splitting the difference, that is, caving in.

If this same pattern emerges in the super-committee melodrama, people must remember who blinked first. If the Democratic party fails to defend its own greatest legacy from rightwing assault, voters may ask themselves, why punish Republicans when it was the Democrats who sold out Social Security.

Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20111108/cm_thenation/164450

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Man guilty of raping 1 woman, harassing 3 in NYC (AP)

NEW YORK ? An Ivory Coast native accused of pretending to be a French-language TV journalist was convicted Monday of raping one woman and harassing three others but was acquitted of a fifth sexual attack.

Hugues-Denver Akassy had said the sexual encounters were consensual and the other allegations resulted from misunderstandings.

Prosecutors said Akassy, 43, charmed the women with a debonair demeanor and a phony persona, then became a sexually aggressive stalker. They said Akassy, who was homeless, claimed to be buying a brownstone and held himself out as an accomplished journalist on a website rife with plagiarized praise written about real journalists.

"What we're talking about here is a person who initiates every relationship in his life with a falsehood," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Jessica Troy told jurors in a closing argument last week. "And I submit to you, there is no reason to think he is honest about anything."

Four women testified; the one who said she was raped did not. Those who testified said Akassy suavely struck up conversations with them on the street and other public places around the city. Some said they then met him for wine-and-cheese picnics in parks and other dates before he became threatening with unwanted advances.

When things soured, he often wrote the women profane and vitriolic emails, which jurors saw during the trial. In some cases, Akassy showed up outside the women's apartment buildings or at their workplaces, they said.

Akassy testified that the women willingly engaged in the sexual encounters ? on a subway grate in a park, in a stairwell of an apartment building. Overall, he and his lawyers said, the accusations were leveled by troubled women who misconstrued and overreacted to his overtures.

"Ladies and gentlemen, misinterpretation seems to be a theme that runs through these cases," defense lawyer Glenn Hardy said.

Akassy said he didn't write the now-gone website.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111107/ap_on_re_us/us_rape_suspect

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