Comments on: New York man builds his own nuclear reactor

By: Raoul

Raoul — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:24:04 +0000

Everyone his/her own hobby. No-one will believe this guy ofcourse if he tells them what his ‘hobby’ is … nor the amount they will spend on it .. but hey .. some buy fast cars and such ..

I wonder why they dont get a job in the field though. It should stay a hobby I guess … (most do pretty good as a web designer .. if you spend this type of amounts on a hobby). It triggers the same type of mind probably … webdesign … ‘nuclear reactors’ … He loved mecano once …

By: Steffen

Steffen — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:03:01 +0000

Sorry to disappoint some people here,

what this guy built was most likely a “Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor”, a device popular among nuclear hobbyists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

This design does nuclear fusion, indeed. But it was some inherent problems which quite effectively prevent that you get more energy out of it than you put in it.

Nuclear fusion is easy. Building a power source from it is something completely different.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:49:17 +0000

Making a plasma is not the problem, but containing it continuously is the issue. So I assume that he merely has a plasma generator which creates an intense hot plasma but I doubt whether he as made it stable.

Then again I do think fusion is the best solution for our energy needs and I do believe that so called “pebble” energy plants will be the vision of the future.
I do think that certain pebble nuclear reactors will be on the way soon until fusion is in the hands of mankind.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:32:38 +0000

Whatever is going on, it reminds me of a Tom Waits song called “What’s He Building In There?”

By: JibJib

JibJib — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:46:57 +0000

well watching on bbc now. He is an artist!

By: JibJib

JibJib — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:42:06 +0000

how can nuclear fusion be done on such a small scale?/ isnt it like heating hydrogen up to 12 trillion degrees until it condenses in on itself?

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:57:52 +0000

Sorry to continue the dickishness, but the comment wasn’t erroneous, as it was factually correct.

On topic, this seems interesting just for the fact that you can legally build a fusion reactor yourself.

By: TonyB

TonyB — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:20:01 +0000

It’s Friday afternoon, it’s hot, I’m going to be at work for a while yet so I might be being particularly dense here, but…

Fusion. Nuclear fusion. A man has built a nuclear fusion reactor in the Brooklyn equivalent of a shed. The JET experiment in Culham has a tokomak costing oodles of pounds and some of the brightest and best physicists in the world working to achieve nuclear fusion and hasn’t done so yet in a sustainable manner. High power laser bods in California have constructed the National Ignition Facility to try and achieve nuclear fusion through the intensity of energy of focused light, but they aren’t confident of success any time soon. And yet someone’s built a fusion *reactor* in a warehouse in downtown Brooklyn?

It’s a spectacular claim; it needs better evidence.

By: Demetri Z

Demetri Z — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:19:08 +0000

Sorry to be even more of a dick… but did you actually sit there reading through the article to find how many spelling mistakes there were in order to correct the guy that pointed them out in the first place?!

I’m being a dick now, for actually spending my time responding to your erroneous comments rather than reading more interesting articles about advances in science, and not pointing out people’s spelling mistakes.

I’m pretty sure that last sentence was not grammatically constructed correctly…
… dont bother pointing it out… I just did that for you.

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:46:07 +0000

Also, it’s £25000, that’s… I don’t know, $4,000,000?