Editor’s Note:
Breakthrough Technology Alert’s Patrick Cox is here
today to let you know the name of an under-the-radar company
that’s developing some world-changing nuclear technologies…
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Only Two Years to Practical Nuclear Fusion? |
By Patrick Cox
October 30, 2009
Energy is today’s hot topic. With concerns over the rising
prices of oil — and the lack of feasibility of many of the
other alternatives on the table — consumers want a cheap
energy solution that will last the generations ahead of us.
One company is on the cusp of doing just that, and could
turn its small group of investors into billionaires…
I’ve discussed before how transformative commercially
competitive nuclear fusion would be. Clean and inexpensive
fusion would completely disrupt the foundation of the global
economy: energy. We don’t, in fact, know that it can be
done. It looks like it, but there are many unknowns, and the
timeline is even more obscure. The impact would be so
profound, however, that we have to keep track of
developments.
Until now, the challenge has been the production of a
sustainable fusion reaction that yields more energy than is
initially required to keep the reaction “burning.” Since
most of the methods for generating a fusion reaction require
extremely high, sun-like temperatures, it has proven no easy
task.
Most of the recent attention and funding in the fusion area
are garnered by ITER, a large multinational research reactor
being built in France. Several European governments have
been throwing billions of Euros at this nuclear fusion
research megaproject. Despite this, some of the most
promising research is actually taking place here in the
U.S., albeit on a much smaller scale and with much less
attention.
The most promising method of producing energy through fusion
may belong to a U.S. firm called EMC2. EMC2 was founded in
1984 by the late physicist Dr. Robert W. Bussard, well known
for his work on nuclear rocket propulsion and power. While
Dr. Bussard was very interested in nuclear fusion as a means
to power spacecraft, it is his ground-based nuclear designs
that are currently being developed by the company he
founded.
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Apart from private funding, EMC2 has received funds from the
U.S. Navy over the years. After test runs of early
prototypes showed promise, the U.S. Navy again funded the
EMC2 to develop the next-generation prototype. The Navy is
very interested in EMC2’s fusion reactor as a possible means
of powering submarines and surface vessels.
The Department of Energy’s current director, Steven Chu, has
also expressed interest in EMC2s technology, commenting in
2007 that he “wants more information.” I can only hope that
the information he has received since then has been
convincing, as EMC2 got $2 million in funding under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The actual fusion power plant, which Bussard called a
polywell, produces no long-lasting nuclear waste. “Polywell,”
by the way, is a combination of the terms “polyhedron” and
“potential well,” which clues us in on the geometry and
function of the device.
The current EMC2 fusion project leader, Dr. Richard Nebel,
estimates that electrical production from commercial
polywell fusion reactors would cost about 2—5 cents per
kilowatt hour. This is cheaper than any current source of
electricity, including coal and fission nuclear power. We’ve
been in contact with Dr. Nebel, by the way, but he has told
us that he is not free to discuss the details of the project
at this time.
EMC2 is currently constructing the latest demonstration
version of the polywell, designated WB-8, in order to
validate the results received from a previous prototype,
WB-6. EMC2 expects to know if this is a truly workable
technology within two years. If this is the case, the second
phase of its research track is to produce a full-scale
example reactor.
If EMC2 is successful in its work, there’s little question
that the company’s private backers will be sitting on one of
the biggest investment windfalls in history. And it also
opens the doors for a public offering of shares in the
future. We’ll keep you posted on what’s to come.
For transformational profits,
Patrick Cox
P.S.:
While EMC2 is still a privately held company, I have alerted
my
Breakthrough Technology Alert readers to
another nuclear play that developing some pretty
groundbreaking technologies in the shorter-term. To get this
name, along with the rest of my emergent technology
portfolio,
just click here…
Editor’s Endnote:
We’ve been getting emails from readers wondering what’s
going on with the market now that the S&P 500 has hit the
trendline support level that David Grandey talked about on
Wednesday. For an update on where stocks are headed and what
this means for the market, make sure you check out
tomorrow’s Weekend Sleuth.
