All large scale generation of electric power is based on Faraday's Law: A voltage is induced in a conductor when moved through a magnetic field. But what makes a conductor a conductor is its contents of free electrons, whose flow constitutes an electric current. The rest of the metal (generator windings) acts as a bed for the stream. So why not use an electron gas (a plasma) and produce the stream by pressure through a jet and have no solid moving parts at all?

That is the idea of an MHD (magnetohydrodynamics) generator. The gas is decomposed into posstive ions and free electrons, or ionized, by nuclear heat and produces electric power without pollution, and at a respectable efficiency of 50% as compared to 40%, and sometimes only 25%, in conventional power plants. The process occurs naturally in stars and interstellar gas.

An experimental MHD generator has been in operation for more than a year at a research institute in Moscow. US research is lagging behind, starved for funds, as is research on other power generating projects, such as controlled nuclear fusion. Government funds tend to back one horse, the Liquid Metal Breeder Reactor. Utility companies, already shackled hand and foot by a myriad of controls and regulations, have more and more money tied up in endless environmental litigations at the expense of their research budgets.

Another orphan is nuclear fusion. The total mass of an atomic nucleus differs from the sum of the masses of its individual components. For heavy elements such as uranium or plutonium, the difference is a mass defect: Energy is liberated when the nucleus is split. In the lightest element, hydrogen, energy is liberated when two hydrogen nuclei Rise into a helium nucleus, whose components have a mass excess over the fused nucleus.

Extremely high temperatures are required to start the process, which then keeps going by a chain reaction. The sun "shines" by this process, using hydrogen as a fuel. The hydrogen bomb also works on this principle; the initial temperature is provided by a nuclear fission bomb working as a detonator. The problem is to control the fusion so that it proceeds slowly without bursting into an explosive chain reaction. Advatages if successful: Higher efficiency than with nuclear fission; much smaller waste problem than with nuclear fission; unlimited fuel supply (hydrogen from water).

Several methods of controlling the fusion are being investigated at some universities under sponsorship of the AEC and other agencies. Scientists claim to be close to achieving controlled fusion. Last year, Soviet news agency TASS announced that it had been achieved in Russia, but there was no follow up in the scientific journals, and this may have been another Soviet canard (they were going to reverse the flow of the Siberian rivers Ob and Lena by atomic explosions, remember?). True or not, Soviet research is not lacking funds.

One very hopeful proposal is to provide the necessary temperatures by squirts of a laser beam. Laser beams can easily be pulsed in bursts of millionths of a second, providing the trigger to a chain reaction in very small amounts of hydrogen. Between the squirts, the hydrogen spends itself and the chain reaction cannot get out of hand. The idea is like exploding gun powder grain by single grain.

Unfortunately, controlled fusion programs are badly underfunded. The energy program initiated by the Nixon administration in 1971 alloted $3 billion over the next 8 years, mainly to the development of a breeder reactor. Considering the critical importance of new energy converters, the amount is chickenfeed; but worse, the money was partly found by cutting the funds of other hopeful projects, including controlled fusion.

Vol. 1, No. 1 Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 1 Issue/No.: Vol. 1, No. 1 Date: September 01, 1973 04:37 PM (For actual publication date see newsletter.) Title: Introducing Ourselves Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive All rights reserved.