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Article suggesting General Fusion work is dangerous.

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:54 pm
by Chris Bradley
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... oject.html

> But, while it is not a polluting technology, a fusion reaction could still be explosively dangerous, according to Vancouver physicist Erich Vogt. Vogt is a professor and founder of the University of British Columbia's Triumf Nuclear Research Lab. "Of course there's a hazard, an explosive hazard," Vogt told CBC News. "It would be messy." When asked if that means people could be hurt, Vogt said, "Yes, that's right."

Re: Article suggesting General Fusion work is dangerous.

Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:54 pm
by Andrew Seltzman
>General Fusion intends to build a three-metre-diameter steel sphere filled with spinning molten lead and lithium... ...the outside of the sphere would be pounded with 200 computer-synchronized pistons travelling thousands of kilometres an hour.

>"I plan to be standing right next to it, so I'm not worried about that whatsoever."


I wouldn't, lithium fires are bad news...

Probably a misunderstanding by the reporter of what Vogt was implying: Lithium fire not fusion explosion.


Andrew Seltzman

Re: Article suggesting General Fusion work is dangerous.

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:49 am
by Steven Sesselmann

Hard to believe that these guys got funding, the invention is nonsense, based on the belief that fusion results from collisions between nuclei.

Steven

Re: Article suggesting General Fusion work is dangerous.

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:16 am
by Jeroen Vriesman
Eric Rankin is clearly a reporter who is twisting everything to scare people.

sentences like "Super-heated radioactive gas, called plasma" to make sure that people get scared.

And yes, a giant sphere with molten lead, lithium and a huge shock wave is dangerous, but doesn't have anything to do with "fusion being dangerous", so the words of Vogt are deliberately placed in a different context.

And then some reference to cold fusion, to make sure that people who care about the money get angry...

stupid.

Re: Article suggesting General Fusion work is dangerous.

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 3:24 am
by David Geer
Seems that it's best to leave the media out of the loop until a design is completely ready. It's quite sad really... to have a lot of research into fusion undermined by reporters writing about what they do not understand. Though the amount of information given lends much to be skeptical about. Cold fusion just isn't a possibility for another 500-1,000 years and hoaxes abound amongst low-grade scientists looking to stay employed.