Some news on Polywell fusion

[nimbus]

FY 2007 Accomplishments: The primary objective of this initiative is to revalidate and prove the effectiveness of inertial electrostatic confinement using the polyhedral magnetic field systems studied over the previous 19 years of R&D. The final success of the last tests in CY2005 will be reproduced and results validated by experiments on two more machines to prove that the entire concept, applicable to boron/hydrogen reactions, can and does work and can be developed for employment in DoD power systems at an early date.

From http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y200 ... 826D8Z.pdf

 

[lensman01]

Are we talking small scale nuclear fusion here or some form fuel cell?

 

[origin]

Are we talking small scale nuclear fusion here or some form fuel cell?

It is nuclear fusion. Here is a link explaining http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell.

This is one of many research areas into fusion. The fusion reaction does not produce more energy than consumed at this point so it is not currently viable. There is enough interest in this approach that research money continues to be invested though.