This is important. It's long, but it's important. If you have the time to listen to Dr. Robert Bussard you will be convinced about clean, cheap power. It's available and it's now. We can do this.

Here's the back-story from Google's page:

Google Tech Talks November 9, 2006

ABSTRACT This is not your father's fusion reactor! Forget everything you know about conventional ... all » thinking on nuclear fusion: high-temperature plasmas, steam turbines, neutron radiation and even nuclear waste are a thing of the past. Goodbye thermonuclear fusion; hello inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC), an old idea that's been made new. While the international community debates the fate of the politically-turmoiled $12 billion ITER (an experimental thermonuclear reactor), simple IEC reactors are being built as high-school science fair projects.

Dr. Robert Bussard, former Asst. Director of the Atomic Energy Commission and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), has spent 17 years perfecting IEC, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal... until now.

Dr. Bussard will discuss his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of the scanning television).

Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google's annual electricity bill? Come see what's possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Good post!

best. post. ever

GET THIS MAN SOME DAMN FUNDING GOOGLE!

oh and for the all the ADD sufferers, get some handcuffs, popcorn, your high school physics book, and watch the whole damn thing and weep tears of joy for humanity

I will said that they will need about 1 billion to make it happen.

You mean pennies to Google?

Seriously though. It is all highly feasible if done correctly.

*long

This video has been marked Long (called by gold star member calvados)

Dr. Robert Bussard has passed away, but his work lives on.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'clean, cheap, nuclear power' to 'clean, cheap, nuclear power, fusion, Robert, Bussard, Polywell, fusor' - edited by cybrbeast

This was merged with this post, some more comments over there:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Better-Than-Regular-Fusion-the-Polywell-Fusor

From the other posting:
If anyone wants to follow more on this the main forum is here.

The current state of the research is that the navy funded a research team headed by Dr. Nebel from LANL and his team has completed(around August) experiments intended to confirm Dr. Bussard's findings. The Navy is currently evaluating those findings to decide if they will continue to research this approach. Dr. Nebel has had to remain tight lipped about what they're results have been but it sounds promising that the Navy will pursue for at least one more step, but that still has not been decided.

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

This appears to be the best wikipedia page on the subject.

Good news everyone:

December 16, 2008
Verdict Positive for Inertial Electrostatic Fusion

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/verdict-positive-for-inertial.html

Good news everybody:
"In September 2009, the US Department of Defense announced further funding of $7,855,504 for Energy Matter Conversion Corp for research, analysis, development, and testing in support of the Plan Plasma Fusion (Polywell) Project. Efforts under this Recovery Act award will validate the basic physics of the Plasma Fusion (Polywell) concept, as well as provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion. The project is expected to be completed by April 2011."