LPP Press Release
(16) CommentsLawrenceville Plasma Physics has issued a press release on their first shots. Here is the LPP Press Release as a pdf file and LPP Press Release as a word doc. LPP (and FFS) for that matter, need help expanding their list of science journalists to send press releases to. If you have suggestions, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Text of the release is as follows, and pictures were included:
FOCUS FUSION-1 IS BORN!
Powerful New Fusion Device Achieves First Shots
October 15, 2009MIDDLESEX, NJ – October 20, 2009 - Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. (LPP), a small research and development company based in Middlesex, NJ, announces the debut of Focus Fusion-1 (FF-1), LPP’s dense plasma focus (DPF) fusion research device. After seven years of theoretical work and raising money, five months of design, five months of construction and assembly, and a week of testing, LPP now has a functioning DPF, the most powerful in North America. The machine is capable, for a brief instant, of pouring over 100 GW of power through a space smaller than a pin point. LPP is especially indebted to Dr. John Thompson for the outstanding work he has done in the design of FF-1 and in his unflappable leadership and long hours of hard work in constructing the device over the past six weeks.
The first shot, using helium as the fill gas, was achieved by FF-1 at 5:29 PM, Oct.15. The first pinch, the transfer of energy to the tiny plasmoid or ball of plasma, was achieved at 6:04 PM on the second shot. These shots are the first in a series that will be taken during LPP’s two-year long experimental project to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion: controlled nuclear fusion using the dense plasma focus device and hydrogen-boron fuel (pB11).
This type of fusion is aneutronic. This means nuclear fusion that produces no neutrons, and hence no radioactive waste, in contrast with Deuterium-Tritium fusion (DT). This makes possible far cheaper energy with direct conversion of energy to electricity. Aneutronic fusion presents significant technical challenges compared with DT fusion that have discouraged funding and research in this area. Ion energies as well as the density-confinement time product must be much higher for pB11 fusion than for DT fusion.
LPP hopes to overcome these challenges with several key innovations to be tested with their new DPF. Unlike the tokamak, the DPF is compact and simple. The tokamaks and most other fusion devices operate by attempting to maintain the plasma in a stable condition, while the DPF operates by exploiting a series of natural instabilities in the plasma. Advances in understanding the basic physics of such instabilities have set the stage for LPP’s experiments.
If LPP, using the FF-1, succeeds in harnessing the plasma and generating net energy from a fusion reaction, the world will have a source of clean, safe and inexhaustible energy that is ten times cheaper than any existing source.
For more information or to schedule an interview with LPP President Eric Lerner, or a visit to the lab, please email Aaron Blake at ablake “at” lawrencevilleplasmaphysics “dot” com
LPP’s policy on data release
LPP in the Economist
Comments
For a more in depth discussion, start a thread in the forums.Yowza!
Can’t get the .doc file to download for some reason; the PDF came thru fine.
I notice the file name is Oct_9—I guess it was first drafted in anticipation on the day the first (failed) attempts were made.
I’ve revised my versions to say LPP_Press_Release_Oct_15 , just to be consistent with the content.
I think I might have been inclined to include the scope trace image
in the release. It looks very scientifical and all! 
The _09 refers to the year, I believe. 2009. Perhaps they aren’t expecting any more releases in October.
Could be. I’ve long since trained myself to always use the logical ANSI sequence with dating: year, month, day. So, e.g., 09-10-15 for October 15 of this year.
It’s very late, and for some reason the FoFu name has set off the nursery rhyme in my head:
“Fee-Fu, Fie-Fu, Fo-Fu, Fum-Fu;
I smell the blood of an Englishman-Fu;
Be he alive,
Or be he dead,
I’ll grind his bones
To make my bread!”
Aren’t children’s rhymes charming? No wonder we’re all so maniacal!
Will you be sending this press release to all the big papers and to Reuters? Or just to science magazines?
Now that you’ve got a machine that can be seen doing something, maybe you should try to get TV coverage.
See the note in the summary - LPP doesn’t have a very big list of press to send to. If you have a list of recommendations, with actual contact info, please send it to aaron or to me.
On that TV coverage - I’ve seen the lab. The machine is cool, but outside, the rest of the place looks like a cave. I think they want to pretty it up a bit before TV. A coat of paint maybe, cover up the plotchy floor. Makeup! Lights!
Well, I mostly only read the Guardian I have to confess.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/page/2009/jan/13/1
You could try and find similar email contacts on Washington Post or NY Times in America? (I never read these but guess they have a science section.)
The Times (Murdoch-owned):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/services/contact_us/
suggests that the email contact for them is either .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Hard to see a particular science one.
This channel
http://science.discovery.com/fansites/beyondtomorrow/episode/episode.html
is picking up a classic BBC show called Tomorrow’s World in 2010, which might be ideal if there is going to be something visual next year.
I’ve sent the press release to a lot of reporters and editors at newspapers, magazines, radio shows and web sites. What I found interesting is that if you can get picked up by one, others are interested too. So, the most important article or interview is the most important. We’ll see who responds and who doesn’t. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Most of the broadcast and cable media get their leads from listening to NPR as they get ready for work. You need to be on Morning Edition - or any other NPR or PRI news show.
Fom a reporters viewpoint, you have a heroic story - small dedicated team builds the fusion reactor of the future in a rented warehouse!
Maybe a visit from Al Gore? Or George Soros?
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