Mark Suppes is working to realize cheap clean abundant energy through an open source Bussard fusion reactor (also known as the Polywell), at home, in Brooklyn, with a little help from the magic of 3D printing. He is documenting his project on his site Prometheus Fusion Project where he goes through the step by step details as well as the history of the project. Mark is using both Makerbot to fabricate components at home and Shapeways to 3D print the ceramic and stainless steel parts to help realize the project.
Check out this super interesting video of Mark presenting his project at the LIFT conference in Geneva, he mentions 3D printing at around 10 minutes and Shapeways at around 16 minutes in but the whole video is worth watching…
Oh, and he has no formal training in science.. Yeah..
Thanks to Andrew from Makerbot for the heads up.
This kind of science is exciting but is it the right model for power generation. He wants 200 mil investment, so we are talking about just replacing the power stations with better ones. It still is the big power corps make it and sell it to you. We already have viable solutions for production of power at point of use. In the past it has been said that wind solar thermal cannot supply needs. The needs of power corps to sell power to us that is.
We should use 3D printing to print Solar panels and Lpoly batteries in our own homes. I know this may be outside of current material constraints but it is something that should be considered by the 3D community.