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2. ”Entrepreneurial Spirits and Fusion Research in North America”
Toshi Tajima Norman Rostoker Chair Professor, University of California at Irvine Chief Science Officer, Tri Alpha Energy
The late Professor Norman Rostoker started an entirely new methodology of fusion research based on private funding, not relying on federal support. This philosophy goes as: (1) to consider “the end in mind”; which leads to putting aneutronic fuel as its centeral approach to drastically reduce the reactor engineering difficulty, even at the cost of the immediate physics hurdle of the higher burn temperature; (2) for the purpose of contracting the reactor development time, which spells the most important time and cost saving, as “time is money”; (3) Keeping “fail fast” in mind, starting with the riskiest elements first. Thereby, may such an approach be sympathetically regarded as a vision that is grandiose and worthy for the human society, (4) hopefully to attract people’s interst to consider “social impact” invetsments? Further, in order to induce an avalanche of research developments, we shall (5) reap “low- hanging fruits” early on, which prepares us to rapidly realize the central target of building a fusion reactor. This is the essence of our philosophy of developing fusion based on the entrepreneurial approach.
Keywords: end-in-mind, “time is money”, “fail fast”, social impact, low-hanging fruits
2.1 Why does fusion research take time?
People often ask “When will we have fusion?” The answer, almost resembling a joke, is “30 years from that question”. In the 1940’s fusion research was conducted in top secrecy, as its goal was considered to be soon and the top talents were assembled during that war time effort. However, it then became clear otherwise, the secrecy was lifted, and an era of open scientific research ensued in the postwar 50’s. The reason was that, even though the existence theorem of fusion was proven by stars and the success of hydrogen bombs after the war, the difficulty of plasma control had become evident.
What is the background of this difficulty and the reason for the long time to make progress in fusion?
a. “Plasma” was named after the blood plasma, which means the amorphous cell entity in the blood. Thus, what we face in plasma is its amorphousness and its unstable material property.
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