Man Builds Fusion Reactor in New York City - Seriously

Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC

By day, Mark Suppes is a web developer for fashion giant Gucci. By night, he cycles to a New York warehouse and tinkers with his own nuclear fusion reactor.

I never realised people were trying this at home and apparently it is quite legal as long as you obtain the parts through the appropriate sources. I think at home science is brilliant, i do various bits and pieces. The scary part is that some of the local residents don't know the difference between fission and fusion and think what he is doing is highly dangerous.

The link contains a video along with the article. It doesn't seem like he's made great strides in the technology but the fact he is trying and legally anyone can is fantastic.

Fusion can't be weaponized and be as dangerous as fission? I'm not sure I understand.

Absolutly anyone can do it.... cept Iran... or Turkey..... or China... or there allies. 8)

Yea. A high school kid a couple towns over from me built one of these in his basement. There's alot to it and it ain't cheap. But yes, doable.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Yeah I think its great fairplay to him.

From Gucci by day to nuclear fusion at night, he could inspire gucci to come up with a new collection, that mad scientist look is sooo in this season daarling

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
Fusion can't be weaponized and be as dangerous as fission? I'm not sure I understand.

"Fusion" can't be done at all. Not the way we want it anyway. Everyone is searching for "cold" fusion. In that manner it would be the solution to all of the energy needs for the world, but if it isn't cold fusion, then it won't happen in anybodies garage, and it won't be very useful.

"Fission" is the splitting of atoms as in nuclear weapons, and Nuclear Power plants. Fission is very common, very effective, and potentially very dangerous.

Fusion is uncommon, ineffective, and almost exclusively experimental in nature.
en.wikipedia.org...

I'd hate to see his electric bill.

Originally posted by Phage
I'd hate to see his electric bill.

If he gets it working you won't.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
Fusion can't be weaponized and be as dangerous as fission? I'm not sure I understand.

Yes fusion can be weaponised but a fusion device is very different from a fusion reactor. A fusion bomb is a bit of a misnomer. They often use a fission reaction to cause fusion in some material that is not easily fused. It's a long explanation but basically the fission reaction compresses and heats the first stage of fusionable material, this material then fuses and the resultant radiation can be used to fuse a higher energy material.

So basically no, a homemade reactor cannot be weaponised in the way you are thinking of.

Originally posted by Lady_Tuatha
From Gucci by day to nuclear fusion at night, he could inspire gucci to come up with a new collection, that mad scientist look is sooo in this season daarling

Damn that made me laugh

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
The scary part is that some of the local residents don't know the difference between fission and fusion and think what he is doing is highly dangerous.

Funny thing is, neither do some "residents" of ATS - see below:

Originally posted by robbinsj
Absolutly anyone can do it.... cept Iran... or Turkey..... or China... or there (their?) allies. 8)

Big difference in intention and between reactors and weapons there , BIG DIFFERENCE!

Dorian Soran





[edit on 24-6-2010 by Dorian Soran]

Originally posted by Phage
I'd hate to see his electric bill.

Yeah he says he's using a 30,000 watt supply. That's 30KW every time he fires the reactor, assuming he's using a pulsed type, if it's a sustained charge i cannot imaginethe costs. Here in the UK there is an average of 10 pence per KW/h. That means he would be spending 3 pounds if he ran it for an hour. Doesn't sound like much but if he's charging up a big bank of batteries or capacitors, god knows the costs.


[edit on 24-6-2010 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Gotcha...thanks for the explanation and the links. As long as they don't blow anything up, it's cool with me. Maybe they'll invent something beneficial as a result. I really need to bone up on this physics stuff because I think my kiddo is building a Tesla coil or some sort of machine in his room.

I watched his explanations in the video and I'm 100% satisfied that he knows what he's doing. The rig looks good.

It's a great hobby. In practical terms, the energy output in a device of this kind is miniscule (and I'm being generous), and it won't lead to any breakthroughs in energy technology, despite all the disparaging remarks fusor.net makes about large scale research projects.

There are ways to construct a fission reactor in your basement -- source some Thorium from lamp mantels, buy a legit alpha source, dress it in a light material to produce neutrons, then construct an ionization chamber to register the signal due to fission of Thorium. I can do it for way under $30k. It would be a wonderful experiment and equally useless as an energy source.

Originally posted by Nutter

Originally posted by Phage
I'd hate to see his electric bill.

If he gets it working you won't.

Would be awesome to get a check each month from your power company.. "Hey, thanks for helping us out. Here's your 1000$."

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch

Originally posted by Nutter

Originally posted by Phage
I'd hate to see his electric bill.

If he gets it working you won't.

Would be awesome to get a check each month from your power company.. "Hey, thanks for helping us out. Here's your 1000$."

Already entirely possible with Solar and Wind Power and "Net Metering."

There are a lot of incentives from power companies, and there is a Federal Mandate requiring utility companies to supply meters capable of "net metering" and paying you for power on the exact same cost basis that you pay them. In other words, they cannot sell you retail power and then only pay you for wholesale power. They have to pay you full price if you produce more than you use.

Fusion bomb is activated by fission bomb - the source of necessary very high temperature to start fusion process.

What they call cold fusion is, my best guess, trying to create such temperature by electric plasma discharge, localizing it inside an electromagnetic field. Perhaps that is possible without endangering everyone.

Originally posted by DangerDeath
What they call cold fusion is, my best guess, trying to create such temperature by electric plasma discharge, localizing it inside an electromagnetic field. Perhaps that is possible without endangering everyone.

No, that's still "hot fusion". For "Cold Fusion", see en.wikipedia.org...

-- edit to correct the URL --

[edit on 24-6-2010 by buddhasystem]

Cold fusion is suppressed - I think a homemade reactor is fairly plausible, but it seems to tune the reaction might require a lot of specialist knowledge.

Here is a link; this isn't the best one I've seen - but covers it a little bit.

www.youtube.com...

[edit on 24-6-2010 by Amagnon]

Originally posted by DangerDeath
What they call cold fusion is, my best guess, trying to create such temperature by electric plasma discharge, localizing it inside an electromagnetic field. Perhaps that is possible without endangering everyone.

Cold fusion as the name implies does not require high temperatures, that's if anyone ever found out how to do it i mean.

The kind of reaction you are talking about is still the same type of reaction that happens in the sun. The big reactors like ITER utilize an electromagnetic field to contain plasma but the practical applications are a long way off at the moment.

I just love the fact that someone is experimenting at home in their spare time. The reason i love it so much is because science to many people still has this reputation of only being performed inside expensive labs by scientists with advanced degrees. Of course most advances come from such places but maybe in the future more people will have little side projects going on at home.

I'm messing about with hydro and aeroponics at the moment, i have been for a while and it's always fun

[edit on 24-6-2010 by ImaginaryReality1984]

For simplicity fusion is combing atoms together to make bigger atoms, fission is breaking down bigger atoms into smaller ones - both processes release energy.

The first nuclear bombs used fission - then they used a combination of fission, to reach temperatures and pressures where fusion would begin to take place. In simple terms, they use a nuclear explosion like the one that destroyed Hiroshima as a detonator to create a fusion (hydrogen bomb) reaction.