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.

As a science fiction reader, Bussard’s ramjet is a familiar idea, magnetically gathering hydrogen for use as fuel for interstellar travel. It was fascinating seeing him, and his lecture on his fusion energy project, which apparently has been experimentally proven to work. He claims that only 200 million dollars more into the project should produce a practical working prototype.

He disdains Tokamak fusion reactors as “cathedrals of super conduction,” that will never work, but continue to provide “rice bowls” for thousands of physicists. “I often thought that Lavrentyev of the Soviet Union invented it and gave it to us so that we would never get there.” Tokamak is the official fusion path chosen by the DOE.

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