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Patents: A Design to Start A Fusion Reaction
By Edmund L. Andrews
The New York Times

June 10, 1989

Although the excitement over claims of achieving ''cold fusion'' has now subsided into skepticism and disappointment, research continues on older approaches to harnessing the power that fuels the sun.

This week, Bruno Coppi, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Robert Bussard, a former researcher with the Department of Energy, won patent approval for a design that in effect would jump-start a fusion reaction.

The design was proposed in 1975, and Dr. Coppi said the Federal Government was still financing design studies for a working machine at Princeton University. The machine would consist of a small ring of extremely dense plasma made from deuterium, tritium and free electrons. It would then channel as much as 12 million amperes of electricity into the ring, heating it to 45 million degrees centigrade.

At this point, the nuclei of atoms fuse rapidly enough to generate significant heat, although not enough to keep the reaction self-sustaining. Eventually, however, the fusion reaction would push the temperature of the ring to 150 million degrees, and at that point the machine would be hot enough to continue on its own.

Dr. Coppi and Mr. Bussard received patent 4,836,972.

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