Be part of the fusion solution

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Got an email this week about a new @Home project, this one aimed at advancing nuclear fusion research

Producing energy in a sustainable, safe and  environmental friendly way is one of the main challenges of our time. Nuclear Fusion is one of the promising energy sources, but  the technology is difficult to master.  It could provide endless energy – estimated to be sufficient  for  about 2 billion years, there is no CO2  produced and no nuclear waste. Fusion reactors are also inherently safe, because the reaction automatically stops when something goes wrong. Currently Europe, and other countries from all over the world are working together to develop and  build  nuclear fusion reactors. To predict and optimise the behaviour of nuclear fusion reactions in these  machines, a lot of computer calculations are needed.  Everyone can now help with solving this problem by donating unused computing time to the  EDGeS@Home project. The otherwise wasted computing time can then be used by scientists in Europe to run software called ISDEP  designed to do part of these reactor simulations. ISDEP has been ported by the EDGeS project to the EDGeS infrastructure and is used in EDGeS@Home. In this straightforward way, this ‘green’ approach of information technology and computation make the Fusion research itself environmental friendly now.

…By donating unused computing time to ISDEP, citizens can help solving the world’s energy problem. The only thing they have to do is to download a small  easy-to-install  Desktop Grid programme, that will take care unused computing time is used by ISDEP. Contributing to a Desktop Grid such as EDGeS@Home is secure and safe: the Grid software itself is inherently safe and secure. The scientific programmes have gone through an extensive validation process to be absolutely sure they cannot harm a citizen’s computer in any way.

The project officially launches on Mar 30, but I think you can actually download the client now and start working. More at the web site.