Alan Boyle of the Cosmic Log on MSNBC.com has talked to Jaeyoung Park, acting chief executive officer of EMC2, and posted an entry with further details on their progress. The upshot is that EMC2 will keep working on the WB-8 experiment until funding for the current contract runs out, probably around the end of the year. By that time, EMC2 and the Navy hope to know whether it’s feasible to go on to the next step. Jaeyoung Park hopes WB-8 is “the last small-scale experimental machine EMC2 will have to build”. I interpret that to mean that he hopes the next device will be demonstration reactor, or at least a net-power device. A full-scale Polywell reactor is expected to cost $100 to $200 million. The Navy wants EMC2 to keep a lid on specific results until they have an actual product to deliver. They’re open to EMC2 commercializing the reactor at that point, as long as it remains a US-owned company and maintains control of the technology.

The entry also briefly mentions General Fusion and Tri Alpha, as well as ITER and NIF.

EDIT: Oh, and no mention of hydrogen-boron fuel, the WB-8.1 option permitted in their contract. It sounds to me like they’re hoping to get a working deuterium-deuterium reactor going first.