Brian H wrote: There’s an article pumping Polywell on American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/fusion_energy.html

and a more detailed update with lots of links (including the above) at http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/06/the_boys_at_tal.html .

So the thinking is that they’re hoping to achieve unity within a couple of years, and will test D-D first, then pB11.

Thanx for the links, Brian. There’s a lot of valuable information about the competition in them. As a member of the talk-polywell.org forum, however, I take a wait and see position on anything involving external magnets. First there’s the inherent parasitic load of powering them, then there’s the problem of focusing them to required confinement levels. Focusing problems are still (and I expect will be for a long time) their toughest challenge.

On the bright side, perhaps the Navy would want to expand their portfolio to avoid having all of their eggs in one basket. A pB11 powered sub would have a lot of engineering, tactical, and strategic advantages over a fission powered sub.