Reply To: turn heat into electricity

[Rezwan]

Hey Ivy Matt! Thanks for the response! Yes, pay your dues already. You’ll get/be part of a warm (10Bn degree) fuzzy feeling. How much more incentive do you need? 🙂

Ivy Matt wrote: I don’t know about themes. I’d imagine the themes ought to be determined by the issues or successes that crop up during the month’s research.

Yes! And this speaks to the issue we’ve been grappling with for some time – that FFS and LPP are seen as the same entity, and that FFS is exclusively about LPP research. (This affirms the need to spin off the Fusion energy League as a separate organization. It really does detract from the FFS core focus).

OK, let’s work with that. You are actually referring to the LPP reports in your comment – but they call them Focus Fusion reports so the conflation is understandable. The takeaway here is, why fight it, coordinate better with LPP. And keep in mind, we have to do this, but in a way that makes it clear we’re not the marketing division of LPP (unless we really are, in which case we should just accept it and merge).

We could indeed go into more depth about the research results and keeping track of the context as you suggest here:

One thing I would like to see is some continuity between updates. As it is, it seems that various figures (e.g. pinch voltage, neutron counts, energy output in joules, ion temperatures, electron temperatures) are mentioned in one month’s update and then ignored for the next few months.

Could the theme be continuity and tracking? One month is all about “the Pinch” and one about “neutron counts” and so forth, until we build up a framework that people can better understand the experiment with?

I realize that part of the reason for that is likely due to the delays caused by various mechanical issues, and maybe it doesn’t make sense to give new figures when they haven’t changed lately. Still, I’ve found it helpful to keep my own list of figures (based on largely on the milestones) and update it according to the information given in the monthly updates.

Great! This is even better than cash contributions! You’re keeping track, and you probably have a wish list of things you’d like to see. Can you start an article stub on the wiki and develop this, and then when you guys think it’s good, we’ll include it in the newsletter to the masses? That would be AWESOME!

I’ve signed up for most of the mailing list categories, just to see what it’s like. If the volume is too great (something I don’t anticipate for now) I will probably unsubscribe from some of them.

Yep. For now there will be no volume : ) Those are placeholders for an imagined future when the Fusion Energy League has a staff of writers or a great platform with regular contributors. For now, the lists help us see what areas people are interested in and who is interested in what more specifically.

Indeed, the purpose there is for outreach to the broader public, for coalition building. The time will come when we try to build coalitions with other groups – for example, when we go to woo the space enthusiasts. We’d send folks from those communities a fusion/space themed newsletter. Also, we’d like to find out who the people are already in our community who are also connected to those communities, so that we can work with them on tailoring pro fusion messages to their other group.

Also, according to the January update most readers thought last year’s year-end report was too detailed? o_O Who are these people?

This was the LPP update. They said it, not us. I don’t know who these “most readers” are. Perhaps LPP investors.