The Focus Fusion Society Forums Official Announcements New Mission Statement

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  • #10524
    Brian H
    Participant

    I agree with the “aneutronic” emphasis. Anything else is just hot air (or water). 😉

    But the way in which nuclei get together is a bit violent for people. :bug:

    #10526
    TimS
    Participant

    What about those of us who are probably not going to be much help in “pursuing” it, but are here to cheer and take delight in it? (unless Eric wants to hire somebody to help cleaning the lab – I would take that job REAL cheap!)

    #10531
    Rezwan
    Participant

    TimS wrote: What about those of us who are probably not going to be much help in “pursuing” it, but are here to cheer and take delight in it? (unless Eric wants to hire somebody to help cleaning the lab – I would take that job REAL cheap!)

    Sounds like you’ve limited “pursuit” to direct lab work, discounting other things. Of course, if you just cheer in the solitude of your head, that’s not much of a pursuit, but if you take some action, like vocalize that cheering and share with others, then you are promoting fusion. This may or may not have the effect of connecting the project to someone who can fund it. But it counts as “pursuit”.

    We live in a networked world. Leverage it.

    #10553
    annodomini2
    Participant

    Unlimited is inaccurate

    For the tag line, I personally like: “Always positive and never neutral!”

    #10554
    zapkitty
    Participant

    annodomini2 wrote: Unlimited is inaccurate

    For the tag line, I personally like: “Always positive and never neutral!”

    “No neutrons means no problems.”

    #10575
    vansig
    Participant

    The objections I hear, are from people who believe that the world should learn to conserve energy first; that unlimited energy will lead to unlimited destruction of natural resources and unlimited population explosion.

    Changing that opinion requires discussion of the feasibility of recycling, comparing its cost to that of pillaging protected lands; and whether the technology can be turned into a weapon by people like Dick Cheney.

    #10577
    zapkitty
    Participant

    Agreed, mostly, but this part:

    vansig wrote: … and whether the technology can be turned into a weapon by people like Dick Cheney.

    … I think the best tack to take would be that an aneutronic reactor such as an FF unit just can’t be made into a bomb or used directly for proliferation for the same reasons it would be safe to use domestically.

    #10578
    Rezwan
    Participant

    @vansig & annodomini2, are you saying we should change “unlimited” to “abundant”?

    While updating the website, I noticed in some places we had “abundant” already. Probably from a previous discussion.

    Also, I noticed we had “affordable” rather than “cheap” – because we didn’t want to be seen as cheap. There was a discussion about that at some point as well.

    Aside from that, our mission statement doesn’t [em]exclude[/em] conservation. Obviously, until we get it working, we can’t stop conserving, and even after it’s working, I think a big motivation for conservation comes down to not wanting to bother with excess stuff and building. We’d still like energy efficient buildings because it does away with the loud hum of cooling and heating machines (AC units and fans annoy me).

    #10582
    TimS
    Participant

    Excess energy can enable recycling. IIRC, complete aluminum recycling uses a huge amount of power. Certainly, abundant energy might contribute to industies that strip the worlds resources etc, and that is something to consider, but there does not have to be a dichotomy between protecting the environment and providing energy.

    #10584
    vansig
    Participant

    Rezwan wrote: @vansig & annodomini2, are you saying we should change “unlimited” to “abundant”?

    While updating the website, I noticed in some places we had “abundant” already. Probably from a previous discussion.

    Yes, “abundant” is the better word.

    Also, I noticed we had “affordable” rather than “cheap” – because we didn’t want to be seen as cheap. There was a discussion about that at some point as well.

    Aside from that, our mission statement doesn’t [em]exclude[/em] conservation. Obviously, until we get it working, we can’t stop conserving, and even after it’s working, I think a big motivation for conservation comes down to not wanting to bother with excess stuff and building. We’d still like energy efficient buildings because it does away with the loud hum of cooling and heating machines (AC units and fans annoy me).

    Even after it’s working, we shouldn’t stop conserving. But it sure would be nice to guarantee each and every person on the planet a kilowatt.. as a fundamental right.

    #10585
    TimS
    Participant

    Couple things-

    What’s wrong with cheap? Nothing like a cheap date.

    Regarding conservation; I think new energy can be tied into conservation of othing things, like resources and land. I already posted about aluminum recycling, which means not so much material needs to be mined. However, people on this forum have talked about very high energy applications to manufacture out of whatever junk is available. I forget the words or exact technologies they were referring to, but they know who they are.

    The non-fusion application of the LPP reactor, as an X-ray source, could be used to monitor old structures and so not need to replace them as often. Conserving the effort needed to replace them. This might conserve energy in the construction sector even if DPF never generated an excess watt-hour.

    That brings up one thing. All of this seems to be focused on aneutronic fusion, as opposed to aneutronic DPF. I think it would be great if any aneutronic fusion contender was successful, I certainly don’t just support DPF or LPP. However, when I think of the FF society, I think of DPF. I would not want to limit the FFS in any artificial ways. But this is a community, within that community I pay particular attention to DPF, and the F in DPF stands for focus, not fusion. The DPF is a particular type of reactor. That doesn’t seem to be an artificial limitation, that seems to be what we are about. Here.

    Like in the previous paragraph about conserving energy in the construction sector, there may be other applications for DPF that FFS wants to focus on that other aneutronic projects are not so concerned with (although I guess they all produce X-Rays, but there may be other applications).

    I think this issue is affecting the discussion on this and other threads; specifically people are focused on the aneutronic reaction, p-B11. That is good, the reaction is important, but so is the reactor. Also it may not be great in terms of an outreach campaign if we want to get away from people seeing the FF effort as “nuculur”, and instead see it as an exotic device (the DPF) the size of a coffee can that works like a big high-voltage spark plug, has no radiation problems, and produces tons-and-tons of power without harming the environment. Wait! I did sell this to a non-technical friend of mine, just a couple months ago, in just that way.

    Also, I want my ring with a plasmoid and plasma swirls, not p-B11.

    #10586
    Rezwan
    Participant

    TimS wrote: That brings up one thing. All of this seems to be focused on aneutronic fusion, as opposed to aneutronic DPF. I think it would be great if any aneutronic fusion contender was successful, I certainly don’t just support DPF or LPP. However, when I think of the FF society, I think of DPF. I would not want to limit the FFS in any artificial ways. But this is a community, within that community I pay particular attention to DPF, and the F in DPF stands for focus, not fusion. The DPF is a particular type of reactor. That doesn’t seem to be an artificial limitation, that seems to be what we are about. Here.

    Yes, but this isn’t the DPF society, this is the Focus Fusion Society – which is derived from the focus – applied to fusion. Hence the fusion in the name. If DPF is not successful at achieving aneutronic fusion – and more specifically, net energy, we carry on with the fusion message and change the name to Focus ON fusion. There are other sites about the DPF and things to do with it. Those other applications would be a consolation, of material value and technical interest, but they don’t change much in the world. The possibility of fusion is what’s bringing people to the table here.

    We want aneutronic fusion, and we’re hoping this machine can do it. This site focuses on the DPF as our favorite approach. But that will only remain so if it’s successful. Otherwise, there’s a lot more work to be done.

    #10587
    Rezwan
    Participant

    TimS wrote: Also, I want my ring with a plasmoid and plasma swirls, not p-B11.

    Funny you should mention that. Here’s what I think of as my plasma swirl ring.

    #10588
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Now that you mention it, we did set up a separate section for the DPF – it was supposed to be for actual DPF practitioners to discuss their work, and we wanted to restrict it from the rabble. We set up a site (densplasmafocus.org), and I see that in the upgrade of our CMS, I have yet to change the settings to direct it properly. Not quite sure how. It’s not a simple re-direct, there’s a php thingie, so it’s low on the backlog list.

    It wasn’t getting much play, in any case. It needs a specific, committed person at the helm to run/manage/build it up, do outreach to the rest of the dpf community. Could you be that person? It’s a great thing to do! Very important for dpf technology. Sketch out a proposal of how you would run a “DPF society”.

    What would a DPF society mission statement be? That’s one area we had trouble with. This was a focus fusion initiated site, so it has a ways to go to connect with the rest of the DPF community. We tried to set it up for academic posting and discussion – but folks are already “posting” in journals. It would actually take a bit of work to set something practical up. If the “client group” is the dpf community, you need something tailored to them, you need to interview them all, rank their preferences, etc. etc. What do they want in a site? What kind of community support do they want? To what end?

    Outside the scope of our capacity.

    #10592
    TimS
    Participant

    Rezwan wrote: Now that you mention it, we did set up a separate section for the DPF – it was supposed to be for actual DPF practitioners to discuss their work, and we wanted to restrict it from the rabble. We set up a site (densplasmafocus.org), and I see that in the upgrade of our CMS, I have yet to change the settings to direct it properly. Not quite sure how. It’s not a simple re-direct, there’s a php thingie, so it’s low on the backlog list.

    …………………

    Guess I wasn’t clear, as usual. When I first heard of FFS/LPP/DPF a few months ago, I checked into DPF and saw that it has a very rich history going back decades. I know DPF has a whole community of practitioners. That is part of the reason I am here; Eric is leveraging all of that. However, I did not mean that FFS be focused on all of DPF. I meant, specifically, aneutronic fusion using a DPF reactor. Involving experimental projects. One such project in particular comes to mind, there may be others.

    Like you say, if this does not work out, the name can be changed to “Focus on Fusion Society” at that time and we can all carry on. However, let’s think positive, and put our energy into making it work out. Most of the people here in this forum seem to regard LPP as the work that we are primarily interested in here, with other fusion projects being “other” fusion projects. It would seem to be a dilution and limitation not to be able to take all of the characteristics of DPF aneutronic fusion and use them to bring up some support.

    Of course, I understand FFS is not legally part of LPP. We can’t be Eric’s cheering club, and I expect he doesn’t want that. However, personally I think DPF aneutronic fusion is pretty cool, but most importantly it is mostly what the people here are talking about.

    I am bringing this up because I hope to get input from the wider community on this website, FFS members, etc. Is DPF aneutronic fusion the main thing here, or just any aneutronic fusion? I do not mean what do we think is most likely to be successful, or what we personally support, but I mean what do we think FFS is about?

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