[AaronB]

In my ideal world, we would shift from gasoline/diesel to ammonia (NH3). It’s carbon-free, powerful, relatively safe, and there’s already a distribution network established. There’s a guy named John Holbrook at NHThree who has developed a solid-state, reverse fuel cell for making ammonia. If you have heat and electricity and add water and air, you get ammonia and oxygen out of the other side. It just so happens that if our fusion generator works, it would produce heat and electricity. If you strap these two technologies together, you’d have an instant gas station that could produce tons of liquid fuel for very little cost.

Ammonia will burn pretty well in standard car engines, but if you had a super-efficient ammonia-burning fuel cell in your car (with a small capacitor for acceleration and regenerative braking), you could have all of the advantages of electric motors, ammonia fuel, and carbon-free power. That’s my vision anyway.

[AaronB]

The “intermission period” is over, and the team is hard at work again. Milestones 4 & 5 will be met on the way to 6 & 7. The next report will be out fairly soon which will give more details on the recent progress, and where that puts us in relation to the milestones.

[AaronB]

On the topic of the thread, I’d prefer to work in stealth mode, but that’s a luxury that comes with abundant financing, which we don’t have. In fact, we could use a white knight (or a crazy old coot for that matter, as long as he’s accredited :)) to drop a few hundred thousand bucks on us. Progress doesn’t happen without resources, equipment, personnel, and ideas. We have the personnel, equipment and ideas, but we won’t make it too much farther with our current funding. It would be sad to have to stop work when we are so close. Therefore, we won’t be going into stealth mode in the foreseeable future.

It amazes me how some projects get millions in funding when the science behind them is questionable at best. Other projects (like this one) struggle to get mainstream attention and funding when the ideas behind them are sound. Fortunately for LPP, our investors are a pretty intelligent and fore-thinking lot, and have seen this project as a good bet. I just wish a few more people like that would come out of the woodwork right about now.

[AaronB]

Brian, I don’t know which papers Rezwan had linked on the FFS front page, or where the links went. I would guess it was “Prospects for pB11 fusion with the DPF: New Results” and “Advances Toward PB11 Fusion with the DPF”, but I’ll defer to Rezwan for the actual answer. Those two papers will probably be more than enough to make your friend’s head spin. Not exactly light reading, but interesting. Good luck.

[AaronB]

MTd2, fusion requires high temperatures, high density, and enough confinement time for the particles to collide. If you have a higher temperature, the density or confinement time can be less, and you will still maintain the same amount of fusion going on. As the report said, the plasmoids were hotter than expected, and also either smaller or less dense than anticipated. Due to the limitations of the instruments, we don’t know for sure which it is, or maybe a combination of both. Either way, as the report also says, “That is exactly the scaling observed so far, and the absolute number of fusion reactions is just as predicted.” Once we start firing shots again with the better detectors, we’ll be able to see exactly what’s going on. I wouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. Things aren’t as bad as one isolated variable may seem to indicate.

[AaronB]

Brian, please see Eric’s page at the LPP website. That should have everything you need.
http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=86.

[AaronB]

Brian, without going into details or complicated formulas, the pinches are not “hot” enough yet, but the extrapolations are there. However, pB11 is a completely different animal than deuterium.

Pretend energy break even is hitting a home run. To get a home run, you have to have a ball, a bat, and a batter. The batter has to swing hard enough, the bat has to make contact with the ball at just the right angle and time, and the ball has to be tough enough and aerodynamic enough to travel over the wall. Up until now, we’ve fired with deuterium at less than full voltage on less than all capacitors at less than full synchronization and without full diagnostics. That’s like swinging with one arm using a plastic bat on a whiffle ball while half blindfolded. Obviously you wouldn’t expect to knock it out of the park under those circumstances, but you can measure the speed of the bat, timing of the hit, angle of flight, etc, and figure out what it will take with a real bat and ball at full power and synchronization, optimal timing, etc.

With that said, and as bad as that may sound, the results we have gotten are very encouraging, and we’re only getting started. We’re at the cutting edge of this research. With the upgraded switches, we should have vastly improved performance by having all capacitors discharge, with better synchronization, at higher voltages. We’ve barely started to test the effects of the angular momentum coil or the magnetic field effect, so we really can’t say just how much those will ultimately improve the results. We’re also getting all the diagnostic instruments installed and the noise eliminated, so we can better see what’s going on, effectively taking off the blindfold. As for finding the “sweet spots”, well, that’s what batting practice is all about. 🙂 We’ve got to get in there and start swinging. I’m very optimistic that by late September, we’ll have some newsworthy results. When all the pieces come together at the right time and place, that’s when things get interesting.

[AaronB]

Hi MTd2. It’s nice to hear you’ve been following our work. The Time vs. Energy graph represents where we have been and where we want to be by the end of the year, but progress is not expected to be linear. There has been a delay as we are upgrading the switches and trigger system, which you can read about in the “July Switch Update” article. I’m very happy with the progress this year, even with the occasional delay, and I’m still confident in our projections. By the end of September, we’ll have a much better picture of where we stand and what we can expect by the year’s end. Until then, the team is lowering electrical noise, calibrating instruments, and all that “mundane” work that is absolutely vital to progress. It is also appropriate to prepare for pB11 testing because it is just around the corner, but we need to have the diagnostic suite ready before we can make the switch from deuterium.

[AaronB]

To a certain extent, I hope Iran beats us to it. Maybe it will be the energy equivalent of Sputnik, and it will force our government (and specifically the DOE) to wake up and smell the fusion byproducts. I sent a bunch of information to Secretary Chu after his interview at Google where someone in the audience asked about Focus Fusion, and he didn’t have a clue about our work. Well, I have yet to hear back from them. Maybe now that Iran is in the race, with a lot more than a shoestring budget apparently, someone in this administration will take this project seriously. It’s amazing to me that Focus Fusion hasn’t been absorbed into the black-ops world already. We haven’t exactly been quiet about our results or ambitions. Really, is anyone else out there projecting breakeven by the end of this year? It astounds me that we have received so little coverage in the media. If we don’t get as much funding as the Iranians, they will probably surpass us fairly quickly. After all, a lot of our findings have been posted here for the world to see, and they could easily adopt and expand on them. Fortunately, LPP’s intellectual property is protected by the patent, so even if the Iranians do get there first, LPP will be able to cash in when sales are made in the covered markets. It’s just a shame that the US may lose its technological lead so quickly and carelessly.

Be that as it may, we’re still in this race with a significant lead and a first-rate team. Hopefully the attention and funding we need will now suddenly appear. There’s nothing like healthy competition to raise public interest and bring sponsors out of the woodwork. Who knows? Maybe FF-1 will soon have a “General Electric®” or “Powered by Intel®” sticker on the side. 🙂

[AaronB]

I see the police and military in the same way as I see doctors. While I don’t routinely go in for invasive surgery just for the fun of it, if I need a heart transplant or if I develop cancer, I want someone there who can take care of the problem. Doctors shouldn’t be running my life any more than the police or military (or bankers, lawyers, electricians, etc.) should. Everything has its purpose and place, and problems develop when any sector or segment of the population oversteps its bounds. That’s what cancer does in the body. Also, the military is a profession that specializes in the application of physical violence. The profession of arms is as important as any other profession, but it is a specialized tool that shouldn’t be used in place of diplomacy. A hammer is a great tool, but it is no substitute for a wrench or a knife. Likewise, military forces are to be used sparingly and only to take out malignant parts of society that can’t be dealt with humanely and in generally pro-social ways. Like with open-heart surgery, a surgeon wants to do minimal damage to surrounding tissue, and prevent infection. The military must exercise its power with minimal collateral damage, and in such a way that encourages a healthy society after the operation is over. Too many times throughout history, politicians and profiteers have sought to use the military for their own selfish ends, and they misapply military forces to try to affect certain outcomes. It *ALWAYS* fails, but the temptation is always there, and when in a bind, desperate people do desperate, short-sighted things. It’s called sacrifice, and sometimes we sacrifice what we want most for what we want now. Some sacrifices are justifiable and wise, while others are foolish and damaging overall.

The same can be said about the oil spill in the gulf. We want energy to maintain our lifestyle. We have to go farther and deeper to get new supplies. Deep ocean drilling is difficult, dangerous, and risky, but we choose to do it anyway to support our energy habit. Companies and countries try to minimize environmental damage, but it happens when things go wrong. I think that’s what the original poster had in mind by posting the comic. It’s not just soldiers who are dying to support our energy habit. Entire species and ecosystems are paying the price too, as well as unborn generations. Maybe someday we as individuals and as a society will not be so prone to making foolish sacrifices. In the meantime, we struggle on. Focus Fusion is one of those smart sacrifices worth supporting.

[AaronB]

Let me preface me comments with this bit of info. As you may know, I’m an Air Force captain working at CENTCOM HQ. I sit within spitting distance of the Casualty section, and I’m acutely aware of the KIAs, injuries, suicides, and other assorted “sacrifices” made by soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. I’m familiar with the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded, and how they are forced to sacrifice also.

Armed conflict between nation-states, religious factions, family clans, terrorist organizations, gangs and individuals is a never-ending part of history, and from my perspective, it always will be. However, we can minimize the opportunities and reasons for conflict by ensuring enough resources and opportunities for all. In a world of resource scarcity, people will fight to get what they need, or to protect what they already have. When people are forced onto a lower rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, their morality and behavior quickly follow suit. Desperate people do desperate things to include the willful destruction of their environment and fellow men (and women and children).

Sacrifice can either be proactive or reactive. Action can be taken preemptively or forced upon you. I see the world’s growing population, resource depletion, and environmental damage as the approaching “perfect storm”. Mix that with short-sighted governments financed by self-serving banks empowered by a complacent and ignorant general population, and you have a recipe for disaster. Why? Because the foresight and desire to sacrifice in order to make needed changes are not happening. I’m speaking generally, of course. There are many individuals and small groups who are aware of the problems, speak out on them, take action and make the necessary changes in their own private lives, but institutional, universal problems will not be solved when the majority is dead set on rushing off a cliff.

I joined this project because I became aware of the problems with the money system and world energy situation. Realizing that both systems would soon force a worldwide reduction of the standard of living, and consequently an increase in conflicts, I began to look for solutions. This project stood out to me as a real opportunity to solve the energy crisis, and I made (and continue to make) personal sacrifices to help it along. Either way, we’ll make sacrifices. One way is proactive, and the other way will be forced upon us. The latter won’t be pretty.

Loving your neighbor is part of the solution, but it’s a lot easier to love your neighbor when he’s not stealing your stuff or eating your cat.

[AaronB]

Right now, there are 12 capacitors, each with its own switch, used for powering each pulse. The diamond switch will be used in Phase 2 to collect energy from the ion beam after a pulse. The diamond switch will have to allow current to flow into capacitors as the ions are approaching the coil and slowing down, and then quickly turn off so the coil and capacitors don’t expend the collected energy to re-accelerate the ions. Perhaps as time goes by and further development happens, we can use a single capacitor bank with two diamond switches, one for initiating the pulse and the other on the capture side. Maybe on FF-2.

[AaronB]

This has been an interesting conversation. Let me add my 2 cents.

Everything that is or happens in the universe can be roughly categorized into hardware, software, and people. Hardware is the physical world of materials, machines, resources, infrastructure, etc. Software is the collection of ideas, rules, laws, contracts, customs, beliefs, fears, values, policies, etc. People are the ones who connect the hardware and software. In the example of driving, we have roads, street signs, and cars. We also have rules of the road, speed limits, etc. Finally, we have people who are supposed to follow the rules. In a perfect world, there would be no car wrecks because the roads would be in perfect condition, signs would be properly places, cars would never blow tires, and people would never be distracted or drunk while driving. However, even the most ideal, fool-proof hardware setup can be defeated by the die-hard fool, the black swan.

Risks are all the possible things that can go wrong. While all may be possible, most will not be probable. With limited resources, engineers and planners usually try to mitigate (not eliminate) the worst risks while not blowing their budget. The probable consequences can lead to degradation, but not failure. That’s acceptable risk. When building homes, planners take into account 25, 50, and 100-year floods. They can’t control the floods, or even predict when they will hit, but it quantifies the risk and time-averages the chance of complete wipeout. But, however the risks are quantified, people will blow right through warning signs, restrictions, safety protocols, and basic common sense.

So, how does that relate to global warming or climate change? To me, climate change is something that is happening and always has happened. Sort of like turns in the road happen. Scientists try to quantify the turns in the road to best prepare to compensate. It’s really hard to guess how the road will turn based on past turns in the road. It is harder to predict the weather and climate. Hurricane tracking still uses spaghetti models that are different, and lead to different predictions. The more factors we can see and understand, the better we can predict and take steps to mitigate problems.

So, do I believe in climate change? Sure. Do I know and can I accurately quantify the many factors? Nope. Can I predict how and why it will change? Nope. Can I take reasonable steps to protect myself in case of sea level rise, desertification, etc? Absolutely. Will climate change be a bad thing? For some. Will it be a good thing? For some. Are there other risks in my life that are more immediate, quantifiable, and potentially catastrophic? Yes. Personally, I’m more worried about global energy supplies running low within my lifetime, the fractional-reserve money base and 60 trillion dollars in derivatives collapsing in the next decade, and the widening division of classes and have/have-nots causing riots and wars in the next 5 years. But that’s just me.

[AaronB]

More news now posted on the LPP site.

[AaronB]

Yes, the beams shoot in the same direction every time. As Eric mentioned, the Rogowski coil isn’t ready yet, so we haven’t been able to measure the ion beam output. All in good time.

[Author]

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