[Aeronaut]

Made it so, Alex. It’s still on page 1 of the site and project list page.

[Aeronaut]

Just got an intriguing question from the FB site concerning potential alternate sources of B-10 and B-11:

“I’d just like to add that nuclear fission power stations already run processing to separate isotopes 10B and 11B – they want 10B for their shielding, so 11B is their by-product (80% of natural boron) and is what we want for fusing – so it would be good to find out if they stockpile the 11B…..”

What think? Would it still be cheaper to mine or to recover from evaporative desal plants?

[Aeronaut]

Brian, I agree that numbers are easier in concept than action. Until the tipping point, that is. The hardest 2,500 or so sales is to the local person or group that can see Rezwan’s triple bottom line and popularize it in his, her, or their community. This is simply a variation of think globally, act locally. Science/engineering really is cool, and when they’re promoted correctly, you should be seeing 4th and 5th graders exploiting the help system of a delta-v space plane game, for instance.

So in the next 10 to 20 years we’re graduating a bunch of techies competing for jobs like new teachers are today. By adding a fourth branch to the government vs industry vs academic research environment, we’re not upsetting anybody else’s funding. My fantasy runs more along the lines of an announcement that the

“Podunk Development Co-operative seeks 50,000 partners contributing $100 annually to build and operate cutting edge aneutronic fusion research and tooling support lab to employ 2 degreed physicists, 10 physics undergraduate students, and up to 100 physics majors and promising high school students, who will graduate with solid work experience. Other intangible benefits include mentoring opportunities while developing a community of motivated problem solvers in all areas of business and the community. Creating and maintaining a global reputation for the highest energy density aneutronic fusion generators is the driving focus. Contact _____ “

Now we’re out of the ownership mentality and back into the frontier-style barn raising thinking. Do I own any of the barns I’ve helped build? No more than anybody who helped build mine owns part of mine. The tangible and intangible community benefits are worth far more than $100/yr for almost anybody. LPP’s got a barn to build. So might polywell and tri-alpha.

Now, imagine 2,500 of these communities’ political impact. “Speak softly and carry a big stick” said Theodore Roosevelt.

[Aeronaut]

vansig wrote: unfortunately for small research companies, an investment fund manager would rather have one $100M account than one hundred $1M accounts.

Thus the appeal of a micro-funding network of 1M $100 investors. Buy low, sell at IPO prices. :coolsmile:

[Aeronaut]

I’m not sure why you’re thinking of paying to host another donate button. How does this differ from a blog or website? Just trying to visualize the benefits. What kind of content would be needed?

[Aeronaut]

Awesome, Torulf! The links work, but some indication of scale would help people understand just how small a FF is.

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote:

i was about to agree and say, i really like the frequent updates on their site at present (Dr Nebel take note).

Glad to see SOMEONE thinks our updates are frequent : )

The real problem here is the black swan effect, and that everyone wants to be in on the black swan hit, and not suffer through the bulk of misses (research which reveals “nothing”, also known as “failure”).

There are a lot of ways the pursuit of scientific innovation could be improved in our world. A full factor brainstorm would be constructive. Coordinating collaboration is a major challenge. When is competition best leveraged, what can help reduce the risk and isolation, etc. etc.

Research could be a lot faster and more successful in the long run by transparently recording all experiments’ history of development, funding, data, and conclusions for other researchers to analyze.

Consider onion optimization, where most won’t be obvious wins, yet each lab could see which experiments they’d tweak slightly different. Say 5 levels of confidence, where 1 community’s lab/ incubator might like the security of Level 5 “in the bag” confirmation, while aggressive toolmakers may be willing to fund Level 0 or Level 1 experiments at the nearly basic level.

This could cut Edison’s 1,000 filament experiments to perhaps 30 to 100. Savings in time and capital would be stunning. And heads-up companies could ride a decades long tide of competitive advantages by taking the chance that Moore’s Law will apply to aneutronic fusion in this decade- and then making it happen.

Once the business press does a 180 back to our self-reliant roots, a LOT of the world’s problems are going to become a lot easier to manage.

[Aeronaut]

QuantumDot wrote: I understand your point but since there is a lot of helium 3 on the moon and supposedly on mars it would be one reason to go and it would encourage funding into DPF and other advanced fusion projects with advanced fuels.

First we have to power the ships. 😉

[Aeronaut]

Tulse wrote: But theoretical unity should be easier to demonstrate with He3, or even deuterium, right? The FF device isn’t designed to extract useful energy out of these reactions, but it should be able to show theoretical over-unity with these fuels at much lower temperatures than pB11. From a funding/publicity perspective, is there any value in demonstrating over-unity with these fuels before going to pB11, or would those just be distractions?

Since we’re on Goal #6, which includes “heavier gasses”, helium3 may be included, but I doubt it due to all the potential for that rare and expensive fuel to confuse things.

Goal #7 is to demonstrate the pB-11 fusion that FF-1 was designed for, and Goal #8 results from tweaking it until the neutron tof detectors confirm that more energy came out than went in to start the fusion reaction. My guess is that LPP’s going to have some amount of over unity in the bag before announcing unity.

The drift tube’s Rogowski coils would be a nice addition to the diagnostics, but they aren’t absolutely required to demonstrate net theoretical energy.

[Aeronaut]

QuantumDot wrote: What are the requirements for the other fuels like helium 3, and how does the current density compare to that required net energy? because if its just a matter of increasing current then its just a matter of time until you guys can finally say that you net power. and that will have to be something like the moon landing in that everyone will want to remember the day.

He3 isn’t on this year’s hit list. Once we show repeatable pB-11 burns, unity with a nearly unlimited supply of fuel should be within striking distance this year.

[Aeronaut]

Thanx, Tulse. What journals would you recommend that don’t charge for membership/ access? The 3 I listed above seem to pop up a lot in my searches as the most viable looking result.

[Aeronaut]

Very good signs, indeed. It’s up on FB now.

[Aeronaut]

Tulse wrote: And we all know how sterling the research done by private pharmaceutical companies is.

And you can be damn sure that the only reason we have any free flow of information among scientists is because their research is paid for publicly — no private companies would want their material spread to competitors.

If I’m helping fund that science, why are universities so uptight about their intellectual property rights, and why do SpringerNet, IEEE, and IOP want $30 per article? I think if their really is any flow of information between scientists, it’s informal or the result of some of them changing jobs. Hopefully I’m misunderstanding this…

[Aeronaut]

It goes downhill from there. I just found this in a paid ad while testing this week’s mailing:

http://www.energyandcapital.com/aqx_p/18938?gclid=CNO38aePp6ECFQohDQodaHLYDA .

[Aeronaut]

benf wrote: Sorry about the link, Aeronaut. I’ve changed it to a different site for all to check out.

California Prop. 16 Taxpayers Right to Vote Act

PG&E Utility is sponsoring this initiative pouring millions into the campaign. It basically says that cities can’t set up their own independent utility service without a two third majority vote.

Thanx for fixing the link, Benf.

It boiled my blood just to read that short article. The $6.5M that PG&E has into that campaign so far could have been much better invested in a Stanford and/ or UC Irvine confirmation lab for FF and left them ~$5M to promote how green and visionary they are.

UC Irvine developed the theory and initial experiments that Tri-Alpha’s CBFR design is built around, so I’m sure they’d be interested.

[Author]

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