[Aeronaut]

Sounds like a job for the space elevator.

[Aeronaut]

Hmmm….. so neither x-rays or neutrons are sure to leave the vacuum chamber at a 90 degree angle? That would shoot this shielding down in a hurry. Thanx for the insight, Brian.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

http://www.albany.edu/x-ray-optics/polycapillary_optics.htm may be an effective lightweight (but not as cheap as water) way to focus X-rays and neutrons(?!) into much smaller and lighter processing systems- power conversion and shielding. I’m wondering how small and light weight this could make the FF, assuming this will work?

Since the X-ray emissions are in all (random) directions, I see no value in these optics, fascinating though they are. They specify very gentle curves in the tubes, as well, so would hardly be “small”.

I was also fascinated by the neutron reference; treating neutrons as wavicles is pretty brave stuff!

Ideally we could change the flight path from radial to axial, magnetically separate the x-rays from neutrons in free space just before the converter, and use relatively small and lightweight converters and shields. Suppose we only needed 1mm (may be generous at these wavelengths) to change the flight path another degree. Now a 125 degree bend towards the collector needs only 125 mm per side, or 250mm of total side shield thickness.

The only obvious advantage would be flight weight. But it may be possible to pay for the light pipe jacket with labor savings from a smaller, easier to assemble x-ray converter and neutron shield.

[Aeronaut]

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.

[Aeronaut]

Sorry about the age and image quality, Brian. These are strategic spending plans that form a mosaic with my posts from today and yesterday. As strategic documents that seem to be holding true, I didn’t see a need do a more exhaustive search. For current docs, may I recommend the new Budget?

FF and pB11 is conspicuous by its abscense.

[Aeronaut]

Haven’t been able to find any detail on their machine, Aaron, but I did find some policy docs and acronyms to search:

FEAC: Fusion Energy Advisory Committee
OFES: Office of Fusion Energy Sciences
PCAST: President’s Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/377516-KT9ZdT/webviewable/ is the Strategic Plan for the Restructured US Fusion Energy Sciences Program. The first few pages repeat the Executuve Summary while they admit that when times get tough enough, they might look at nearly-commercialized FF as a viable platform to launch the US Fusion Program. So maybe Brian’s right and FF’s intrinsic cubic goodness is all we need to have the world beat a path to FF.

http://other.nrl.navy.mil/EnergyOptions/PFP_Dean/PFP_Dean.pdf Is the NRL’s fusion development blueprint. Note the General Atomics logo at the top.

http://www-ferp.ucsd.edu/najmabadi/TALK/95-99/9606-ANS.pdf is the Project Aries assessment of Tokamak gains over the decades.

http://www.bechtel.com/quick-change_artists.html is a brag page about how well Bechtel swaps out steam generators in a large nuc plant. It gives specifics about the entire project and has some killer pix. Projects like this make FF look like small potatoes, except in the context of repowering coal-fired utilities. The nav bar on top shows how many pies they have their fingers in, btw.

[Aeronaut]

AaronB wrote: Very interesting article. I wonder what sort of optimization techniques they came up with to increase neutron production. We could use that insight as our project progresses. Is there a way to get that info?

Not sure at the moment, but here’s what I found by googling Bechtel Nevada. The wind blows wherever Bechtel wants it too. This article has 26 footnotes citing sources, and at the very bottom links out to similar profiles on Boeing, Mistubishi, etc.

Here’s the link: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/corporate/dd/bechtel2.html

The way I found the the previous link is asking every search engine/window I encounter for “DPF”. Maybe their “rarified gas” is D-T?

[Aeronaut]

Phil’s Dad wrote: My goodness. :wow: The INL site shows a breathtaking level of short term thinking. Their prime market is the fossil fuel industry. Who needs it?

I see a pattern forming. What the government (DOE in particular) places in fairly plain sight is career paths that support international policy agreements such as ITER. This also justifies budgets by hiring people with big eds to operate big budget machines.

Meanwhile, back at the (Nevada) ranch, lurks a 2004 pdf showing that DOE already has their own Dense Plasma Focus fusion reactor. They use it for generating neutrons and are developing it to support NIF, DHS, etc. This could be interesting, now that the patent’s been issued.

Here’s the link: http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/publications/sitelines/sl103.pdf

Page 4 even has a decent photo of their rig. There’s also a list of acronyms that gives an idea how many organizations that facility interacts with. Its a LOT of people and sites.

So, Brian, as the Doors song L.A. Woman said, “Took a look around, see which way the wind blows…”

[Aeronaut]

I’m all for local FF generators, PD. The biggest obstacles I’m anticipating right now are regulatory, transmission equipment prices, and not knowing some of the technical details such as the expected output voltage. Please forgive me for sounding gloomy, I’ve already sited one in my mind’s eye that would work without a transformer for very local consumption- say a few km, perhaps.

[Aeronaut]

Breakable wrote: Well this is what Moller is promising. And with DARPA Grand Challenge success
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp
we can hope it will be achieved someday.
PS:Planes are still legal somehow even after 9/11…

Ain’t that amazing? 9/11 changed everything. Now it’s tacitly illegal to photograph anything that you want to improve, say a transformer yard and transmission tower. Maybe I can find the image on Google Earth…

[Aeronaut]

Rezwan wrote:

Which brings me back to not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Cap and trade – I need more info. It’s theoretically a market based solution to environmental problems, which seems worth looking into. Although “religiosity” seems to be clouding an investigation into it, both pro and con.

Rez, the most important thing to remember is that the rest of the world is doing the best they can with what they have. Two factors that will likely change that in the next 12 months are that the treaty will be fleshed out in more detail, probably not yet ratified, and Baby will have produced enough neutrons and X-rays per shot to show that profitable (predictable and easily repeatable in Baby’s case) fusion has arrived. If you think the holy war rhetoric is something now, 16 months from now are going to be the home stretch in a LOT of US elections. Think you know what a spitting contest looks like? You’ll need waders to get in the same room with the carbon and business camps.

I believe that we’ll get the best mileage by quietly approaching these combatants off-camera, so to speak, presenting FF as THE solution to their problem. No need to mention that it’s also their enemy’s ideal solution. ;-).

Even if this is preaching to the choir, every FF installed eliminates the burning of hundreds of thousands of tons of coal or its fossil equivalent over its 50 year(?) lifetime. Since energy demand will rise anyway, meeting that demand (and retrofitting with FF) will be the most cost-effective way to reduce future pollutants spewed. What is that, 5,000 to 15,000 FF’s for only 3 trillion dollars at low-production pricing?

This means that we can pitch with variations of “What IF FF delivers, according to the schedule published over two years ago?” to change the tool set in the carbon debate, since all it comes down to scientifically is how we as a planet make energy. The Repowering the Electric Utility Industry thread has some interesting projections about how fast just one utility could implement FF. If we can tap even a small amount of the pent up emotion of the carbon wars, Brian’s analysis that all forms of political resistance to FF would quickly vanish could come to pass before the first FF comes off the first assembly line.

So I see the carbon wars as a scam as well as an incredible time and emotional energy sink.

[Aeronaut]

Maybe that’s why there’s so many high-rises in that movie…

[Aeronaut]

Quarter G sounds doable, Duke. I rode the bus for so many years that I unconsciously equated how a bus moves with how a maglev would move. My bad.

Skycars are going to be great until everybody has one. Something that Star Wars didn’t need to mention is where all those skycars park, flight plans, traffic control, etc. Moller had a great writeup in Popular Mechanics a few years back. Last I heard, he was having problems with FAA type certification. I like that workshop you’re describing, Breakable. Sounds almost like Ironman’s. I saw him build the new armor and thought “that’s how to prototype” (or mass produce/customize).

[Aeronaut]

Incendiary is a major understatement, imo. As long as we focus on cheap energy that just happens to be clean, all sides will link to FF as the only published testing schedule, heh, heh, heh.

[Aeronaut]

Brian H wrote:

Seems I’m paying 9.3 cents/kwh, making your numbers verry conservative, Brian. But even at 50k$/GWh, doubling the new capacity every year triples the installed capacity every year. YEE HAW!

Another thought is that only the late adopters will be left “holding the bag” of stranded assets. With that kind of snowball effect, the early adopters could make a solid case to their Utilities Commissions to use the windfall to amortize ‘assets’ across 5 years instead of 30. Then the floor could drop out of the pricing without hurting investors.

Yes, we’d want to recycle as much of the buildings and transmission system as practical.

Yeah; here we pay 6.5¢, California/LA rates are all over the place, starting at ~11¢ going up to 25¢; Europe is in the 15¢ to 30¢ range, etc.

But my point is that the money isn’t “in hand” to install FF unless the rates are kept high. Perhaps a compromise at around $20/GWh would be good, enough to pay off existing FF plant in one year and fully fund another set. That, of course, is unheard-of speed. One-year amortization or prepaid is not the usual!
Don’t forget the ability to add one or more GW/yr. 😉 The sheer audacity may turn out to be the strongest selling point.

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