[DerekShannon]

Crowdfunding update from LPP’s February 2014 report, available here (click for video!).

[em]Crowdfunding Plans Move Forward as 60 Volunteer – New video + March 9 livestream event! [/em]

As LPP, in cooperation with the Focus Fusion Society, moves forward toward launching its first crowdfunding drive, over 60 volunteers have come forward to help by signing up at LPP’s website. In crowdfunding, contributions are solicited on central websites, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The volunteers, from fifteen countries, have started to publicize the crowdfunding effort and have themselves pledged over $12,000. In addition, volunteers are starting to take on other tasks, such as selecting the best photos to upload to LPP’s new website, planned to go live in late March.

On March 9, LPP will host our first crowdfunding “meet-up” in New York City, from 2PM to 4PM Eastern at Tekserve on 119 West 23rd Street. For those unable to attend in person, the event will be livestreamed via Google+ Hangouts on Air, from LPP’s new Youtube channel.

The initial crowdfunding effort is planned to kick off on Earth Day, April 22. It will aim to raise the money needed for the project’s most expensive set of equipment—the beryllium electrodes that will replace the tungsten electrodes now in the works. Beryllium will be needed for the final part of the research drive to demonstrate scientific feasibility because of the intense x-rays that will be generated as FF-1 approaches its highest performance. The x-rays are absorbed in a tiny layer of tungsten, and will vaporize it. But beryllium will be transparent to most x-rays and will spread out the rest harmlessly. However, beryllium is far more expensive than tungsten and the electrodes will cost as much as $250,000, something crowdfunding can supply.

In the run-up to the crowdfunding, LPP needs publicity and it got some when LPP investor Peter Arneson posted a well-written description of the project on the Contrarian Investor website. The lively discussion about the post was continued at the Tesla Motors website. The discussion increased traffic on LPP’s website and motivated a wave of inquires about investments.

Fall 2013 Focus Fusion Cleantech NYC talk now available

In other video news, LPP has launched our own YouTube channel, separate from the Focus Fusion Society’s still valued presence at http://www.youtube.com/FocusFusionSociety and linked to our Google+ Page. The new channel’s first video is a recording of a talk by Eric at the NYC Cleantech Opportunities event in November 2013. Share it or other videos to introduce Focus Fusion to your network!

[DerekShannon]

From LPP’s February 2014 report, available here.

Russian lightning steals NIF’s thunder

[em]Plasma focus research moves forward as Russian device hits 30 J with deuterium-tritium[/em]

Many news outlets widely—and inaccurately—reported new results from the huge National Ignition Facility (NIF) as achieving the long sought-after goal of breakeven for fusion. What NIF in fact reported was a fusion yield of 17 kJ, more than the energy actually absorbed by the fuel pellet. The total input energy to the machine was far larger—some 500 MJ, so that 1 J of fusion was produced for each 30,000 J of input. This was indeed a big step upwards for NIF researchers but far from breakeven.

Meanwhile, science news reporters overlooked a major accomplishment in fusion a year ago by Russian researchers using a plasma focus device. These researchers performed their work at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, All Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, in Sarov. They reported fusion yields of 30 J (1.3 x 10^13 neutrons) with the same deuterium-tritium fuel used by NIF. Since the total energy fed into the capacitors was 135 kJ, the Sarov team achieved a fusion yield of 1 J per 4,500 J of input, more than six times better than the NIF results. (The record for any DT fusion experiment is the JET tokamak in the UK, which in 1997 produced 1 J of energy per 450 J of input.)

While LPP’s FF-1 device is not intended for use with DT fuel, it is useful to compare our results with those of the Sarov machine when using pure deuterium, a far less reactive fuel. With pure deuterium (D), Sarov produced 1 J of output per 2.2 MJ of input. FF-1’s best results are 1 J of output per 400 kJ of input, about four times better. (The best results for any plasma focus using pure D are around 1 J for 100kJ of input, about the same as the best results ever obtained for tokamaks using the same fuel.)

[DerekShannon]

From the February 28th, 2014 news item located here (click for pic!).

Tungsten electrodes are on their way with improved anode design

The tungsten electrodes needed for LPP’s next set of experiments are rolling forward. The electrodes are needed to eliminate impurities, and cleaner plasma is expected to raise density and yield in the tiny plasmoids where fusion reactions take place. They are on track to be installed by mid-May. The tungsten blank for the cathode (the larger outer electrode) has been completed by Tungsten Heavy Powder and is being shipped to New Jersey. There another company, New Jersey Precision Technology, will machine the block into the exact shape required, a complex process expected to take about 10 weeks.

In the meantime, LPP’s research team decided that the tungsten anode needed an improved design. Calculations by Chief Scientist Eric Lerner indicated that the highest current anticipated with FF-1 will be 2.8 Mega-Amperes, about twice the highest yet achieved. Lerner’s calculations showed this high current could cause arcing at the joint between the anode and its steel base. So the anode was redesigned into a plate-and-cylinder combination shape so that the anode, like the cathode, will connect to the rest of the circuit outside the vacuum chamber. Not only will this design eliminate any possibility of plasma impurities from arcing, but by spreading the current at the join out into a larger diameter, it will eliminate any arcing at all, even at the highest currents. LPP Consultant John Thompson and LPP Board of Advisors member Rudy Frisch helped with the anode design and the corresponding design of a “ring of steel” that will apply even pressure to the anode connection, ensuring no arcing. With the re-design, the anode, too, is now being manufactured in time for May installation.

[DerekShannon]

The volume of the finished piece will be ~2026cm^3, which at our measured density (of a sample actually sent from our supplier) was 19.23g/cm^3. So the mass will be ~38.96kg.

Tulse and ZapKitty are correct, however, that production electrodes would be made from beryllium, which seems to be in even shorter supply than W–It should be the actual bottleneck in future FoFu energy generation, but no real reason production can’t be increased. For the experiment, we do anticipate needing a beryllium anode, and are still crunching the numbers to determine whether a beryllium cathode is necessary.

[DerekShannon]

The latest ARPA-E solicitation also mentions LENR, as well as thermonuclear fusion, so there’s that.

https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Default.aspx?Search=DE-FOA-0001002&SearchType;=

[DerekShannon]

meemoe_uk2 wrote: Sooo, what happens next?
I see they are influential people whose support has been gained, which will be useful for any government assessments in the future.
But…
Did that committee also control funds?
Are they working as assessors, who report back to a government funding agency?

Your title says ” An independent scientific review “
independent in the ” we’re not biased ” sense, or independent in the ” we’re not government ” sense? If the latter, were they a private consultancy agency hired by the government and are now reporting back?

Is there a timetable of events that should trigger from this report?

They were independent in the sense that LPP did not have any control over the conclusions they wanted to put in the report. The committee members were also working as independent consultants, not part of any government or other official capacity. We hope to use this report to validate our work for non-technical people, but that’s up to us–and anyone who wants to help!

[DerekShannon]

LASERS! just get me all-capsy!

[DerekShannon]

@ikanreed, email derek@lpphysics.com for the paper. In the meantime I’ll highlight this section for others:

For example, Di Vita’s scaling laws do not predict the observed I5 scaling of fusion yield, where I is peak current, while the LPP scaling laws do. Similarly, Di Vita’s calculations predict a constant current in the plasmoid or hot spots of about 0.4 MA, while the LPP believes its calculations and theory more accurately predict increasing plasmoid current with increasing peak current.

@annodomini good reminder! I only do the LPP page, though….

[DerekShannon]

Thanks for the heads-up, we featured this in the latest report!

[DerekShannon]

@FrancisL The quantity of actual “orders” should be limited by the quantities of material we have for those rewards, will get exact inventory when awards are officially posted.

The solar lights would for sure be out-sourced to the nonprofit partner already doing those, after reaching out to three I have had some positive discussions with OneMillionLights.org — Also with the caveat that this kind of reward would likely require IndieGoGo as the platform, since Kickstarter doesn’t like charitable causes/rewards we don’t make ourselves.

The pB11 bracelets might not make the final cut, since they would take the most in-house work and so far I haven’t been able to recreate Rezwan’s lovely prototype (http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index.php/blog/article/aneutronic_jewelry)

[DerekShannon]

Thanks for checking in — The highlight of the next progress report is our visit to Google last month, but we are waiting on the big G to post the video of Eric’s talk(s) (there were two, one general and one technical) on their “Solve For X” website. We did hear by the end of this week, and it’s Friday, so stay tuned……

[DerekShannon]

Feel free to ask questions about the report in this thread!

[DerekShannon]

Hi, all–We were able to finish setting up our new SRS RGA last week, and the initial results were very helpful. It showed our earlier leak hunting had left a trapped reservoir of isopropanol, which enabled the leak to keep coming back after firing, but now that we understand what was happening we should be able to avoid this in the ongoing re-assembly. We’ll also be extending the functionality of the RGA with a pressure reducing sampling path. Onward to more shots! ;-D

[DerekShannon]

Thanks, a_i, I’ll definitely be getting a quote from them.

[DerekShannon]

It’s also worth noting that any future FoFu generators are likely to *use* helium, as a coolant flowing through a beryllium anode–While this would be continuously recycled, it still represents a demand that might cancel out the new helium fused into existence ;-D

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