[Rezwan]

OK. It turns out to be pretty simple to get news feeds.

Just for practice, I’ve added feeds to the Journal of Fusion Energy on our “Learning Center” page. You have to scroll down to see the feeds. (Hiding in plain sight – so we can talk about it, but I doubt anyone will see it there.)

Take a look at the feeds. The longer one is all recent articles. The shorter one (200 character descriptions) is a feed from a search for “Plasma Focus”.

Questions:

Which works better, long or short?
Targeted search – or should we do all fusion?
Which other journals are “must haves” for the Plasma Focus page?
And what about other approaches to fusion? Do we aggregate by “fusion in general” and separate by journal, or do we get a bunch of different journals and search each of them for, say, “MFE” or “ICF” or “Polywell” or what have you?

Standing by.

[Rezwan]

emmetb wrote:
So what about this then:
“How Green is it? Hands down the greenest form of energy for high power-density applications: no CO2, no nuclear waste, very small environmental footprint in terms of construction materials needed per MW, no storage and distribution problems, no problem with toxins as found in fotovoltaics, not in competition with land for agriculture and forrests.”

Thanks for the suggestion!

I’m trying to shorten the first page to add more things on it (like news feeds in better position). So I’ve left your quote off the front. However, the link “How green is it” goes to a page, and I’ve inserted the quote above as the second paragraph.

[Rezwan]

emmetb wrote:
I don’t mean to be nitpicking here, but i did meet many fusion-skeptics on a sustability congress i attended last week in the Netherlands. They reason more or less as follows, we already have a fusion power plant: the sun. So all we need to do is catch more of its rays.

Yes, but the sun is so inefficient. Every second, it burns mind boggling amounts of energy up. So mind boggling, I can’t even conceive of it. That’s what these stars do. They sit out there in darkness, burning, burning, burning. Bathing the satellites around them with too much or too little energy depending on location. And they’re unstable. Sometimes they blow up and destroy things for light years around them (OK, that’s also what generates the heavier matter – but we’ll work on that, too).

Basically, they have inconceivably awesome power, which they use for twinkling.

I was in Dubai last year, wandered by their indoor skiing facility. 125 degrees outside (F), and they have skiing. Never mind the waste of energy here to make snow in a desert. Think of skiing. Looking at the building from the outside, you suddenly get it. What do you need to ski? A mountain and some snow? No. You don’t need mountains. You just need a SLOPE.

Man made fusion is like that slope. Star energy without the mass of a star.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

Good to know you won’t feel tempted to complain when you find out we’re paying you 40% less than everyone else for the same job. We like employees like you! We’ll give you a carrot award. A coupon to Applebees. Way to go!

[Rezwan]

JShell, great link about thebreakthrough.org – we’ll have to follow up with that.

Re: wealthy elites, I like this quote from bajillion hits:

All we wanted to do was have some wine, eat the apps we ordered, and go on our merry ways making billions and billions of dollars within the byzantine self-sustaining system of insular wealth we worked so hard together to create.

(the guy that brought you the elevator pitch film.)

Re: causes of conflict: resource scarcity v. power for its own sake? Worm can alert!

I might rephrase the latter as desire for sovereignty that was thwarted and devolved into ugly counter-imperialism. And I’m sure resource scarcity is a big amplifier of conflict. Disproportionate control of resources is certainly an amplifier of tyranny. Underlying it all may be the narcissism of small differences. We do just like to disagree, for its own sake and to preserve our sense of self. Resource imbalance turns this narcissism nasty.

Checks and balances are required to keep any of us petty people from holding too much sway.

[Rezwan]

“offer void where prohibited”? Or “prohibitive”?

e-swag.

Yes, consult your tax attorney.

[Rezwan]

I wonder which one, ultimately will be the day job.

Anyway, here’s a ring of mine, purchased in Albuquerque from some Native American Jeweler, I think. Alas I can’t recall who or where. If you recognize your work – shout out! The inscription inside is “925”

I call it the plasma ring – with the whorls. Perhaps this can inspire some styles.

Shown here in two handy poses – “action punch” and “mellow”.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

Not sure. Will have to check.
Per this website about visas,

B-1 Visitors for Business – Specifically Permitted Activities Listed in the FAM
N6.2.– Members of Board of Directors of U.S. Corporation.

An alien who is a member of the board of directors of a U.S. corporation seeking to enter the United States to attend a meeting of the board or to perform other functions resulting from membership on the board.

This suggests that aliens can thus be members of boards of directors of US corporations.

Any real lawyers out there can weigh in!

[Rezwan]

Depends on who ends up on the board. Probably online. Once in a while, a face to face meeting would be advisable. I think travel costs for an annual meeting could be provided.

The current FFS board so far hasn’t dealt with anything. They’ve been placeholders who give advice.

The board will help develop the organization, give it a higher profile, help with fundraising, enable it to become a serious contender in the realm of fusions policy. It will help prioritize, and help ensure that we have the resources to carry out programs. As it is, we’re a loose membership organization that has cool conversations on a website and documents LPP as they conduct experiments. A lot of the things we’ve talked about can be turned into actionable projects, but we need a stronger organization and resources to push that through.

Foundations don’t give money to organizations without a strong board.

[Rezwan]

What’s a “plamoid”?

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: The “job loss ratio” is only for government funded jobs; the money for them sucks investment out of more productive private uses.
And there is no “big picture” worry about FF causing job losses; the economic explosion of activity that cheaper power will enable will create them out of thin air, in far greater numbers than any displacement losses. Consult a good modeling economist on this if you don’t believe me. Just tell him to plug in a sudden source of energy at 1/20 current prices.

It is the nature of jobs to disappear, no matter what. Even private finance jobs.

What’s the Matter With Wall Street?
There are too many traders, bankers and salesmen to support the new level of business. Thanks to Dodd-Frank, the shrinking of finance will continue.

Of course more people will come on line economically, but this overall trend of decreasing jobs to people ratio will continue.

[Rezwan]

AaronB wrote: There are two separate processes going on. First, the axial field coil is used to impart a small amount of spin to the plasma sheath so the filaments merge gently. After the filaments merge into a single filament, that new filament generates its own large magnetic field that compresses the filament, known as a z-pinch. At that point, the filament starts to coil like a spring or telephone cord. The coils attract each other and collapse into the smallest stable shape, a toroid. The toroid continues to shrink under its own massive theta-pinch forces, and when the conditions are right, the energetic ions get squeezed so hard that they begin to fuse. The high magnetic fields keep the ions and electrons from bouncing in all different directions, thus preventing the production of a lot of X-rays.

Great explanation, Aaron. Do you have references to journals and publications on this topic? We need to gather more peer review links. Of course, I need to set the website up to have a way to dynamically populate with such references as they are found.

For example, the axial field coil will inject spin into the sheath, but it may affect the orientation of the plasmoid also. That would probably stabilize the ion beam output, which would be a good thing. Other factors will affect the overall process and eventual output.

The above are the concepts being tested, correct?

[Rezwan]

Aeronaut wrote: Here in Michigan, it’s all about creating manufacturing jobs. Preferably green collar jobs and careers that a single breadwinner can raise a family on.

Job creation is tough. The trend is irreversible. Machines and cheap overseas labor can make stuff for much less than Americans. We’re a dying breed. And people don’t want all the stuff being made, anyway. Marketers try to figure out how to get kids to consume more, but many people want to be able to hang out without much cost and just have a mellow time. Consuming manufactured goods is not a big priority. So a lot of money goes to trying to make people feel inadequate without stuff. Eventually they’ll catch on.

Fusion will reduce the cost of things, open up markets (which will soon reach saturation), and clean up water, make some deserts bloom. (More gardening jobs!) But the job thing has its own character arc going on. We’re relentlessly making these types of jobs obsolete. Sad but true.

Saving a lot of money on heating and electric bills is also very important here, as is protecting our Great Lakes and outdoorsy tourism industry.

The reducing heating bills thing – I see that that’s what most people want. At the same time, the promise of fusion goes beyond that. I’m thinking of the Godzilla T-Rex movie trailer, where T-rex gets trumped by the nuclear generated leviathan. Metaphor here for heating bills being trumped by abundant energy for all your terra-forming and galactic expansion whims.

But then again, most people see fusion as that impractical unproven thing. And ITER certainly isn’t the Godzilla of energy in that it won’t make cheap, easily distrubted energy. Wel, oK, perhaps it’s the Godzilla if you think in terms of size.

[Rezwan]

tcg wrote: …the approach we use must be tailored to the audience, including the symbol. The respondents to this site seem to come from diverse enough locations that I feel that they could speak authoritatively for the people around them — what would those people find persuasive about a research project now and ( hopefully ) a finished product later?

Yes, for each audience. Not just a symbol, but a “7 word or less” tag line.

“The world needs fusion. Fusion needs you.” Nice for a fundraiser of the faithful, but lacks the “don’t mess” bite.

“Don’t mess with tokamaks” – inspired by Texas anti-littering, except it tells you what not to do, not what to do. And it also makes Tokamaks the hero, if read the same way “don’t mess with Texas” is.

“Fusion or bust” – well, people will say, “but fusion IS bust.”

“You can’t prove it WON’T work.” – I’ve heard this before. Not very inspiring.

“Break on through to Fusion World”.

“Does fusion have us whipped?”

Ah! A fusion poetry contest. Acronym poetry, where you take the first letter.

Futuristic
Undertaking
Simply
Ingenious
Onward,
Now!

[Rezwan]

KeithPickering wrote:
Even better, scientists at the University Arizona report a quantum engineering breakthrough that could achieve ZT’s of 50 or higher, using simple (and cheap) polymerized benzene.

tcg wrote: Having installed several sets of solar panels, I learned from experience not to touch them when they have been exposed to the sun for a while. The natural heat build up is a source of hazard and inefficiency. When the panels are hot, they yield less watts per lumen. Extracting the heat to generate electricity would increase the efficiency of the panels, a double win.

Do the math for the electrical laymen here. A double win, or 50 times win? With “ZT’s of 50”, How much more efficient/ how much greater output could a solar panel yield?

Is this the breakthrough solar has been waiting for? No need for carbon taxes?

[Author]

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