[Rezwan]

Breakable wrote: This is probably the reason why most of the PR releases are politically correct and void of substance. Good luck in your work and I would love to see Eric on Stephens show.

Sanitized PR would be an issue for LPP, as they are a commercial corporation. FFS has more latitude as a social media, cultural science advocacy organization. Culture has more chaos.

Comedians shaking their fist at the sky are a stock externalization of the collective psyche confronted by a challenging problem. A way to blow off steam and rally.

I’m happy to get Glen Beck on board as well, but he’s not a comedian. Someone with a Beck pitch could start that topic.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: Colbert? The Colbert who just wished “Satan’s Death” on the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, et al? That Colbert? Nice.

Doubtful. Do you have a link to that? Colbert LOVES Glenn Beck. Quotes him all the time.

[Rezwan]

Are you slamming spam? There’s a whole musical about it. I wonder if they can incorporate the Tok into “spamalot”?

[Rezwan]

About ITER v. LPP, a friend notes

I also thought I would include the latest ITER newsletter below, to give a sense of their progress relative to ours–We are moving at lightspeed by comparison, I think ;-D

It would be nice to compare. They have construction – LPP had construction. LPP’s construction went over time and budget – but that just threw things off by a month and an extra 10K or so? Actual stats would be interesting.

[Rezwan]

Anyone with sidebar widget experience, feel free to jump in and design this.

[Rezwan]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Nothing’s being ignored. Things move one step at a time, though.

Perhaps to clarify things we can merge the milestones article with the “how will we get there from here” article and keep the actual dates off until the objective is achieved.

Add a tracking “YOU ARE HERE IN THE EXPERIMENT” marker. Maybe we can make this a sidebar widget.

[Rezwan]

But do they expect the tokamak to work? I don’t think the tokamak is even on most people’s radar – it’s not seen as a credible option. Which makes it vague. Also pork. And we want humanity to dare to go beyond that, to strive for diverse approaches and more aggressive tackling of fusion. Alas, the sissies draw the line at the Tokamak pork. (Ooh! Another one for the cooking forums).

Hmm. That was Tkmk-baiting. Note, the opinions in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the focus fusion society : ) We’re just batting around frameworks.

Problem with “not as hard as you think” is that we haven’t proven that yet. We hope it’s not as hard.

And that’s a potential negative. If we still have a hard time, yet we say it’s not that hard, that makes us lame. A losing proposition. You want to make it tough, but yourself tougher. But not so tough that it’s impossible.

[Rezwan]

Uh, no. You guys are getting too literal and technical.

I’m referring to the promise of unlimited energy from fusion – and the gleaming shiny cities on a hill and space travel and Earth as garden paradise that that implies – vs. the pervasive expectation people seem to have of apocalypse in our time.

Of course, fusion has always suggested this possibility, and has not delivered for 60 years, so people chalk it up to a mythic thing, like a unicorn. Is it a unicorn? Dare we dream of a bright future.

Of course, books have been written about this that suggest that even without fusion, stuff is getting better over all – incrementally.

What I want to see is a clear picture of how fusion goes above and beyond “stuff getting better incrementally, but watch out for apocalypse.”

[Rezwan]

And here’s an image grab of the NRL diagram. The Focus is indeed in the top right corner.

Attached files

[Rezwan]

OK Artists, designers et al – this looks like a priority. Let’s get to it!

jamesr wrote: For the slightly more detailed (but less pretty version) see page 41 of: NRL Plasma formulary. This little formula book is a standard reference for any plasma physist and so contains lots of scary looking formulae. The interesting thing is unlike most simplified versions of the diagram such as the NASA one below it includes plasma focus devices at the top right corner showing they achieve the highest density/temperature combination.

Maybe what we need is a new updated version of this diagram with thumbnails of flames, lamps, lightning, and where ITER, NIF and FF-1 stand. Hopefully putting focus fusion ahead of where the competition are. Publish it under creative commons and plaster links to it all over the place.

[Rezwan]

By the way, where does FoFu fall on the 2nd chart?

[Rezwan]

Hi James,

I split the thread because the other poster specifically addresses the “bomb” issue, and there needs to be a poster that explicitly does that.

This plasma approach/upgrade you describe is also very much needed.

On the topic of plasma that works its way to the topic of nuclear – check out the Leopoldo Soto videos.

[Rezwan]

How rich, how powerful?

Accredited investors only need $200K for 2 years in a row ($300 if joint income with a spouse).

LPP doesn’t need massively rich people. It needs a few reasonably affluent people. This really is the poor man’s fusion, and I’d rather see “the poor man” (relatively speaking) make it happen.

We’re all powerful in our own way.

The rich are always welcome, of course : )

Anyway, anyone know this Pickens fellow personally?

[Rezwan]

Well, they don’t all have to be alcoholic. Nonalcoholic bubbly is fine!

Anyway, for future reference, here’s a list of wineries in New Jersey. Support local farmers!

We’re planning a fundraiser in October – wonder if any of them would donate some bubbly with a commemorative bubble detector label? We can always ask.

Alas, my to do list is long. One happy day I will get to this.

[Rezwan]

Tulse wrote:

frankly, I would avoid using “nuclear” in headings and taglines. While focus fusion is indeed technically a nuclear process, it’s not fission, which is all the public is really familiar with, and it has almost none of the properties that the general public associates with nuclear energy (nasty, long-lived radioactive waste; risk of serious accidents; risk of proliferation for atomic weapons; huge expensive powerplants, etc. etc. etc.). In this way, labelling it “nuclear” is actually far more confusing and (unintentionally) deceptive.

That’s deceptive. Also, that will come up when people try to discredit the movement, it will look like we’ve been trying to cover something up.

Then ITER is also “deceptive”, since you would be hard-pressed to find the term “nuclear” anywhere on the non-technical parts of their website. The FFS may choose not to go that route, but I think it is incorrect to call it “deceptive”. And note that I said the term “nuclear” should not be used “in headings and taglines”. I didn’t mean to imply that the term should never be applied to aneutronic fusion, just that that term should not be used in the main marketing message, since that’s really not the main characteristic you want to emphasize.

But don’t you see? That’s one of the main selling points of aneutronic fusion. Truly clean nuclear energy. Which is why ITER has been deceptive. Or at least not as transparent as it could be. It still has a nuclear stigma (although mild), and NIF is much worse – they are used for weapons testing and development. By tackling the nuclear question, we really set ourselves apart.

There’s nothing to sugar coat here. No need to downplay nuclear energy. We’ve found a way of redeeming nuclear energy and putting to rest the bad forms of nuclear energy. That’s a powerful message.

Anyway, I think people want to embrace nuclear energy and the future. There’s always something attractive about the “bad boy” to begin with – and then when you find out this particular bad boy is really the hero – it’s that much better. What a thrill.

Power is attractive. A new, super heroic green power of the future – very attractive. This is not your grandpa’s fusion.

[Author]

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