[Ivy Matt]

WELCOME!!! ^_^

Maybe a bit [em]too[/em] welcome. ;-P

For my part I’d say anyone is welcome here—especially female plasma physicists! And I say that as one who is neither a female nor, alas, a plasma physicist. We could always use more scientists here as well as more females. (We do have at least one confirmed female already, Rezwan, who pretty much runs the place.) Heck, we could just use more [em]people[/em]. (Yes, everyone, I know I’ve been a bit absent lately. :red:)

Funny that you’re in Korea right now. I’m seriously considering going there for work soon. (No, not to KSTAR. I’m not a scientist.)

[Ivy Matt]

Rezwan wrote: Does this get you inspired?

Probably not in any way you intended. It made me wonder about the possibility of using fracking techniques to produce fusion energy. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy, but on the other hand….

[Ivy Matt]

Oh, I completely agree. But it is at least possible to track the claims Rossi has made about his device.

[Ivy Matt]

Numerous mechanisms have been proposed to explain the functioning of Rossi’s device, some more serious than others. Rossi has published several of them on his “Journal of Nuclear Physics” website, including at least one explanation which proposes neutron capture as a possible mechanism, but the only explanation I am aware of that comes directly from Rossi and Focardi does indeed propose the fusion of protons and nickel nuclei as the mechanism. Last I heard, if I remember correctly, Rossi didn’t think the Widom-Larsen hypothesis had anything to do with the functioning of his device.

[Ivy Matt]

I’d love to go, but it might be out of the way for me.

Will LPP be submitting an abstract?

[Ivy Matt]

He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, a few hours closer to me (in the opposite direction) than to you. He is apparently very interested in astronomy and physics, and last year his project for ISEF was titled “The Efficiency of a Small Particle Accelerator at Irradiating Various Targets and Producing Radiation”. It won him a $500 Fourth Place Prize in the Physics and Astronomy category, as well as a $1000 First Place Prize sponsored by the Vacuum Technology Division of the American Vacuum Society. I’ve been able to find a little bit of information on his project for this year:

Bowman’s project involved the construction of a small dense plasma focus using simplistic components and systems. He was able to perform preliminary tests establishing the device’s potential utility as an X-ray source and nuclear fusion research tool. In addition, the plasma focus has many potential applications in the microfabrication and materials industries, including X-ray lithography, thin film deposition, and etching. Bowman plans to continue his research with the apparatus this summer, focusing on the device’s nuclear applications as an X-ray source and as an effective fusion-based neutron source.

[Ivy Matt]

I’ve just looked at the Special Awards, and there’s more:

The Coalition for Plasma Science (CPS) gave out two First Place Awards of $1000 to William Jack for his project, “D+D Fusion Reactions in an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Reactor”, and to Dylan Moore for his project, “Finding Harmonics in Plasma”.

Also, Langdon Engineers & Scientific Services awarded the Albert Langdon Swank Experimental Physics Award, a $5000 scholarship, to—guess who? Adam Bowman, for his project, “The Construction of a Small Dense Plasma Focus Using a Novel Experimental Setup”.

[Ivy Matt]

Ivy Matt wrote: I don’t suppose it’s on newsstands yet, but maybe the subscribers have received their copies.

Never mind, I saw it in a store tonight. It mainly covers NIF and Helion, comparing Helion to David and NIF to Goliath. There were also mentions of Tri Alpha and General Fusion as other Davids. ITER was mentioned briefly as well. Nice publicity for Helion and the other two ventures. Helion needs a couple tens of million dollars, and hasn’t got it yet. No mention of LPP, although I did see the phrase “focusing on fusion”, or something like that. No mention of EMC2, even, although there’s a quote from Robert Hirsch complimenting the fusion startups, which some who were fusion researchers during the ’70s may find bitterly ironic. Also some fusion naysayers get their oars in as well.

[Ivy Matt]

Alan Boyle of the Cosmic Log on MSNBC.com has talked to Jaeyoung Park, acting chief executive officer of EMC2, and posted an entry with further details on their progress. The upshot is that EMC2 will keep working on the WB-8 experiment until funding for the current contract runs out, probably around the end of the year. By that time, EMC2 and the Navy hope to know whether it’s feasible to go on to the next step. Jaeyoung Park hopes WB-8 is “the last small-scale experimental machine EMC2 will have to build”. I interpret that to mean that he hopes the next device will be demonstration reactor, or at least a net-power device. A full-scale Polywell reactor is expected to cost $100 to $200 million. The Navy wants EMC2 to keep a lid on specific results until they have an actual product to deliver. They’re open to EMC2 commercializing the reactor at that point, as long as it remains a US-owned company and maintains control of the technology.

The entry also briefly mentions General Fusion and Tri Alpha, as well as ITER and NIF.

EDIT: Oh, and no mention of hydrogen-boron fuel, the WB-8.1 option permitted in their contract. It sounds to me like they’re hoping to get a working deuterium-deuterium reactor going first.

[Ivy Matt]

Have you seen the article? I don’t suppose it’s on newsstands yet, but maybe the subscribers have received their copies.

I’m glad Helion is getting some press, because they’re one of the remaining private fusion companies that hasn’t been funded. Maybe they’ll get some investments from this.

No mention of LPP’s work at all? They got some publicity when The Economist published an article on them back in 2009, around the time of first plasma on the FF-1, but they seem to have been ignored in the press lately, I’m not sure why. I think FF-1 is the most promising fusion experiment that’s in operation right now.

[Ivy Matt]

Well, I hope that won’t be necessary—at least the secretive part. General Fusion is actually not all that secretive—certainly not compared to Tri Alpha, or even to EMC2 these days. In fact, the thing I’ve noticed about them is that, for whatever reason, they seem to get their share of publicity. See here for a recent example. I have, however, noticed that even the more in-depth articles don’t seem to delve into what exactly they’re working on at the moment. Whether that’s a conscious policy by General Fusion or simply the reluctance of reporters to delve too deeply into trivia, I would be interested to know.

By the way, regarding General Fusion’s funding, apparently they need $50 million to demonstrate net gain. Of that $13.9 million (Canadian) is publicly funded through Sustainable Development Technology Canada. According to Next Big Future, they will need a further $300-$500 million to go into commercial production. The same Next Big Future article also has a comparison of funding raised for Tri Alpha, EMC2, and LPP.

I would like to amend my statement in my previous post to: “the approaches that seem to me most likely to bear fruit soonest with the least amount of money are receiving the least amount of funding—but less than they need”.

[Ivy Matt]

Tulse wrote: If I had $20 million, instead of putting it all into one highly speculative basket, I’d give $5 million each to those three different approaches, with a promise of additional $5 milllion to the first group to show breakeven. So much of this basic research is done on a shoestring, and given that all these approaches require far less capital than tokomaks or ICF in order to produce useful information, I’d think spreading around a bit of seed money to lots of approaches would be a more efficient way to produce the desired goal.

I don’t have any inside knowledge or anything, but it seems to me that Tri-Alpha doesn’t have much trouble raising funding and EMC2, although it doesn’t get a whole lot of funding, seems to be receiving a sufficient amount so far. As long as the Navy is getting the results it wants, I imagine they’ll have a safety net.

AaronB wrote: Wow. Maybe they’re closer to achieving the fusion dream than we’d thought. 😉 LPP would gladly take $5M in seed money, and do a lot of good things with it. Forget $5M, we’d take $1M and see how close we could come to breakeven!

I don’t know, maybe you’re going about this the wrong way. $1 million is a paltry sum. Maybe you should be telling people you need to raise $200 million to develop the commercial demo device, and investors will be quicker to open their pocketbooks. 😉

zapkitty wrote: Tri-alpha is secretive but I’m sure having the name Jeff Bezos would result in a red-carpet guided tour complete w/ plushy CBR souvenir.

Tri-Alpha has Paul Allen, though.

zapkitty wrote: FF is an open book.

I hate to say it, but that might be a problem. I don’t know why it should be, though. At least LPP has a patent. It’s my understanding that General Fusion hasn’t been granted any patents yet.

zapkitty wrote: Musing aloud, the only outstanding issues with FF that wouldn’t be solved with net power would be capacitor wear and, to a lesser extent, electrode wear.

Some people would also argue that both methods of energy capture are unproven, and the actual amount of energy captured will be much less than is supposed. I really don’t know enough to opine on that, though.

zapkitty wrote: but this really does seem like the money is being steered to the least likely candidates… again…

The way I’d put it is that the approaches that seem to me most likely to bear fruit soonest are receiving the least amount of funding. Then again, from what I’ve read, General Fusion is aiming for a demonstration of net power in 2013. Assuming they actually achieve it, the only ones I know of who I think could beat them are LPP, NIF, maybe EMC2, and possibly (who knows?) Tri-Alpha.

[Ivy Matt]

Well, there seems to have been no direct announcement from Defkalion Green Technologies in March or April, but there is a rather interesting Italian documentary that has appeared recently. Here is the English version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzL3RIlcwbY

They’re promising 10-kilowatt residential units (heaters, not electrical generators) that will be leased, not sold.

[Ivy Matt]

MSimon at the Talk Polywell forums, who apparently has some inside knowledge, has confirmed that the WB-8 project is behind schedule, and has given the reason as procurement difficulties.

I’m not sure how being a political football is a problem, except for our ability to receive detailed reports from the folks at EMC2. I don’t doubt that, if anything comes of the Polywell, there will eventually be scholarly papers and patents for everyone to read. I guess the big question is what happens when EMC2’s current source of funding runs out. If the results are promising enough, however, I expect the Navy will fight hard for more funding, even if they have to go toe-to-toe with the DOE. They’re not funding the Polywell just because it makes them look good. They’re looking to put the things in their ships. The DPF might be a possible alternative, but ITER certainly won’t fit that bill.

[Ivy Matt]

EMC2’s latest report, for the first quarter of 2011, can be found here. The relevant part of the report is as follows:

As of 1Q/2011, the WB-8 device operates as designed and it is generating positive results. EMC2 is planning to conduct comprehensive experiments on WB-8 in the next 9-12 months based on the current contract funding schedule.

So, it appears the project is not dead, although there are questions regarding whether or not it is behind schedule. Apparently it will continue to be funded, and there will be further reports. The big question of whether the scaling has been found to agree with Dr. Bussard’s theoretical models does not appear to have been answered yet. Or maybe it has. It all depends on how you interpret “operates as designed” and “positive results”.

If the project is on schedule, testing with hydrogen-boron fuel will begin on or after October 31 this year. However, a possible interpretation of the above report is that testing with hydrogen-boron fuel will not begin for at least another 9 months to a year, as the WB-8 device was designed for testing with deuterium fuel.

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