[jjohnson]

RE: using MS Word in writing a web document. WordPress allows you to type directly in plain text, with the familiar formatting selection boxes (color, italics, etc) OR in HTML. You can see the HTML code with a simple toggle, and you can be working in the plain text mode, go to its HTML and insert a formatting command in HTML that might not be in a convenient selection box on the menu for plain text. I edited the component called the Essential Guide to the Electric Universe (didn’t write its original text), and had to learn HTML to work with the MS Word original documents. The thunderbolts.info website was recently converted to WordPress from HTML, and so we got to learn a new, easier way to work up a website. It looks essentially the same with some cosmetic improvements. WordPress has a very short learning curve to get operational with simple stuff like writing text, inserting links and images, references to stored documents, etc., and a lot of available help to finesse things. I can copy MS Word text and paste it right in – no problemo. This is not an ad for WordPress. It is a limited description of my short experience with it.

Jim

[jjohnson]

Using moons of gas giant planets could be an interesting way of putting focused plasma phenomena together with real life data, photos and observations, as well as a lot of papers, on charged bodies that move within the magnetospheres and plasma toruses (I don’t like ‘torii’), creating polar electric currents that close the circuit between moon and planet, light up the atmospheric gases in the auroral ovals, and produce electric discharge machining and Joule heating via telluric currents at the moons’ discharge locales.

Peratt’s text, Physics of the Plasma Universe, Springer Verlag, 1992, in discussing domains of cosmic plasmas, in 1.2.3 Plasmas in the Solar System, discussed the magnetospheres around Jupiter and Saturn well before Cassini visited Saturn. The Jupiter-Io plasma torus is discussed. In Chapter 4, Electric Fields in Cosmic Plasma, 4.6.2 Plasma Gun Arc Discharges is pertinent and useful to someone who knows little about how a dense plasma focus is created. It is well documented and referenced with good diagrams and photos. This phenomenon is then presented in Example 4.1 Electric Arcs on the Jovian satellite, Io, with worked examples of the electric field due to the co-rotation of its plasma torus. Illustrations of Prometheus’s plume, both obliquely from above and silhouetted above Io’s limb, noting that the current flow is outward from “volcano” or the vent known as Prometheus – i.e., Prometheus is an anode.

Cassini’s observations of Enceladus and its “icy geysers” around the south pole region, and just as important, its measurements of a “magnetic flux tube” constituting the northern half of the electric circuit between this little moon and Saturn’s northern auroral oval (with “hot spots” or “footprints” seen in X-ray light where the flux tube isincident upon the planet. Anomalously warm temperatures were reported around the “Tiger Stripes” near Enceladus’s south pole. While some papers have argued for tidal heating, that appears to be a stretch becasue the predicted heating by that method was found to be far less than actual, so the exploration of Joule heating via telluric or sub-surface electric current flows should at least be considered as a reasonable heating explanation, given the failure of the tidal heating hypothesis. Even today, Carolyn Porco is characterizing Enceladus’s ionized discharge as consisting of icy particles, water vapor and molecules”, when in fact it is all this matter in an ionized state, as the plasma instrumentation has clearly recorded.

The outer 2 gas giants also have active magnetospheres, polar aurors and unusual activity photographed on their moons’ surfaces by the Voyager spacecraft as it flew by. Very little else has been measured out there, due to deficiencies in budget and the extreme range represented by these planets. Neptune is 4 and a quarter light hours out. I think an interesting case study of any of these might be a good intro to plasma dense focus phenomena and real life applicability to a series of electrical events right here in our solar system, with on-going studies by NASA and ESA. Best of luck with your project.

Jim

[jjohnson]

Another interesting perspective in this discussion is Robert Bryce’s book, Power Hungry.

In it he writes about the power industry, its dependence on gas, coal and oil, the problems with “green”power of most kinds, and thinks that the future lies with gas and fusion, but has no real timetable or plan. (Who could, looking at the progress in fusion over the prior 60 years?)

His point is that the power generating system is working near capacity almost all the time now. The problem is not, he says, that people want energy. They want [em]power[/em], and they want enormous amounts of it. Energy is just energy, but what is needed is energy per second —[em] power[/em]. Only fusion is likely to have the energy density to be able to deliver sufficient power to meet the rising demand on electrical power of an increasing population, and he expects gas to increase its lead over the other, dirtier sources for the foreseeable future.

What recourse does our energy industry, in practically every country, have in the event that electric automobiles suddenly go viral and they are sold as fast as factories can increase their production over several years? Right now, none. They are skating on thin ice, as it is. This could swamp the fossil fuel grid, with predictably adverse results. Successful completion of aneutronic fusion’s experimental stage looks right now to be more probable than other fusion experiments. Increasing fossil capacity does not seem likely to be able to rise to the challenge, if one looks at the lending industry and the bonds industry right now in this faltering economy.

The points concerning small, local generators to supply demand at numerous points should resonate with the electric car industry. They know that they have to have convenient outlets almost everywhere. The fewer wires they have to string, the better. Even getting these fusion plants to serve neighborhoods or sectors of a city could allow most re-energizing to be done at home and places convenient to work and recreation areas, as well as in remote areas poorly served by the existing grid. No rights-of-way acquisition problems, no new lines and towers or conduits, etc etc. If this works, its future seems assured, as it solves so many problems at once.

Jim

[jjohnson]

Per present convention, a positive “test charge” moves toward the more negatively charged (electron surplus) side of a circuit, electrical field or voltage differential. Therefore negative charges move in the opposite direction. A current thus can actually have electrons moving in one direction and positive ions, protons, etc moving in the opposite direction simultaneously.

In a conventional “wire” the metallic ions are fairly tightly bound into the metallic “crystal” lattice, so they are hardly free to move, while the electrons are highly mobile and can move (at drift current speed, not the speed of light) along the wire. In a conducting plasma, both species are unbound and free to move, and do, in accordance with Maxwell’s and Lorentz’s laws.

Jim

[jjohnson]

Not everyone comes to the Thunderbolts site from mythical origins. Don’t let that put you off. I stumbled onto it just trying to find better explanations of how things actually work. Peratt’s textbook and Maxwell’s equations, among other pioneering work, serve pretty well for this enthusiast. The idea that there may be plasma/electrical influences that affect things other than stars and galaxies is intriguing, and obviously discussed and debated there, but the great thing is that everyone accepts the odd views (depends on your own perspective, of course) and keeps on plugging for better electrical explanations. You can’t let wackos deflect from understanding reality. One also always has to ask, “what if they are right?” Skepticism and open minds and hard work with critical thinking needed in any scientific enquiry.

I think very many at TB are also keenly interested in and impressed by the careful, pragmatic progress by FocusFusion, and are less than impressed by the 6 decades of taxpayer-busting by conventional fusion research models based on unobserved conditions inside our star. Not to mention LIGO and the sometimes implausible explanations in the APOD titles. Why don’t they teach astronomers electricity and plasma? is one of our continuing questions.

And I love your transparency and technical plan with milestones, and discussion of how do we handle the technical and social and economic consequences if this works out well? You are a great group and you have the support of a lot many more than appear in print.

Jim

[jjohnson]

I’m for vetting a membership simply because this is such an important site to its members and staff. I know it takes a lot of extra work, and that essentially costs money/time which are always in short supply. However, that’s the cost of a free-for-all Internet, unfortunately. It, like governments everywhere, would probably be best served by a benevolent and wise dictatorship, but that’s not going to happen. There are wolves in this world, Rezwan. Don’t let them undo this for their own purposes, if any. The “social consequences” are less good for those who profit from the energy or scientific status quo. They would have reason to try to delay or interrupt a real R&D program like this if they feared the consequences.

[jjohnson]

An absolutely indispensable bookmark – 5 stars. If only the public would read and understand these simple, straightforward points.

[jjohnson]

I’m retired now from a consulting firm. We 4 decided to go into business for ourselves about 19 years ago. With no funding, we got a reference to a VC, who looked at our business plan (one of had an MBA and wrote it). Her advice? Avoid the VC route; they aren’t interested in really small businesses and will try to control everything a la the Golden Rule – them with the gold maka da rules. Best advice we ever took. We threw our credit cards and $2500 each in a pile and lived on savings for about 4 months before turning a profit and taking the back pay. It’s been profitable since. A consulting business is different from a mfg business – little or no stock beyond office supplies including computers so no large up-front costs to absorb. Payroll of technically skilled people may average higher, depending on the labor situation the manufacturer faces. We treat banks the same way – keep your operating cash liquid in the bank and everything else in a variety of conservative investments of varying liquidity. Never borrow from a bank – if you need the funds they don’t want to lend them, and if you don’t, and look like a better risk, they want you to borrow. They’re just temporary strong boxes. Fund payroll out of cashflow. Owners must pay workers first and on time before they take a dime. Owners get to take more home at the end of the year only if everyone has been fairly compensated and if possible, bonused and praised, and then only if there is money safely left to do so. MORAL – do not depend on others for money to get your business going or to keep it going, which is worse and harder to dig out of. Control things yourself. If you can’t, hey, it’s a Darwinian world. Don’t break laws or confidences, and heed legal advice. Be fiscally conservative, socially reasonably liberal, and retain a sense of humor and flexibility.

[jjohnson]

Good comments. I try to watch all the storage and generation devices, and don’t pick favorites. Hadn’t heard of Elton Musk’s crash-testing but am glad it shows his LiI batteries are safe. Love his cars, even if I can’t afford one at their price point. Also it’s good to see improvements in batteries coming along, expected given the sudden rise in interest and funding, finally. Whether utracaps take up too much space or not – I don’t know the size range that would be needed, so can’t compare. My hope for good (read efficient and cost-effective) solar is just part of the general hope that we can have affordable, reliable and abundant power source(s) to sustain us. FF is far and away the most promising right now, both in terms of promising progress already, and the fact that, if it works as advertised, will not depend on time of day or weather conditions or time of year to work, unlike other ‘renewable” resources.It is interesting to contemplate scaling FF units down as well as up. There are lots of low power apps which could use an efficient source that doesn’t require a plug to the grid. Plasma scales, so it’s possible to have a nano-FF device instead of batteries, depending, of course, on what might need to be carried with it as control and support, etc. If round the clock FF devices go online, storage devices like batteries and ultracaps will find application for emergency power, perhaps, although even that might be obtained by smaller emergency FF generators on-site as back-up power.

[jjohnson]

Look at the difference in field strengths at the plasmoid and at the surface of the Earth in the most intense magnetic storm. I’d be surprised if the plasmoid could be affected in any way.

[jjohnson]

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Americans rush too much, and demand things too cheaply and right now. Like our politicians, who operate on binary time. Phase1 – Right Now. Phase 2 – Next Election. Phase 2 also constitutes their event horizon, beyond which they cannot and will not plan.
The jury is still out on EESTOR, of course. I am hoping for things like EESTOR and FocusFusion and good solar to work, because we will not control our population on this planet, and we are not willing to even discuss that option. I am not on a soapbox for them, but am skeptically willing to give them the benefit of the doubt unless they can’t produce. (Like Stoern, in Ireland. Nothing yet, and not likely, mate!

On the flying cars (being an ex AF pilot): Our air traffic control system has its hands full right now just controlling what they have in the way of veteran commercial pilots all the way down to general aviation, plus military flights. Do YOU want to get up in the air with the same drunk drivers who kill 35,000 people every year? I don’t think so, thank you. Homeland Security would probably nix a flying car in every garage too, as just not supervisable or defensible. Sounds good; works bad. Average people (i.e. everybody else) simply are not responsible enough and likely do not have sufficient skills any sense of responsibility and initiative to actually operate a flight vehicle safely with tens of millions of other people in the airspace over and around cities. I love reading science fiction. I can relax and suspend reality and disbelief. Flying cars are great in Jack McDevitt’s books, not in LA or Toronto or Tokyo.

Cheers!

Jim

[jjohnson]

Brian H – re EESTOR ultra-caps (UC). I’ve been following the past year and also the EESTORblog and bariumtitanate.com. They seem to be quietly but steadily progressing toward a salable product. At least Lockheed Martin and ZENN motorcars hope so, having bought in and are planning to use it as soon as (if) the technology becomes available. The best part about UC technology is that they are capable of fast charge/discharge rates, suitable for braking energy recovery, say, or electric grid leveling, or…focus fusion surge leveling and storage and discharge to grid. A stry here, today http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/energy/24405/ shows DOE giving the nod toward Li-Sulfur batteries. I do wonder what happens to a car powered by anything lithium has a wreck and crashes into one of those pools of standing water often found near roadways. EESTOR seem to like the business notion of partnering with an industry which will license, buy or invest in their startup technology and products early on, and will hold discussions with firms such as FocusFusion if it might look promising to their business model. So far as I know, EESTOR are totally private, not wanting to feed the government hand that always bites innovative people. Excellent choice, in my book! THere was a runor that NASA had asked to buy some product to “evaluate” but the idea seems to have died a natural death with denials all around. Of course an agency like NASA would be interested in this tachnology – they have been funding research into it and publishing about it in their magazine TechnologyBriefs since 2000, but they are not the ones to commercialize on it. Unlike the horde of bloggers who think it is another scam, I see it as a steady, persistent piece of work to acquire the necessary patents, to develop the technology and the lab certification milestones and the production processes and control technologies to make this work. The Owners are men who have been in the technology business for a long time, with relevant experience. I hope Lerner invites them for tea and a look at his idea, and that they might talk turkey. It is almost Thanksgiving in the U.S., after all. Another, farther away firm is Graphene, who are trying to position their carbon nanotubules as ultracap material.

Compared to lithium availability and worldwide supply, there is far more readily available material for barium titanate, EESTOR’s choice, and it seems to involve a more green extraction and production process than lithium, and doesn’t react badly with water, and on and on.

Jim

[jjohnson]

I’m a relative newbie here, but have been studying plasma cosmology and the EU forum for the last year or so. I agree with many of you that their ideas will need to be polished up a bit in the math department in order to look the least bit appealing to the orthodocs, because they themselves have thrown almost everything over to the math department and forgotten the value of observations first, then theory, then models and predictions for more and better evidence, or lack thereof. It’s hard to fight against “math proves physics theories” without just saying, “theories are never ‘proven’ – they last only until a better paradigm comes along”.

That said, Dr. Anthony Peratt’s Physics of the Plasma Universe, Springer Verlag, 1992, has been an inspiration to me, and is based on hard science and unique observations, followed by elegant Particle-In-Cell simulations that bear out much of their findings. They want math? Here it is in abundance. Why these equations? Hannes Alfvén pointed out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech that his work in MHD was not applicable to plasma, a different state of matter from the other 3 condensed states to which it does apply, and well. Peratt studied under Alfvén, and carried the ball with his research at Los Alamos National Laboratory with DOE. He is not exactly what the establishment would call a raving idiot pursuing crackpot physics magic, so they simply shun and ignore him.

It is a sign of the times that increasingly the strong thinkers are choosing to publish elsewhere (viXra, arXiv, self-publish, web publish, etc) rather than face the opinionated and uneven-handed reviewers and editors. Halton Arp, an excellent physicist and observational astronomer who worked with Hubble has effectively been banished by our establishment, to work in Germany instead. It is not surprising that much of the current paradigm shift is coming from the engineering side of things – applied science, where things actually have to work. IEEE members have a plasma cosmology working group, and publish their stuff freely in peer reviewed publication. Of course, that’s not real physics…In the world of tokomaks and the theory (it is still just an idea with no observations having been really made deep inside the sun) that solar style fusion is doable here on Earth, we have yet to see a single success. Billions of research and construction dollars have been thrown at this goal over decades of time, and yet not a single watt of excess, fusion-produced power has ever been introduced into our electric grid by those theorists and mathematicians. Plasma is complex, chaotic and messy, and its simulation is not a trite exercise. That should be a challenge that scientists would be glad to meet, but challengers are held in low esteem by those who get the gold.

That said, my observation is not that PC/EU advocates are trying to overthrow all of (cosmological/astronomical) physics. They are trying to get the gravity-only, BB interpretations to be modified by considering the other forces which are certainly at work in the universe. I am retired so I don’t have my job or reputation at stake, here. I just really want to know how things actually work, with less doubt than the conventional physics establishment has provided me, through the Big Bang, string theory and beyond, quantum gravity, expanding universe, etc. Read Miles Mathis and Crothers if you are interested in seeing some parts of conventional math examined critically. We do not live in a theoretical universe; we live in a real, fairly electro-gravitic-mechanical one. Contrary to dogmatic pronouncements from Those On High, we do not know how old it is, nor how far it extends, nor what powers it. We don’t know much of the basics, actually, such as what mass, gravity, time, and energy are, nor what gives rise to them. We’re not as knowledgeable as scientists with power would like us to believe. That is what makes the search for new evidence and ideas so interesting.

[Author]

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