Talk-Polywell.org

I don't believe any "high energy electrons" are going to strip electrons from the atoms. I believe it would require a High Positive charge to accomplish this. A Positive High voltage source would suck the electrons right out of anything to which it is attached. Consider the energies involved: Elect...

In terms of electron confinement, coils conformal to the magnetic field are prefered. In terms of alpha intersect, this frustum shape has the advantage.

How much energy in for how much heat out and how much other energy out (electrolysis, etc.) not directly measured but assumed in analysis? When I stopped following cold fusion, there was a minor scandal of experiments claiming repeatable excess energy but not clearly measuring all forms of assumed ...

How much energy in for how much heat out and how much other energy out (electrolysis, etc.) not directly measured but assumed in analysis? When I stopped following cold fusion, there was a minor scandal of experiments claiming repeatable excess energy but not clearly measuring all forms of assumed e...

Maybe crazy idea for voltage conversion of the high voltage from direct conversion: Since semiconductors to handle that much voltage aren't available yet, go to vacuum tube technology for the DC to AC phase of voltage conversion. A magnetron to handle the voltage, power, and desired frequency range ...

MSimon, I think you'd like the 68000 architecture. 8 general data registers. And 8 address registers, any of which can be used as a stack pointer for push or pop. Not a proper RISC design in some aspects, bit it kind of feels like one when coding. Too bad there aren't more micro controllers based on...

I'm sensing some confusion how the direct conversion would work in a polywell. In the center is the plasma, ~-50kV potential in the center relative to the magrid. Surrounding this is the magrid, containing the electrons in the plasma. Outside the magrid we have electron injectors, ~-50kV or so, and ...

If you can figure out how to power the jets with electrical output, then we can easily put a polywell fusion pant into one of these behemoths. For turbojet / fanjet speeds no problem. Electric motor drives a fan / compressor. At higher speeds an electrically heated 'afterburner'. If the engine is l...

TallDave wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer_%28plasma%29

That definitely relates to polywell operation.

After years of occasional musing, I think I've come up with a sci-fi inertial damping effect that doesn't clash with conservation of momentum / energy. Rules: 1. When the 'damping field' is engaged or disengaged momentum is preserved for the spacecraft as observed by all outside observers. 1.1. The ...

Given that reactor gain, a key factor to reactor go / no go, is projected to scale with B^4R, R and total power could be pretty small given the right magnet technology. But what about radiation shielding?

Where do I send an application? Software engineer with some educational background in operating system design, embedded programming, and control systems.

How small in terms of size and mass could a polywell for transportation use practically be? Naval destroyers and submarines seem likely. Civilian naval shipping seems likely at some point given a working polywell plant. Railroad locomotives? Airliners? Trucks?

I did some calculations on this blog showing why, if the heat load was limited to 1 MW/m^2 then power could only go up as the square of the radius above 100MWth. Very bad. Especially since costs tend to go up as r^3. If a polywell was built at a scale where power output was limited to r^2 by heat, ...

Seems to me that a viable nuclear energy technology that doesn't require certain materials central to nuclear bomb production would make it harder for rogue nations to hide a weapons program behind a nuclear power program. If they can build a viable fusion system that uses d-d or p-B, why would they...