Talk-Polywell.org

... So let's just say it's 100% efficient (!:wink:!), there's gonna be this nano-'stuff' that can take on 20kW of power and it is a thousandth of a micron in thickness!?!? Anyone care to tell me something about thermodynamics here! How hot is this stuff gonna get? Numbers matter. They say one-milli...

This is beyond huge: http://www.physorg.com/news204552797.html .
A "ZT" rating of 50 or so, maybe?

Micron-thick ultra-efficient super-cheap heat->power conversion. Everything from engines to refrigerators to computer chips to solar panels to reactors to coal-fired power plants to clothing to ....

... So, a set of small retractable cameras with great big viewscreens in the cockpit, actually make a great deal of sense for the designer. It gets down to what has higher priority, logic or prejudice. Don't get me wrong. I want pilots in any flight vehicle, no matter what kind of automated flight ...

Here's an excerpt of a reply by an LPP principal to one of my questions: Brian, without going into details or complicated formulas, the pinches are not “hot” enough yet, but the extrapolations are there. However, pB11 is a completely different animal than deuterium. ... the results we have gotten ar...

... However the dependence on Zi^2 means a factor of 25X greater brems when using p-B11. So I think I stand by brems loss not being significant in current LPP experiment plasmoid temperature. But no doubt I will be corrected by those more knowledgable than me... The LPP hypothesis is that there exi...

I presume you mean D-D fuel. D-T is orders of magnitude more expensive and complex as the tritium is highly radioactive and requires careful radiation handling and monitoring. Also, with D-D if they are reaching temperatures of ~ 40-50 KeV the crossection curve is starting to level out. Dan Tibbets...

... That is a demanding application. When we did PSII in the late 90's, there was a cottage industry that had grown up mostly in the Albuquerque area to develop and sell the switches and other elements necessary for PSII (there were several efforts to develop PSII at the time, including one at Los ...

Any news on the plasmoids front? They said they were on course for 3 joules fusion out this month ... hit a stumbling block? There's an update here: http://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewreply/5772/ . Doing a thorough going-over of the switches, including one (of 12) that didn't fire at all. ...

The switch control required is similar to that developed 10 years ago for PSII (plasma source ion immersion), which is essentially a pulsed-bias 3-D ion implantation technique. I think the problem to date is the power levels they have to handle. Plus the ~10ns response time required. Pick one! Thou...

Again, DT, that all sounds about right. The constraint on the cycle speed and hence output is in fact cooling of the electrodes. Given engineering advances adequate to the job, it could maybe ramp up to 25MW, e.g. Power smoothing and rectification etc. is as you say mostly a matter of switch control...

... A shot in the dark. If the duty cycle is ~ 1000 nanoseconds (1 microsecond), and x-rays are emitted for most of this time, The other 2999 microseconds till the next firing time are idle (no x-ray input). So long as the 'capacitor' drains this charge in this time, it will be ready for the next p...

Other plasmoid experiments eventually reached an energy plateau where increasing input energy resulted in little or no increasing output energy. The physical basis for this energy ceiling was not determined. It will be important to find out what is the underlying reason for this peaking behavior wh...

I predict ITER will join SSC. Call me an optimist, but the money could be much better used elsewhere. (PolyWell and Focus Fusion, e.g.) Even one year's interest on the projected 16bn$ would do just fine, thankyewverrahmuch!

Getting this thread back on topic (there are plenty of other threads hashing over EMC2 funding and secrecy, IIRC), the "orders of magnitude" from the start of experimentation is about 5, and the remaining required to reach unity is about 5. So an order of mag/month is not all that unreasonable. But ...

... locked-room mystery... power failure in close orbit around Jupiter... the storm shelter will protect you from the Jovian radiation belts... but how do you get out long enough to make repairs and leave orbit? Teleoperated Robots... Screw that. I'm in Jovian orbit for the view on my 22nd honeymoo...