Search found 2777 matches

by D Tibbets
Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:17 am
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

This is all premises on the idea that - in terms of KE, at least - you can collimate ions better than electrons. If this is false, it might not be worth it I would expect this to be the case. The focus may not be better, but the subsequentspread of the collimated ions in the beam would spread more ...
by D Tibbets
Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:13 am
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

This is all premises on the idea that - in terms of KE, at least - you can collimate ions better than electrons. If this is false, it might not be worth it I would expect this to be the case. The focus may not be better, but the subsequentspread of the collimated ions in the beam would spread more ...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 8:35 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

Mmm... interesting and enlightening, though use of a cusp seems unnecessary to detrimental. In a Polywell or Lockheed design with cusps, the recirculating electron (and possibly ion) current would bombard the neutral beam gun tube- probably bad. And, most plasma containment schemes do not have cusps...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:54 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Bill Gates is heading a $1 billion venture fund to combat climate change
Replies: 445
Views: 195509

Re: Bill Gates is heading a $1 billion venture fund to combat climate change

Two points I would like to make. First, global warming is of course caused by humans. Actually, any animal, and in certain situations plants produce CO2 and thus increased greenhouse gasses. Additional CO2 harvested from sequestered sources like coal or oil adds to this. The real question is a compl...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:10 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

happyjack27, A colinier beam of free electrons and ions may have a net charge of zero, but there are two obvious (to me) complications. Without the ions and electrons being very tightly coupled (neutral atom) and at the same energy,thus traveling at the same speed, there would be the two stream inst...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 6:06 am
Forum: News
Topic: Tokamak Energy news
Replies: 164
Views: 196987

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Speaking of smaller machines, the German Stellarator released some recent press. No, link as it doesn't really say much about the physics of the approach. What it provides is engineering testing, which they say indicates the shape of the complex magnetic fields match very closely the theoretical pro...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:57 am
Forum: News
Topic: Tokamak Energy news
Replies: 164
Views: 196987

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Tokamak Energy has published a nice and illuminating 3 min 59 s long video on the construction of their next device the ST-40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRyUWOUk_48 Inside information on ST40 - the compact, high-field tokamak currently under construction at Tokamak Energy. This video shows th...
by D Tibbets
Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:45 am
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

I can see ionizing a gas,accelerating the electrons and positive ions (seems some negatively charged ions are needed for the highest energy neutral beams), matching velocities and having a high degree of recombination. What I do not follow, is how neutral beams with a beam density greater than some ...
by D Tibbets
Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:25 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Lockheed Martin news
Replies: 56
Views: 92171

Re: Lockheed Martin news

Lockheed's design uses neutral beams for heating, as does almost every other magnetic confinement scheme, and it may also be used in the Polywell. But, I remain entrenched with the idea that the Polywell uses a potential well to heat the ions, and that potential well is established/ maintained by th...
by D Tibbets
Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:25 am
Forum: News
Topic: SpaceX News
Replies: 2324
Views: 1155331

Re: SpaceX News

It is not only the super chilled liquid oxygen, but changing/ evolving oxidizer and gaseous helium loading procedures that evidently pushed them over the edge. The procedures were changing in order to better manage launch window opportunities with the temporary superchilled liquid oxygen storage lif...
by D Tibbets
Thu Dec 08, 2016 3:05 am
Forum: News
Topic: BLP news
Replies: 665
Views: 353128

Re: BLP news

My arguement may use quantum mechanics precepts, but even classically, similar arguments apply. We live in a world where certain materials are not at the lowest energy state they can achieve. Things like coal, oil, uranium, etc. can all be coaxed to yield useful energy by forcing or allowing their n...
by D Tibbets
Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:34 am
Forum: News
Topic: BLP news
Replies: 665
Views: 353128

Re: BLP news

This does not mean that the electron can not be pushed to lower orbits- closer to the nucleus, but this requires energy, it is endothermic. So you're saying that when an excited electron falls to the "base" state it gives up energy (a photon), but if it were to fall to an even lower (fractional) st...
by D Tibbets
Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:24 am
Forum: Implications
Topic: Too early for Polywell?
Replies: 12
Views: 34338

Re: Too early for Polywell?

Replacing coal fired power plants with P-11B burning Polywells, or FRC or DPF, etc. (or D-D burning also) consists of two paths. First, as proposed by Bussard, and I presume others, you only replace the coal incinerator with a compact fusion thermal power generator. This is taped into the existing s...
by D Tibbets
Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:41 pm
Forum: News
Topic: BLP news
Replies: 665
Views: 353128

Re: BLP news

A demonstration of fantastic claims needs very accessable examination of the methods and design of a test article by skeptical experts to be convincing. From a theoretical standpoint, the lack of spectroscopic absorption or emmision lines as the electrons jump to the lower energy state are not demon...
by D Tibbets
Tue Nov 15, 2016 3:55 pm
Forum: Theory
Topic: D B10 fusion?
Replies: 17
Views: 30352

Re: D B10 fusion?

Another consideration: It's been suggested that shifting the balance in p-B11 plasma to proton heavy has a favorable effect on fusion/loss rates. Doing this with D-B10 would further shift the fusion balance towards D-D with the boron serving mostly to increase radiative losses. I was under the impr...