Talk-Polywell.org

Clearly, in this scenario, the North Anatolian Fault --Twinned with the San Andreas-- has not yet re-zoned Istambul... Nervous twitches apart, it's nice to see some 'off the wall' thinking. IMHO, given the installed value of power conversion and distribution plant, conventional power stations are li...

Why am I reminded of Edison's quest to find a durable filament for his lamps ??

Whatever, his publications will prevent 'spoiler' patents...

Not my politics, but I'd like a 'None Of The Above' box to tell the candidates to pack their tents and leave...

ps
incumbents
candidates

Latest news is that part of the core has overheated and reacted with cooling water to produce enough hydrogen to blow off the containment building's roof... I guessed at that from the speed of the shock-wave rather than the refinery's 'roiling' flame, but nice to have it confirmed. The report confir...

I'd settle for 0.1g to 0.1 c: That gives us the solar system !!

D'uh, I'd settle for an EM thruster fitted to ISS for orbit maintenance as proof of concept....

Like a solar sail, a microgravity boost's effects accumulate...

IIRC, that had normally staid theorists chewing the carpet...

Sadly, its proponents lack the $100k / kg required to flight-test it from the ISS's porch...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-sup ... bines.html

The density of energy extraction would lend itself to cooling polywells...

Uh, anyone know how insulating supercritical CO2 is at these conditions ??

Didn't a bunch of such ambitious applications fail due to the prior art of Teletext/Ceefax system in UK, where handset's coloured buttons select menu options and, waaay before those, Heinlein's classic 'Beyond this Horizon' where protagonist clicks the 'Tell Me More' during a news bulletin ??

Uh, if liquid hydrogen and oxygen are cheap enough, provided by your fusion plant running off-peak (making money by peak lopping) then you can accept the inefficiencies of multiple sub-optimal rocket engines arranged as a plug-nozzle and just build a VERY BIG SSTO with a production line for its ring...

Uh, presumably the idea is to put thermo-electric material up-stream of the hot loop cooling system to 'skim the cream' of the available power.

I doubt the material would benefit from the radiation flux which, IIRC, is several orders of magnitude higher than the space missions' systems.

Our IT department used to make grim jokes about their three-shift system invoked when line output rate and planned rate did not converge on the due date...

'Tis said that you canna' invent to order: IMHO, Polywell research has not yet reached the 'scaled-up' stage...

I'd rather be wrong.

Uh, IIRC, the original workers slipped up by extrapolating the rate of deposition. Unfortunately, the accretion rate declines rapidly as the coating thickens. You must also trade density for speed. However, IIRC, there may be potential for improvement by varying the current electronically, similar t...

If you're growing crops for ethanol fuel, that's a premium process and competes with food crops. If you're growing for carbon feedstock and adding energy via hydrogen and polywell power --via electric or direct as microwaves-- then, IIRC, the numbers are favourable... IIRC, it takes coppicing, which...

Okay, 'bunker' oil is cheap by comparison with car gasoline and truck diesel, but it is still costly and dirty, and causes a lot of pollution. A bulk carrier could have the tonnage to spare for a polywell, and no risk of nuclear contamination if sunk or hijacked... A container ship might even have a...

Whatever comes of this, it must surely qualify for a 'Science igNobel', given they've done just about everything in such a hapless way. With such gaping holes in both theory and methodology, acute skepticism is inevitable... I'd really, really like this to come good, but we've seen too many 'Over Ze...