Any official news as of late July 2008?

[JohnSmith]

Here's a question: When does/did the contract run out? I remember somebody said the 22, but that sounded like a WAG.

[APL]

Ok... so say we hear nothing of the peer review, or even if its negative we can`t really know the truth IF they want to keep it a secret for the previously stated reason. But this also means they don`t care to help the world reverse its dependence on oil, & don`t care about the state of being of humanity.

I think this thing would be too difficult to suppress now, even if they wanted to, doing so would be directly in opposition to Dr Bussards stated intention. There is too much information in the public domain. Remember PGP anyone?

Would the US be capable of doing such damage to ensure its dominance?... or would it make more sense for them to go about it in an economic manner by going public with it and making the huge amount of money on royalty fees.?

I think you have this a little back to front. I am not a citizen of the US. But it is clear to me if you need to rely on a country in a disaster, for example the tsunami in SE Asia, its better to have the US around than, for example the EU. As for Russia, I am afraid they do not tend to hold the interests of their people in very high regard. Witness the Gulags, Siberia, utilisation of mass forced labour, so on and so forth.

As for the US making huge amounts of money. Good for them, but it would be EMC2 that holds the patents if the machine works. At least for non military applications.

[Robthebob]

I really do hope this becomes the beginning of a new era of free energy.

Everything requires energy, what if energy becomes free? I dont know what the power output we would end up with, I mean nuclear fission is a lot efficent compared to combustion, but the US still dont have many fission power plants.

Let's hope that if IEC gets net energy, it totally blows combustion out of the water, if its power output is also greater, combine with the fact that we're making energy from using boron or hydrogen, both very abondent elements, then the world would naturally switch to IEC.

[Barry Kirk]

No matter what... This won't be free energy. It would be cheaper energy, but not free energy.

Solar power cells are net power producing. They make more energy over their lifetime than it takes to manufacture and install them.

However, they are very expensive.

A net power production polywell would be expensive too.

1) Will it work?
2) Will it be cheaper than alternatives?

A really important possibility is that it could be the basis for much better rocket engines.

3) Can it be used to make surface to LEO rockets? If so, would they be cheaper and more efficient than current chemical rockets?

4) Can it be used to make cheaper interplantary and possibly intersteller rockets?

The answers to all these questions could be pivitol in human history.

Obviously, if the answer to will it work is no, then all the other questions are moot.

But, if it does work, the answer to question 4 may be the most important one of all.

If polywells are more expensive per watt than fission reactors, then it may make sense to use fission reactors for power.

But, Polywells may be our best chance to explore the nearest stars.

[zbarlici]

No demonstration needed, we already have it. But we need to make sure we keep it even when everybody else has "beefers" ("boofers"? "buffers"?) too.

I do agree that a demonstration is not needed. But it seems that maintaining such might is getting to be too co$tly so it makes perfect sense to convert the fleet to electric drives. Perhaps eventually other nations out there would have these beefers(or some variation of), but to keep Nebel and progress under wraps would most likely ensure that the states has these drives for 5 years or so before the other nations do. 5 years is a lot

What cost savings would the US Navy have if the whole fleet were electric at today`s oil prices... ? anyone?

[JohnP]

I think this thing would be too difficult to suppress now, even if they wanted to, doing so would be directly in opposition to Dr Bussards stated intention. There is too much information in the public domain. Remember PGP anyone?

Yeah, but the results aren't in the public domain.
Anytime you want to build your own BFR and check it out yourself, though, be my guest!

[JohnP]

What cost savings would the US Navy have if the whole fleet were electric at today`s oil prices... ? anyone?

Well, the airlines are cutting out everything to try to save weight (and how much that actually saves fuel I have no idea). And the cost to ship goods by boat has gone up. So I would imagine the Navy - any navy - would be looking hard at fuel costs.

[Torulf2]

I think the BFR are going be produced as most products this days.
US companies produce it in China.

[APL]

I think this thing would be too difficult to suppress now, even if they wanted to, doing so would be directly in opposition to Dr Bussards stated intention. There is too much information in the public domain. Remember PGP anyone?

Yeah, but the results aren't in the public domain.
Anytime you want to build your own BFR and check it out yourself, though, be my guest!

I know that. In the first instance I was replying to an earlier post, that suggested there may be a conspiracy to hide the [supposedly successful] results of the program and the ongoing peer review. I don't usually subscribe to conspiracy theories, sorry.

I did qualify the idea later, writing "if the machine works'. Having said that, I have a bottle of very nice champaign and a Havana cigar should the results turn out to be favourable. If we are disappointed, then I can always console myself with a bottle of champaign and a Havana.

By the way, thank you for generously giving your permission to build my own fusion reactor. I am expect it will carry much weight with the planning authorities.

[BSPhysics]

"I'm not even getting hints from my usual sources. The drums are silent."

I'm an optimist so I'll gather that silence is good news. If the wait goes on another month or so, could it be that Dr. Nebel could be influenced by the highest levels of government to issue press releases at the "most convenient" time as they see fit. I'm not implying a conspiracy here, simply a wise choice of time, especially in the middle of presidential campaign and wardrums overseas. Could the data be so good that Congress and the President might view the technology as disruptive in nature despite its benefits and are gathering a "best way forward" approach politically?

BS

[clonan]

It occured to me that if there was real success than Dr. Nebel may hold off reporting anything until the first anniversary of Dr. Bussards death.

Just a thought...

[Roger]

hold off reporting anything until the first anniversary of Dr. Bussards death.

How long between WB-6... Oct '05, to the contract for WB-7 ?
Nearly 2 years. No ? Who is prepared to wait another 2 yrs ? If we get funding for the next device by spring of '09, I'll be dancing in the streets.

The next step is like.... a 10-30 million dollar step. THe 1.8 million for WB-7 can be like a walk in the park compared to getting funding to the tune of 30 mill.

Could the data be so good that Congress and the President

Even if the data totally vindicates Bussard and WB-6, I dont see any of that happening, Polywell is open source, if not us, then China and India, as Dr Bussard said. And that means the race is on.

[Barry Kirk]

We know about Nebel and his team.

There could be other teams working on this in... say... China.

We would certainly never hear about that until the critical patents are filed.

If polywells work and if the gobermint wants to keep this one under wraps, they will get blindsided when some foreign government files the patents.

[TallDave]

Barry,

That's another reason why the next step has to be a $100M effort to build a net power reactor: there's enough information out there for the attempt to be made.

I doubt China has the technical resources to mount a serious IEC effort right now, but a country building a new coal-fired plant every week certainly knows they need energy, so in another 5-10 years...

US companies produce it in China.

IIRC we still lead the world in production of highly technical machinery.

China's actually in a little trouble right now. They're buying up dollars on the sly to push their currency down, because their exporters are taking a beating. Their manufacturing output may actually decline this quarter, based on the PMI being below 50.

[JohnP]

We know about Nebel and his team.

There could be other teams working on this in... say... China.

We would certainly never hear about that until the critical patents are filed.

If polywells work and if the gobermint wants to keep this one under wraps, they will get blindsided when some foreign government files the patents.

Even if the data totally vindicates Bussard and WB-6, I dont see any of that happening, Polywell is open source, if not us, then China and India, as Dr Bussard said. And that means the race is on.

I was under the impression that EMC2 has already patented the Polywell?
I'm not sure what this talk of 'open source' is about. Open Source indicates that the design is available freely to anyone who wants a copy. If you patent something, then there's a legal restriction against copying.
If the patent holder encourages production by offering low cost licensing, that's still different from open source.

All that aside, since the barriers to research on this thing are so low (relative to ITER), if the US Navy wants to sit on this thing, it would be crazy for other countries to not develop their own programs, if for no reason other than to check it out. The payoffs are too big to ignore.