comp?

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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jgarry
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comp?

Post by jgarry »


Tom Ligon
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Post by Tom Ligon »

Fascinating! I'd love to see those patents. I've always been skeptical Focus Fusion could burn p-B11 because it is supposed to be a thermal approach, and bremsstrahlung ought to rob the energy. Maybe one of you guys can examine this quantum magnetic whatzit and see if it sounds reasonable?

More power to 'em! I had the authority at NSF, DOE, etc, I'd fund Focus Fusion, Tri-Alpha, anything Paul Koloc is working on, and I don't even begrudge ITER and the NIF their stipends. $10-12 billion on fusion starts sounding like chump change when compared to $35 billion bailouts for the gas guzzler biz, or $700 billion for the financial markets.

But if I had to pick one, EMC2 makes the most sense to me, and remains the smart money.

scareduck
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Post by scareduck »

Too bad their whole explanation of operation remains tied to an unlikely rewriting of large parts of physics.

Art Carlson
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Post by Art Carlson »

Tom Ligon wrote:Fascinating! I'd love to see those patents. I've always been skeptical Focus Fusion could burn p-B11 because it is supposed to be a thermal approach, and bremsstrahlung ought to rob the energy. Maybe one of you guys can examine this quantum magnetic whatzit and see if it sounds reasonable?
I had it out with Eric Lerner on this on Wikipedia. It could be that the effect exists, but you need megatesla fields, and even then the best possible Q is not great (less than 20?)

Art Carlson
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Post by Art Carlson »

Tom Ligon wrote: More power to 'em! I had the authority at NSF, DOE, etc, I'd fund Focus Fusion, Tri-Alpha, anything Paul Koloc is working on, and I don't even begrudge ITER and the NIF their stipends. ... But if I had to pick one, EMC2 makes the most sense to me, and remains the smart money.
Oh, God! Anything but Paul Koloc. His fusion concept makes Lerner's look like serious science, and Lerner is ten times worse than Bussard. (And you already know what I think of Bussard.)

At least our relative ranking of the alternate concepts might not be so different. :wink:

Tom Ligon
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Post by Tom Ligon »

Megateslas? When I wrote "El Dorado", I stuck in a magnetic field for the alien ramjet that was about a factor of ten short of the field at the poles of a typical neutron star. Call it ten megateslas? But I knew when I wrote it I was many orders of magnitude above proven superconductor technology. The only reason I put it that high was Dr. Bussard was dreadfully ill, and unable to help me with the ramscoop calculations. He later said I could have used a much lower field.

Maybe you could have Lerner set up a lab on a neutron star? :)

BTW, Dr. Bussard ranked Dr. Koloc a lot higher than Lerner, not that I suppose it makes much difference to you.

My overall point is, no working fusion power scheme will be produced by people who believe it will never work. No working fusion power scheme will be produced by people who believe it will work but are idiots. I know there are a great many of both in this world. But, if fusion can be made to work, people who believe it will and are willing to find a practical way to do so must be allowed to do the work. A million or two a year per project on a few candidates is a trivially small investment, and there should not be so much hand-wringing over it. Which, if any, will work? Do I want politicians to pick one, or do I want several interesting and different ideas to have a chance.

FF may only turn out to be the basis for a very nice spark plug, but I don't begrudge them the opportunity to try.

ZenDraken
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FF rocket engine?

Post by ZenDraken »

Tom Ligon wrote:FF may only turn out to be the basis for a very nice spark plug, but I don't begrudge them the opportunity to try.
Assuming FF works, could it be used as a fusion rocket? I've only skimmed the description, but shooting out a stream of fusion-driven ions sounds kind of rocket-like to me.

Tom Ligon
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Post by Tom Ligon »

Assuming it works, it has the advantage of a remarkably compact device. Assuming you could enclose it in something resembling a rocket engine housing, I would think it would work as a diluted fusion product engine.

Assuming it works! They claim to have done some DD fusion with it, and DT should work even easier. (I'm always skeptical of this until I know how sensitive the neutron detectors were to electrical noise. I'm not skeptical of Bussard's counts because I set those counters up myself specifically to ultra-shield them against EMI, and they added more protection after I left). As always, net power is a long stretch from "some fusion".

But, assuming it works, the one application that came to me in a moment of light-headed-ness and too many car commercials is this:

Ford makes the Focus.
Ford makes the Fusion.
Suppose Ford built miniature plasmoid generators the general size of spark plugs, capable of p-B11 fusion, and built the Focus Fusion, using a piston engine driven by little fusion pops?

Just a fun idea ... I think the brem would kill the driver, and if not there would be the fusion products hitting the steel cylinder walls generating lord knows what trash.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The #1 problem for focus fusion is electrode erosion.

That problem was never solved for the millijoules involved in the contacts involved in spark ignition points. A contact file was in the tool kit of ever auto mechanic of the time. With megajoules involved in focus fusion the problem is a tad more difficult.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

MSimon wrote:The #1 problem for focus fusion is electrode erosion.

That problem was never solved for the millijoules involved in the contacts involved in spark ignition points. A contact file was in the tool kit of ever auto mechanic of the time. With megajoules involved in focus fusion the problem is a tad more difficult.
Use a conductive liquid/liquid metal?

Duane
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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

djolds1 wrote:
MSimon wrote:The #1 problem for focus fusion is electrode erosion.

That problem was never solved for the millijoules involved in the contacts involved in spark ignition points. A contact file was in the tool kit of ever auto mechanic of the time. With megajoules involved in focus fusion the problem is a tad more difficult.
Use a conductive liquid/liquid metal?

Duane
Well OK. Now how do you propose maintaining the coaxial shape? And preventing vapor deposition over your machine? And one or two other minor problems.

And if they have a solution why aren't they implementing it in their experiments? It would allow them to do multiple shots.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

MSimon wrote:
djolds1 wrote:Use a conductive liquid/liquid metal?
Well OK. Now how do you propose maintaining the coaxial shape? And preventing vapor deposition over your machine? And one or two other minor problems.

No idea. To quote an unnamed someone, "Engineering is harder.":twisted:
MSimon wrote:And if they have a solution why aren't they implementing it in their experiments? It would allow them to do multiple shots.
I doubt they have a or "the" solution. Look at how long it took Bussard & Co. to stumble onto the brain-dead simple & "obvious" solution.

Duane
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arclein
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Post by arclein »

We are just starting to learn how to use graphene. That would eliminate the obvous problems around conventional conductors.

I am expecting this tech to be advanced very rapidly. It starts by been stronger that diamond.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

arclein wrote:We are just starting to learn how to use graphene. That would eliminate the obvous problems around conventional conductors.

I am expecting this tech to be advanced very rapidly. It starts by been stronger that diamond.
The Carbon-Carbon bond is 12 eV. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Graphene bond is 10X that - 120 eV.

The pulesd energy involved is at minimum 10KV at mega Amps. There will be serious electrode erosion. Even if the electrode can be reformed quickly there will be the problems of contamination of the insulators and the reactor vessel.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

MSimon wrote:
arclein wrote:We are just starting to learn how to use graphene. That would eliminate the obvous problems around conventional conductors.

I am expecting this tech to be advanced very rapidly. It starts by been stronger that diamond.
The Carbon-Carbon bond is 12 eV. Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Graphene bond is 10X that - 120 eV.

The pulesd energy involved is at minimum 10KV at mega Amps. There will be serious electrode erosion. Even if the electrode can be reformed quickly there will be the problems of contamination of the insulators and the reactor vessel.
Note that carbon nanotubes are a practical room temp superconductor. Not a superconductor on the lines of zero resistance, but in terms of many times more amp capacity than copper, silver, or gold (superconductors tend to have rather inflexible catastrophic current limits). It can exhibit metallic or semiconductor behavior depending on the number of rings around the loop. Given the thermal tolerance as well, IMHO they should be making their plans for magnets out of nantube wire.

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