Talk-Polywell.org

Since this hasn't been posted yet, Dr. Nebel's interview on Next Big Future:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/interv ... el-of.html

I didn't realise that they'd already run p-11B! Was it successful?

chrismb wrote:I didn't realise that they'd already run p-11B! Was it successful?

More interesting:

We currently have multiple funding sources, and certain corporations and private organizations are very interested in this technology.

As far as I know (which is not much), they have not done a run with B11 in the WB-7 yet.

Its likely that there is commercial interest in their polywell. But I would bet that they are waiting to see if Nebel and his colleagues can resolve the cusp neutrality, scale up, and other issues that have been discussed by Carlson and others in these boards. At least that's what I would be doing if I have a $100 million to put into polywell. The polywell is promising, but we should not kid ourselves about the engineering hurtles the lie in the path of commercialization.

I believe that some (most?) of that $40 million that went into Tri-Alpha came from Paul Allen. So, it appears that the IT gazillionaires are already investing in various fusion schemes, if not polywell. Perhaps Allen has put money into Helion's FRC concept.

The previous Next Big Future article covering the various fusion and new fission technologies is a nice overview of the promising nuclear energy options that are on the table. Even if none of the fusion power concepts work, its nice to know that there are very good options with regards to fission power. Also, unlike any of the fusion concepts, the Chinese are already building a pebble bed reactor - this year! The Asians do not share the aversion to nuclear power that the limousine liberals of the west do.

Venrock (VC firm) first started investing in Tri Alpha, he says. The firm later reportedly convinced Goldman Sachs, Vulcan Capital, Enel Produzione, and PIZ Signal to join as backers. But neither Mr. Prouty nor Mr. Rothrock would say when the company was founded, or how much total funding it has. Its original funders are believed to include billionaire Paul Allen.

In 2007, Venrock led a $40 million round

They raised nearly 12 million dollars, [from 2000 to 2005]. This is mostly from two billionaires [Paul Allen and someone else].

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/06/tri-al ... on-in.html

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General Fusion was trying to close a second round of C$10 million. A few months back it was reported that they had C$7million in commitments
http://www.generalfusion.com/investor.php


ITER was originally costed at €10bn (£9bn) or US$13 billion. But is likely going to be twice as much at $26 billion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/ ... er-funding

nextbigfuture wrote:Venrock (VC firm) first started investing in Tri Alpha, he says.

Sorry, did I miss a post? What's it to do with rnebel interview?

djolds1 wrote:

chrismb wrote:I didn't realise that they'd already run p-11B! Was it successful?

More interesting:

We currently have multiple funding sources, and certain corporations and private organizations are very interested in this technology.

"More interesting" that the first ever 'not-beam-target' p-11B fusion???!!!

kurt9 wrote:As far as I know (which is not much), they have not done a run with B11 in the WB-7 yet.

Sorry, just my little facetious ways. It's always this present tense "uses" that seems disingenuous. Would "will use", or better and more factual "is planned to use" not be an improvement in veracity?

Kurt9 Mentioned the Tri-alpha energy funding, t hat was why I had previously posted on tri-alpha energy funding specifics. So yes you did miss that part of his post.

Separately, Dr. Nebel has commented at nextbigfuture about P-B11 reactions

nextbigfuture wrote:Kurt9 Mentioned the Tri-alpha energy funding

Ah! I see it. There is a recent thread on them, if you've got any more to add.

Would "will use", or better and more factual "is planned to use" not be an improvement in veracity?

Not sure.

Posted by rnebel in the comments at nextbigfuture

Honzik:

We've looked at the side reaction you discuss and it is down 8 orders of magnitude from the P-B11 reaction. The reason for this is that the alpha particles are not well confined and leave the system very rapidly. The alpha-B11 reaction is the dominant side reaction.

Reading in a bit, it sounds like 1) P-B11 reactions actually occurred, 2) there were surprisingly few neutronic side reactions, and 3) further investigation determined that this was a result of very "poor" alpha particle confinement. How do others read that? And what would that imply about the rate of P-B11 reactions, that they could be said to take place 100,000,000 times as frequently as side reactions?

We are not running p-B11. These references were all to the eventual reactor. The side reaction rates are calculated.

EDIT: ooops.

Shucks.

rnebel wrote:We are not running p-B11. These references were all to the eventual reactor. The side reaction rates are calculated.

Assuming a Polywell demonstrator works in say 3-10 years, would a developed reactor be able to burn He3-He3, or does Polywell's performance "max out" with pB11?

Duane