J and A for WB-8

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

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MSimon
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J and A for WB-8

Post by MSimon »

*

https://www.neco.navy.mil/synopsis_file ... %20J&A.pdf

*

The dollars? $10 million

==

WB-8.0

Delivery 30 March 2010

==

WB-8.1

Delivery 30 March 2012
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

This is a Sole Source Justification, none of the money numbers are real, just estimates, order of magnitude type things. It is closer to 10M than to 1M or 100M, though they may use doublings rather than decades.

The stated estimated date (30 Mar 2010) is inconsistent with the required sumittal date (18 months from award) unless you postulate that the award was Septemer 08 rather than near September 09. However, if the award was actually back in the April time frame, then this could still be a reasonable date for an early submittal.

This doesn't seem to tell us any more than we knew before.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

KitemanSA wrote:This is a Sole Source Justification, none of the money numbers are real, just estimates, order of magnitude type things. It is closer to 10M than to 1M or 100M, though they may use doublings rather than decades.

The stated estimated date (30 Mar 2010) is inconsistent with the required sumittal date (18 months from award) unless you postulate that the award was Septemer 08 rather than near September 09. However, if the award was actually back in the April time frame, then this could still be a reasonable date for an early submittal.

This doesn't seem to tell us any more than we knew before.
I wonder if the actual work didn't begin before the award of the contract. i.e. EMC2 put up their own (an investor's) money to get things moving.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Aero
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Post by Aero »

A related note. Did anyone else notice that the description was removed from the contract synopsis? I wonder what that means and why?

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity ... =1&au=&ck=

This was removed.
RECOVERY - THIS NOTICE IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. THIS OPPORTUNITY IS AVAILABLE ONLY TO CONTRACTORS UNDER theAmerica recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Research Development Test Evaluation (RDT&E) Plan Plasma Fusion (Polywell) project. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake intends to procure on sole-sourced basis, a Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract for research, analysis, development, and testing to validate the basic physics of the plasma fusion (polywell) concept as well as requirements to provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion with a delivered item, wiffleball 8 (WB8) and options for a modified wiffleball 8 (WB8.1) and modified ion gun. The requirement is sole sourced to Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2) who is the original developer of the plasma fusion (polywell) approach and holds the proprietary data rights. The address for EMC2 is 1202 Parkway Dr, STE A, Santa Fe, NM 87507-7253. Respondents, other than the above, may submit their capability statement clearly showing their qualifications to perform the required services to the Contracting Officer by email within 10 days of the publication of this synopsis.Contracting Office email theodore.fiske@navy.mil. See notes 22 and 26.
And it was replaced by this.
No Description Provided
Aero

mvanwink5
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Post by mvanwink5 »

Simon wrote, "I wonder if the actual work didn't begin before the award of the contract. i.e. EMC2 put up their own (an investor's) money to get things moving."

That is heartwarming speculation for me. If it is so, there is likely to be an attempt to accelerate the whole schedule unofficially. Risk taking is not unheard of for the Navy, and accelerated success could bail out the Democrats in all manners (a mixed bag). If successful, this one project stands to justify the whole monstrous stimulus package (IMO).

Cheers

PS I still don't know what is being done with WB8.0 that explains the estimated $10 million. (looking too hard for a pony?)
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Helius
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Post by Helius »

mvanwink5 wrote: If successful, this one project stands to justify the whole monstrous stimulus package (IMO).
Thanks for that. That one line gave me a good chuckle, but I'm not sure why.

I guess we can take away from this is that Comprehensive basic research is much more fruitful in the long run than any such "cash for clunkers" or "subsidies for windmills" type programs ever will be. Imagine what could have been done for basic research or new energy development if the $3 Billion "cash for clunkers" earmark was intelligently spend in basic Energy research, or development of newer high power density energy systems.

choff
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Post by choff »

Classical Values takes it up:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives ... ct_pr.html

I remember when WB7 was funded, we were a little bit surprised when Dr. Nebel said 'its running like a top' so soon afterward. EMC2 might have fairly advanced plans for WB8 already. Two more years for WB8.1 is quite reasonable. Nobody has tried to build a machine to run on PB11 before and there's bound to be much more trial and error involved. But we might have the answers sooner than the one and a half to two years, that could have been the conservative estimate from RNebel.
CHoff

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

choff wrote:Classical Values takes it up:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives ... ct_pr.html

I remember when WB7 was funded, we were a little bit surprised when Dr. Nebel said 'its running like a top' so soon afterward. EMC2 might have fairly advanced plans for WB8 already. Two more years for WB8.1 is quite reasonable. Nobody has tried to build a machine to run on PB11 before and there's bound to be much more trial and error involved. But we might have the answers sooner than the one and a half to two years, that could have been the conservative estimate from RNebel.
That got an instapundit hit too:

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/86184/
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

MSimon wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:This doesn't seem to tell us any more than we knew before.
I wonder if the actual work didn't begin before the award of the contract. i.e. EMC2 put up their own (an investor's) money to get things moving.
Well, there is another option. EMC2 got money in January to do build WB 7.1 and do a lot of testing. It may be that some of the testing money was pre-spent on the WB8 design work in anticipation of more funding to back-fill the WB7.1 task.

Just a thought.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Results in six months sounds good to me.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they started work early, either via loan or investment or money laying around. A lot of the design could have been done without much funding.

p-B11 results should be very interesting.

Aero, I'm guessing the last couple lines explain why that's been removed.

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