Polywell: We'll know in 7 months time?!

[Stoney3K]

Regarding crusiers and amphibious assault ships, would a polywell reactor be cheaper to buy/operate than gas-turbine or diesel turbines + electric motors? Would it require similar or smaller crew sizes? Would the increased time it could run without resupply be operationally significant for the missions those types of ships are usually sent on? I guess you guys might have talked about this elsewhere, but if so, I never noticed that conversation.

Polywell powers an on-ship H2 or Methanol production plant. Smaller ships, vehicles and aircraft use fuel cells or existing tubines fired on Methanol.

'nuff said

[taniwha]

"'nuff said"? This reminds me of the cartoons I saw as a kid in the 70s (probably Batman, maybe the super hero league (I don't remember the name: the one where most of the heroes were all together)) where some (mad?) scientist had made a car that could run on water (I seem to remember him usually being a baddy: that never made sense).

With a pollywell, whole fleets can run on sea water, assuming the boron concentrations are high enough to make extraction possible. If not, there's still D-D.

Hmm, use CO2 from the atmosphere to produce the methanol and kill two birds with one stone: (nearly) unlimited fuel and (if this actually matters*) net CO2 production drops to near-0.

* Even if it doesn't matter, it will help make happy those that think it does. If it does matter, then cool. If it causes a problem, I'm sure we won't have any problem coming up with ways of producing enough CO2 elsewhere.

[Carl White]

So, there's no news (and a patent has been allowed to lapse) because:

1. There is no news. Things haven't gone well.

or

2. Things look promising enough that the Navy has decided to shroud everything in secrecy. Who knows when, if ever, the public will hear about it. Political forces may kill it even if it does look promising, or it may be restricted to "defense" purposes no matter how much the world needs it.

Either way, discouraging. Maybe it's time to turn more attention to the privately funded efforts like General Fusion and Focus Fusion.

[Stoney3K]

Hmm, use CO2 from the atmosphere to produce the methanol and kill two birds with one stone: (nearly) unlimited fuel and (if this actually matters*) net CO2 production drops to near-0.

The major problem we're having with that at the moment, is that extracting CO2 at a major scale is difficult. If we could, we could just as easily store it or produce methanol from it powered by other sources (wind, solar, even fossil). Currently, if you need to produce methanol from pure electrical power, you will need another source of carbon. Organic sources *may* be possible here.

Pure H2 is beneficial to CO2 neutrality, but has a storage and transport problem. Methanol (or possibly E100, ethanol) is much easier since we don't even need to scrap conventional combustion engines, just plonk it into the tank of a petrol engine, turn the key, and go.

Smaller vehicles can't be powered by a Polywell directly, neither can portable electronics, so we will need some way of storing and transporting energy no matter what.

That said, given the abundance of power a Polywell source will offer us, we don't need to give a rat's behind about efficiency anymore.

[chrismb]

So let me just get this right. You guys think that no news means it's so important to the Navy that they're keeping it secret.

...so why is the experiment still sited at a civilian facility with, presumably, civilian levels of security?

[D Tibbets]

So let me just get this right. You guys think that no news means it's so important to the Navy that they're keeping it secret.

...so why is the experiment still sited at a civilian facility with, presumably, civilian levels of security?

Is it? I understand current funding is through the Navy weapons program at China Lake. Is ths just an intermediary busness mechanism, or are they transferring actual resarch to that site?

Dan Tibbets

[KitemanSA]

Pure H2 is beneficial to CO2 neutrality, but has a storage and transport problem. Methanol (or possibly E100, ethanol) is much easier since we don't even need to scrap conventional combustion engines, just plonk it into the tank of a petrol engine, turn the key, and go.

Neither methanol nor ethanol can just be "plonked" into gas tanks. Some, yes, but nowhere near all. Butanol however, that is "plonk"able!

[Betruger]

So, there's no news (and a patent has been allowed to lapse) because:

1. There is no news. Things haven't gone well.

or

2. Things look promising enough that the Navy has decided to shroud everything in secrecy. Who knows when, if ever, the public will hear about it. Political forces may kill it even if it does look promising, or it may be restricted to "defense" purposes no matter how much the world needs it.

Either way, discouraging. Maybe it's time to turn more attention to the privately funded efforts like General Fusion and Focus Fusion.

3. It's all in limbo till experimental results are conclusive either way. EMC crew are busy and then some with so much more funding and consequent nooks and crannies to explore. Powers That Be and EMC themselves, in the face of so much (so far unconfirmable) promise, are not interested in making any noise till they're sure they're not walking into another Cold Fusion error.
The patent relapse is just a coincidence - it's independent of any progress: it wasn't where the design was headed most recently, and no new patent would be submitted since because experiments have yet to confirm what to patent.

[DennisP]

Regarding crusiers and amphibious assault ships, would a polywell reactor be cheaper to buy/operate than gas-turbine or diesel turbines + electric motors? Would it require similar or smaller crew sizes? Would the increased time it could run without resupply be operationally significant for the missions those types of ships are usually sent on?

I have a buddy on an aircraft carrier. He says that polywell fusion would revolutionize naval warfare.

Nuclear carriers are among the fastest ships in the world. Top speed is classified, but they can go really amazingly fast, for as long as they want, without ever refueling. The trouble is, a carrier likes to be surrounded by the other ships in the group, and those ships can't keep up. Their top speed is a lot lower, and even the top speed they have is very expensive in fuel. So the carrier ends up mostly going at a pace that's economical for oil burners, and only really opening up for occasional quick maneuvers.

That's why the Navy is interested in Polywell.

[DeltaV]

...so why is the experiment still sited at a civilian facility with, presumably, civilian levels of security?

To decoy the spies. The real work is happening underground at Area 51. China Lake is too accessible.

[KitemanSA]

Although it would have worked at many times in the past (especially World War II and early Cold War), the idea of actually lying about the technology probably wouldn't wash today. It goes too contrary to modern Freedom of Information Practices. These days a western government can generally get away with refusing to answer (ie. releasing documents under freedom of information, but completely blanking them out) - but there would be various legal concerns with the approach of outright lying that the technology didn't work while you were developing it.

FYI, Defense Technical Information is one of the exemptions from the FOIA, along with the location of water wells wierdly enough

[TallDave]

Come to think of it, the patent lapse also makes sense from Bussard's perspective. He wanted to give the idea away anyway.

...so why is the experiment still sited at a civilian facility with, presumably, civilian levels of security?

Well, assuming the Navy thinks this could be a competitive advantage, there are caveats:

a) no one actually knows if WB-9 will work, so deploying massive security is premature

b) if it does work, the thing is eventually going to be built by civilian contractors anyway

[DennisP]

Also, judging by the recently released paper, the Navy is aware that releasing it to the world would have much grander benefits to national security than keeping it secret. No more oil wars, and no excuse for refining uranium...they mentioned both.

Since the U.S. is the only country with a really large navy anyway, we still get the biggest benefit from that application even if everybody has it.

[Stoney3K]

Neither methanol nor ethanol can just be "plonked" into gas tanks. Some, yes, but nowhere near all. Butanol however, that is "plonk"able!

Reprogramming an engine's ECU (or swapping out the main spray in a carburettor) to cope with the difference in expected fuel/air mixture is NOT a major modification. Bog standard gasoline engines can be converted to run on E100 or methanol with very little effort, as it's been done in the racing world for decades.

Butanol has the same octane rating as gas, so it will be a sure runner in place of your plane jane Euro 95.

[KitemanSA]

Reprogramming an engine's ECU (or swapping out the main spray in a carburettor) to cope with the difference in expected fuel/air mixture is NOT a major modification. ...

Butanol has the same octane rating as gas, so it will be a sure runner in place of your plane jane Euro 95.

It is not the octane rating or energy content that is the issue, it is the compatability of many plastic parts with methanol or ethanol, both pretty good solvents. Butanols don't react with plastics as much, and basically no more than gasoline.