Recovery.Gov Project Tracker

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:41 am

PNeilson10 wrote: Snarkily expressed expectations of failure seem to be the dominant cultural motif in England.

That may explain a LOT!

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:27 am

hanelyp wrote:I would hope that Dr. Nebel would be careful enough to not describe "quality results indicating poor confinement" as "positive results". On that basis I take the report as indicating results consistent with operating theory. Solid numbers would, of course, be nice.

Heh, true, it might have said "kind of nuanced results" instead.

OTOH I'm not really sure who writes these things.

Post by **JoeStrout** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:24 am

I for one am encouraged. Those of you who aren't wondering, "Joe who?" may be wondering why I haven't been posting as much in the last few years. It's simply because, without any real news to discuss, I haven't felt an urge to participate in the discussion.

But this is some actual news, and it's enough for me to take a cautiously optimistic stance — and to pop my head up again to say Hello.

So, Hello, nice to see you all, see you again when there's more news.

P.S. I'm also going to write to Alan Boyle and see whether his journalistic wizardry can squeeze any additional detail out of anybody.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon May 02, 2011 2:32 am

Hey Joe!
Good to see you!
Drop by more often!

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon May 02, 2011 4:08 am

JoeStrout wrote:I for one am encouraged. Those of you who aren't wondering, "Joe who?" may be wondering why I haven't been posting as much in the last few years. It's simply because, without any real news to discuss, I haven't felt an urge to participate in the discussion.

But this is some actual news, and it's enough for me to take a cautiously optimistic stance — and to pop my head up again to say Hello.

So, Hello, nice to see you all, see you again when there's more news.

P.S. I'm also going to write to Alan Boyle and see whether his journalistic wizardry can squeeze any additional detail out of anybody.

Joe, I've PM'd you.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:26 am

JoeStrout wrote:But this is some actual news, and it's enough for me to take a cautiously optimistic stance — and to pop my head up again to say Hello.

You really think that this news is enough to take an optimistic stance?
I found it more like a scapegoat just to take some time and I do not see much to get excited about.

JoeStrout wrote:P.S. I'm also going to write to Alan Boyle and see whether his journalistic wizardry can squeeze any additional detail out of anybody.

Could you ask him if he can get info about EMC2 people attending or presenting any result at one of the coming fusion conferences this year?

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:33 pm

Good to see you again Joe.

I'm also hoping Alan gets another interview. Going to post something on his Facebook wall.

bennmann · Post by **bennmann** » Mon May 02, 2011 5:01 pm

I found out right as ladajo made his initial post about the latest quarterly.

http://www.overclock.net/technology-sci ... works.html

Made a post in that forum because it seems they like technology there and it fit, it has several thousand views now and created some starter discussion with a good number of people. There is a link in that thread somewhere back to this site.

I am very excited by the wording they chose to use in the report and can hardly wait for the next 9-12 months to be up!

I also submitted the recovery link to Engadget.com and advise all of you to do the same through the tips link on their front page.

Ideally we'd have numbers, but having a report with such strong favorable wording is nearly as good in my book.

mvanwink5 · Post by **mvanwink5** » Mon May 02, 2011 7:06 pm

Retrofit market for utilities is gigantic. There are no patents here and the first to demonstrate a working retrofit will likely make huge money with contracts. Of course, some will not see it that way. I wonder how the Chinese will see it? Just thinking...

GWW57 · Post by **GWW57** » Mon May 02, 2011 8:45 pm

I am trying not to get too excited. I think that far too much is being read into a very cautiously worded report.

The progress reports now look like this:

2010-09-30

WB8 is fully under construction, progress made on Theoretical modeling of the Polywell.

2010-12-31

WB-8 device construction is completed. The first plasma was generated successfully on Nov. 1, 2010.

2011-04-31

As of 1Q/2011, the WB-8 device operates as designed and it is generating positive results. EMC2 is planning to conduct comprehensive experiments on WB-8 in the next 9-12 months based on the current contract funding schedule.

MSimon reports that they had procurement problems. (Possibly for sensor equipment? They generated plasma last year, so sensor equipment seems to be the only other thing they could require that would not interfere with generating a plasma but which would cause problems with the project.)

It looks to me as though the project is running behind schedule and that the last quarter has simply seen basic confirmation that a plasma (and possibly neutrons) can be achieved (i.e. "operates as designed") and probably some initial exploration of the parameters for running the system.

The plans for running "comprehensive experiments" sound as though they are intending to thoroughly explore the capabilities of the present system, but do not indicate the degree of the success so far.

I have seen nothing to indicate that scaling operates as theory suggested.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:13 pm

What he (GWW57) said...

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:44 pm

Doc Nebel knew about Talk Polywell, should at least have a general idea of the kind of analysis that goes on here from released information; and so should Park and anyone else involved in any information released.

In their position, I wouldn't release any conclusive, useful information till the project was guaranteed success. Not when you've got people on your case like this. It's just a distraction from getting things done. Nevermind if the situation is what it is with the hand that feeds.

djolds1 · Post by **djolds1** » Tue May 03, 2011 2:00 am

chrismb wrote:Yeah, since the down turn the unobtanium suppliers have had a tough time! The 'something-from-nothing' machines that they used to share time on with the Financial Markets have all broken!!!

Chris, are you clinically anhedonic?

hanelyp · Post by **hanelyp** » Tue May 03, 2011 3:27 am

Again, I'd hope Dr. Nebel et all would not be so sloppy as to describe confinement well short of theory as 'positive results'. If they have high confidence in the data, but data is short of theory, 'quality results' would be a better description.

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Tue May 03, 2011 5:21 am

It could also be interpreted as (iirc) Chris said. Positive demonstration of useful/useless physics. And one of the alternative reasons for ambiguous wording is specifically to give be as slippery as possible for speculation like this forum's.

IOW another effective deflection of public influence on their work, as probably was the "proprietary" claim in response to FOI request.