Recovery.Gov Project Tracker

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

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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

ladajo wrote:And, just to add "fuel" to the fire, Linked-In now shows Dr Richard Nebel of Santa Fe, New Mexico as a "Independent Research Professional".

What up with that?
He always had two hats. On leave from LANL and head of EMC2. The fact that he is no longer on leave from LANL may indicate his estimate of the potential of Polywell. Or it may be that he just no longer mentions LANL.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Ivy Matt
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Post by Ivy Matt »

Procurement difficulties!? Doesn't everybody know how important this project is? :P

That is reassuring. And, because I don't feel I've spammed this thread enough today, I will add that I am very content with this latest update. I think they said about as much as they could say in a Recovery Act report, and one for a project that is still underway. They could have just said "project is currently under testing", which is more along the lines of what I expected.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Skipjack wrote:His profile on Linkedin is very, very rudimentary.
All it says is this:

Richard Nebel
Independent Research Professional
Location:
Santa Fe, New Mexico Area
Industry:
Research

I dont have a good feeling about this.
Dr Nebel was on a leave from Los Alamos in order to help figuring this Polywell thing out. I have always said that a good sign of Polywell not working out is when Nebel leaves EMC2. This has seemingly happened, now.
So you can guess what I am thinking: It did not work and he returned to his former position. Would love to be proven wrong, but I have little reason to think otherwise right now.
The other alternative is that he hates typing.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

But that is different to doing it as cost effectively as possible, because otherwise we'd see people handing back money to the funders of that project and saying "well, maybe we could've done a bit more, or to a better quality, but we thought we'd save you some money and so we didn't bother spending everything you signed off".
I used to get projects like:

"Spend what you need to. We have a burn rate of $ 1/2 million a week. Plus penalties."

They were expecting to spend millions. And take 3 to 4 months. I did it in 6 weeks for $500,000 for the first copy and $100,000 for each additional.

Of course it wasn't my money so what did I care?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Here is the critical bit:
Projects and Jobs Information
Projects and Jobs Information
Project Title Federal Contract
Project Status More than 50% Completed
Final Project Report Submitted No
Project Activities Description Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
Quarterly Activities/Project Description 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.
Jobs Created 11.00
Description of Jobs Created two full time plasma physicists. one full time equivalent electrical engineer.
Funny jobs created = 11 and actual jobs created is 3. Government accounting.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

mvanwink5
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Post by mvanwink5 »

Time for the man with the birth certificate to get Government Electric (GE) to start engineering WB-D.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Ivy Matt
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

Post by Ivy Matt »

I believe the "Jobs Created" is a cumulative total. If you look at all the previous reports, it includes 5 "funny jobs created"—that is, jobs retained—plus 1 computational physicist, 2 consultants, 2 full-time plasma physicists, and 1 equivalent electrical engineer. (I am assuming that the "Description of Jobs Created" for the past three quarters are redundant; otherwise the total would be more than 11.)
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

Emmet
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Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:31 am

Post by Emmet »

[quote="Skipjack] I have no reason to think otherwise today. In contrary. If anything I have more reason to think that now. There has not been any new information in years and even Msimon went qiet and retreated. [/quote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
stone-bronze-iron-carbon-boron

Maui
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Location: Madison, WI

Post by Maui »

Skipjack wrote:Where is the link to that quote?
Anyway, if it is indeed so, then I will revise my earlier assessment from "I am pretty sure that it failed" back to "I may be dammed if I know" ;)
My sentiments exactly. I wonder if there are any more cats in Simon's bag though...

Betruger
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Post by Betruger »

So when can we consider Polywell doesn't behave as Doc Carlson expected according to conventional conjecture? After 8.1 gets the green? IIRC, his and Chrismb's prognostics were for a Polywell to fail at some very fundamental level.

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

MSimon wrote:I can let the cat out of the bag now. Procurement difficulties rather than experiment gone bad.
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!!!

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

Why did the summary change from
We expect to determine if the Polywell is suitable as a clean energy source for electrical generation. A new generation Polywell device is being built and the major deliverable is a report describing the performance of this device.
to
The purpose of the AGEE program is to test the properties of the Polywell Plasma Confinement Concept. We expect to determine if the plasma scaling agrees with the Theoretical models.
The first summary was in need of change anyway, because that would have been impossible to complete within such a programme. It should not have been allowed, if that was the actual declaration of project [is the actual application for funding up on the web somewhere?].

In any case, there is no longer any specific indication that they will be operating it in 'fusing' mode. So 'good' results might simply mean that they are getting viable measurements out. [A subtext may also then apply "We're getting good results [and they are showing us it is a definite dud]", or "We're getting good [nuanced] results".]

Getting a definite conclusion that a thing is a dud can be 'a good result' as well. If they did it for ITER and it saved $30 billion, that'd be a good result, no?

chrismb
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Post by chrismb »

MSimon wrote:The other alternative is that he hates typing.
I'm surprised that this isn't also used as the explanation for why we've had no reports out of EMC2. I mean, it's almost water-tight!! :roll:

A theoretician who doesn't like typing. hmmm..... I just hope they don't have experimentalists who hate getting their hands dirty as well!!!

Emmet
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Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:31 am

Post by Emmet »

chrismb wrote:Why did the summary change from
We expect to determine if the Polywell is suitable as a clean energy source for electrical generation. A new generation Polywell device is being built and the major deliverable is a report describing the performance of this device.
to
The purpose of the AGEE program is to test the properties of the Polywell Plasma Confinement Concept. We expect to determine if the plasma scaling agrees with the Theoretical models.
The first summary was in need of change anyway, because that would have been impossible to complete within such a programme. It should not have been allowed, if that was the actual declaration of project [is the actual application for funding up on the web somewhere?].

In any case, there is no longer any specific indication that they will be operating it in 'fusing' mode. So 'good' results might simply mean that they are getting viable measurements out. [A subtext may also then apply "We're getting good results [and they are showing us it is a definite dud]", or "We're getting good [nuanced] results".]

Getting a definite conclusion that a thing is a dud can be 'a good result' as well. If they did it for ITER and it saved $30 billion, that'd be a good result, no?
This is what they did with the Iraq war. First claiming huge goals to get money, than claiming small goals to declare victory. But this lovely machine works "as designed" and designed to produce fusion it was!
stone-bronze-iron-carbon-boron

chrismb
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Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:00 pm

Post by chrismb »

Trying to claim victory over a war is like trying to claim victory over an earthquake. Polywell should be different. We wait and see....


I have pinned up my prediction of the outcome of this current work in General.

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