Talk-Polywell.org

Did you pull his whole profile? Cut/paste it over for those who do not have Linked-in accounts...

...maybe he had a chance to test Rossi's free energy machine and after testing figured what's the point of polyeell anymore.

Seriously - if things were going well for a world changing technologh I can't imagine any reason anyone would leave. Not good.

As I said, wild speculation. He may have had a salary dispute, and took himself elsewhere. That he is apparently still a consultant, may be because EMC2 may wiish to 'consult' with him, or it may just be a handle that keeps him committed to the nondisclosure, and no competition clauses that he probably had in his contract.

Dan Tibbets

Early retirement due to cushy tax-payer-funded big salary hitting his target nest-egg figure?

D Tibbets wrote:As I said, wild speculation. He may have had a salary dispute, and took himself elsewhere.
Dan Tibbets

This would only make sense if Polywell wasn't working out. If it was, I can't imagine he wouldn't work for free knowing the massive payout right around the corner.

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.

If results came out negative, would that be easier to report to the public than positive news, which must be verified out the wazoo?

The change to R. Nebel's involvement was before first plasma for WB-8, so I can't see anyway to make a technical deduction one way or another.

It may have been for tax reasons as California income tax is not pretty, he likely can do all his work from Santa Fe as an independent research contractor for EMC2. No sense camping outside area 51 fence.

ladajo wrote:Sounds like you are slowly moving towards Chris's position of gravy train development...

Nope. Totally different intent. His seems to assume that people are venal and all this is an attempt to bilk the taxpayer. I just think that things are nuanced but that the folks involved are trying to get to the right answer as cost effectively as possible.

Bussard on the other hand may have been a bit overly optimistic. He wanted to get to the final answer as quickly as possible, expecting it to be positive. I sympathize but would REALLY hate to see a $200M project turn out so much lower than hoped that folks were turned off to a viable system.

If I were to win the Powerball lottery, I might buy the demo. But that is just me!

Maui wrote:

D Tibbets wrote:As I said, wild speculation. He may have had a salary dispute, and took himself elsewhere.
Dan Tibbets

This would only make sense if Polywell wasn't working out. If it was, I can't imagine he wouldn't work for free knowing the massive payout right around the corner.

Remember, he was on loan from LANL or someplace like that. He may have been told to come back and work or come back and retire. And what is the first thing a government retiree does? He becomes a consultant.
Perhaps he is now a consultant at 1/2 again the money he HAD been making?

KitemanSA wrote:

ladajo wrote:Sounds like you are slowly moving towards Chris's position of gravy train development...

Nope. Totally different intent. His seems to assume that people are venal and all this is an attempt to bilk the taxpayer. I just think that things are nuanced but that the folks involved are trying to get to the right answer as cost effectively as possible.

'Venal' is a bit strong -- [thinks on it for a moment..] hmm....

....well, anyway, I do not believe I have EVER seen someone try to complete a project as cost effectively as possible. What I'll agree I have seen is people draw up a cost effective project then deliever the project to that budget. 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".

If anyone were to claim that latter statement as being the case for any project, let alone a tax-payer government project, I'd cry 'BS'!! You know as well as I do that if folks get the work done under budget, they'll use the rest up for some cherry-on-top extra, or extention, work - whether or not they declare it as such. And if they over-spend then it wasn't cost-effective. Period. Because the decision of cost-effectiveness was already considered, wrt the given budget, and those argument are no longer applicable.

...and in the long run, if you do agree that the last statement is a typical scenario, this is a bias of intent and effort consequent to the influence of money - which is largely the definition of 'venal'. Better to avoid taking anyone else's money, then 'venal' cannot even be an accusation.

chrismb wrote: ...and in the long run, if you do agree that the last statement is a typical scenario, this is a bias of intent and effort consequent to the influence of money - which is largely the definition of 'venal'. Better to avoid taking anyone else's money, then 'venal' cannot even be an accusation.

Would you have been happier with the statement "as cost effectively as possible within the confines of the US government contracting paradigm"? I am fully aware that the government budgetting and contracting processes actually penalize folks for not spending the money. But that is not the fault of the contractor.

There are a LOT of SIMPLE things that could be done to improve the system, but then how would the Congress get their graft?

mvanwink5 wrote:The change to R. Nebel's involvement was before first plasma for WB-8, so I can't see anyway to make a technical deduction one way or another.

That's the most important point. If this is really true, and I just can hope so because I don't know you dear quote source, than it is indeed 100% impossible that his change of title/task/location has anything to do with the grade of success of the project.

In any case it would be interesting to know his (or anyones) shares in the company's ownership structure. That he doesn't go back to his old job as state employee and works instead as an independent consultor I would interprete cautiously optimistic because initially he was just on lend, keeping the safe job in the reserve which now he doesn't seem to need anymore.