Polywell FOIA

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:05 pm

TallDave wrote:
It would not surprise me at all if this were a FOIA decision at China Lake.
There's no question that it is. The company doeesn't get to decide that. There's some question as to whether the company actually requested this or not.

Either way, it's grossly unfair to accuse Rick of dishonesty. As Tom alluded to above, Polywell was kept under wraps by the sponsors for over a decade before any of us had even heard of it. It only briefly saw daylight when the funding was cut.

The original date of the FOIA is 7 January, 2010. Everything revolves around that.

There were five documents identified as meeting the FOIA. These encompass a total of about 235 pages.

The disclosure exemption is based soley on input from EMC2 regarding proprietary position. I explained this earlier during my updates on the process.

This was the final wicket to release.

I think we have good grounds to submit an appeal. Especially regarding the Peer Review Report, which was commissioned by the navy, and not submitted by EMC2. It is also number 1 one the list of documents identified, as it was the primary focus of the FOIA request.

Specifically NAVAIR cited disclosure exemption based on FOIA Exemption 4 (5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4)) which is proprietary information for competitive position.

I will need to address the appeal in terms of the above cited US Code.

I have 60 days to submit it writing, but do not think it will take that long. This appeal will draw another rebuttal opportunity from EMC2. But the appeal will be handled by the Navy Office of the General Counsel, Pentagon, vice the Counsel Office at China Lake.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:11 pm

TallDave wrote: The $30M number is confusing.

This seems to have been about the time when MSimon was pushing the use of salvaged MRI SC coils. His cost estimate was in that neighborhood. Rememeber, 2008. This was BEFORE the expert panel and any inkling of the $8M recovery funding.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:14 pm

Hmmm. If we can round up a couple or $10k, do you think we can pay EMC2 with non-Navy funds to run some EXTRA runs and publish the data?

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:26 pm

I've always known that Polywells to date have generated huge volumes of contaminant gas, mostly hydrogen. Since this probably came from metal surfaces being hit by high-energy particles, and the surfaces acquired a "cooked" appearance, solving it was vital, probably the essential missing link to good confinement and high reaction rates.

Cooked appearance? That's an understatement. That thing is well done.

J

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:29 pm

KitemanSA wrote:Hmmm. If we can round up a couple or $10k, do you think we can pay EMC2 with non-Navy funds to run some EXTRA runs and publish the data?

I would prefer that we figured out how to help FAMULUS with his project in such a way that we could get the data we need.

D Tibbets · Post by **D Tibbets** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 8:56 pm

JohnFul wrote:
I've always known that Polywells to date have generated huge volumes of contaminant gas, mostly hydrogen. Since this probably came from metal surfaces being hit by high-energy particles, and the surfaces acquired a "cooked" appearance, solving it was vital, probably the essential missing link to good confinement and high reaction rates.
Cooked appearance? That's an understatement. That thing is well done.

J

I assume you are applying the "cooked" discription to WB2,4, etc. The rounded profile and spacing in WB 6 and 7 supposedly cured this problem so that recirculation efficiency is improved conciderably, and sputtering of contaminates from the magnetic casings are minimized due to better magnetic shielding.

Dan Tibbets

JohnFul · Post by **JohnFul** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 9:32 pm

Dtibbits wrote:

I assume you are applying the "cooked" discription to WB2,4, etc.

The picture of WB-7 in the tank on page 14 http://www.nmsbaprogram.org/LinkClick.a ... &tabid=202

J

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 9:54 pm

I have seen things regarding WB7 on which I can't comment, but which offered certain opportunities for improvement. My comments are on the earlier machines.

By cooked, I mean surfaces that show discoloration, etching pitting, or outright melting due to impact by high energy particles, either electrons or ions.

WB6 looked reasonably clean except for the damage from the short at one insulator. However, the chamber in which it was operated is purple-brown in the photos. When we took shipment of it, the interior was a gorgeous electropolished mirror appearance. I expect the change is due to deposits of sputtered-off material. This could be from either WB-6 or WB-4, or from their emitters, cages, or anything else in the way. Whatever was taking the hit, the resulting hydrogen would have diluted fusion fuel, and the metal in the plasma would have been counterproductive.

So if the LANL expert helped them spot a loss of high-energy particles to metal, it could only help. If he helped kill the last significant loss to the confinement, I would expect that spelled the difference between success and failure, or maybe between success and "nuanced" results. The improvement would have been threefold:

1) Eliminate the dilutent gas (fusion decreases as the square of the dilution ratio, i.e. a 10 hydrogens to 1 deuterium gives 1/100th the reaction rate). Huge problem.

2) The energy balance even with undiluted fuel will have everything to do with confinement time. Eliminate the loss of confined particles and this should improve.

3) Excess useless gas will, at some level, thermalize the plasma. Keeping the pressure from running away, or at least reducing the rate of the rise, will improve the window for fusion (ideally allowing continuous operation). The bright glow pictures you have seen may actually occur after the fusion is over, during a Paschen discharge or outright Paschen arc that discharges the power supply.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:28 pm

Aero wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:Hmmm. If we can round up a couple or $10k, do you think we can pay EMC2 with non-Navy funds to run some EXTRA runs and publish the data?
I would prefer that we figured out how to help FAMULUS with his project in such a way that we could get the data we need.

I don't see how that's possible. Anyone with sufficient assets to have a large enough vacuum chamber to house a WB-7 or WB-8, isn't going to need $3,000.00 .

I admire the guy's grit and determination, but i'm thinking his Project is a windmill, and he's playing the role of Don Quixote.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 12:02 am

ladajo -- It was a fine attempt. Best of luck with the appeal. I do not think you will get anything. There's no reason to expect EMC2 to share proprietary information, even if the sponsors haven't nixed it as well.

Kite -- Yeah, all I can figure is $30M must be the base machine cost. I don't think they will do any runs for us, but I'd put in a thousand for a WB-8 D-D run if they send back data.

Tom -- Interesting, thanks for sharing. It sounded to me like the LANL guy was helping them solve external arcing that was preventing them from running it at beta=1.

Diogenes -- I have to agree, I wish Famulus all the best but I don't think he has the resources to tell us much that's useful.

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:09 am

Perelman has finally been officially awarded the Millenium Prize for solving Poincare ... it's taken them 8 years to figure it out, political squabbling, priority, etc ...

http://www.claymath.org/poincare/

Question now is will Perelman legitimize the prize by accepting it ... or spurn it like he spurned the Fields medal and the corrupted maths community?

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/0 ... table=true

mvanwink5 · Post by **mvanwink5** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 2:28 pm

icarus, re: Poicare, Perelman, lovely, thanks, very nice.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:27 pm

New Boyle article up. See "News" or my blogs.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:01 pm

I anticipate the FOIA appeal to be submitted within the week.
It is focused to points previously discussed here.

1. Peer Review
2. Dropped Patents
3. Statements by EMC regarding it is not us it is the navy blocking release.
4. No specific and detailed design nuances were requested, only end of contract summary reports.

BenTC · Post by **BenTC** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:50 am

Good luck ladajo, but personally I would let it go. You asked nicely, in what might have been a favour to EMC2 to lighten the gag order, but have been rebuffed - for whatever they judge are valid reasons, and there are a several valid possibilities. From discussion above, the most pertinant being:

avoiding a cold-fusion fiasco by premature release of info
keeping a low profile - the potential market is SO huge that the incumbent wolves may start to interfere. I'd rather EMC2 are allowed stay focused on the technical side.
fastest distribution via commercial means - even once they solve the main enginnering issues (assuming the science works out) there is another big jump from lab to a turnkey commercial system, upscaling production/distribution, operator/technician training, legislative issues. Better to have the big guns on your side.
trusting rnebel is more concerned about his reputation than milking the system

The chance of getting info was really exciting, but now my personal preference is that they were left in peace to get on with it