emc2's website

[D Tibbets]

Tom L.

With some data on the actual performance of Polywells ...

Hearsay. Officially, they don't got squat.

I would restate it:
Hearsay*. Publicly, they don't got squat.

* Arguments against pure hearsay, Tom L was an insider at one time, weather he has any confidential up to date information is unknown.

The purported peer review and aviable contractural details are at least intriging for advanced fuel possibilities.

[EDIT]
The information aviable generates spectulation, entertainment, and stimulus for education. But, if EMC2 wanted my financial donation, they would need to be much more forthcomming with information.

Dan Tibbets

[Giorgio]

The information aviable generates spectulation, entertainment, and stimulus for education. But, if EMC2 wanted my financial donation, they would need to be much more forthcomming with information.

Dan Tibbets

That's quite a good point that I think has gone un-noticed in this whole thread.
Asking donations implies giving to people who donates an account of how and where the donated money has gone.

[Aero]

The information aviable generates spectulation, entertainment, and stimulus for education. But, if EMC2 wanted my financial donation, they would need to be much more forthcomming with information.

Dan Tibbets

That's quite a good point that I think has gone un-noticed in this whole thread.
Asking donations implies giving to people who donates an account of how and where the donated money has gone.

In this case, funding a design, IMO the fund raisers are obligated to at least give a reason to think that the designed WB-D might have hope of being successful.

This is not like asking for donations for medical studies or save the children. In those cases the funds go to consumables and salaries for medical studies to advance knowledge, or for food for children. Most people know that in general.

Designing a fusion reactor based on unproven technology through donations is something else. Although Dr. Nebel does have more credibility than I, I propose that I will design an inertial space drive based on Heim physics - Who will fund it? With Tajmar's positive experimental results, the Heim Inertial Drive has about the same level of publicly available credible results as does the Polywell fusor. So if you send a donation to EMC2, send a matching donation to me, because a working Heim Inertial Space Drive would be equally earth shattering as would be a working fusion reactor.

So there Dr. Nebel, by withholding ALL information, your sponsors put themselves in line for the golden fleece award and you relegate your efforts into the ranks of the Burkhard Heim's of the world. He was a genius IMO, but others have labeled his efforts as "Crackpot" and fringe physics. Throw us a bone and clear up the smell in the atmosphere surrounding your work.

[Betruger]

Throw us a bone and clear up the smell in the atmosphere surrounding your work.

There's no atmosphere. There's lots of bones being thrown: peer review with Hirsch present, and progress reports to Navy since then.

The only thing Nebel might be held accountable to is the "we'll know in two years" assertion.

[bennmann]

I donated 10$. They've already proven as far as I can tell that Polywell is an excellent neutron source if nothing else, even if that's all it turns into... it will be a functional machine worth an investment.

[KitemanSA]

If they were going to run experiments with the money and publish the data, I'd donate. But to provide NFP donations so they can make MARKETING drawings? No thanks.

[cuddihy]

The information aviable generates spectulation, entertainment, and stimulus for education. But, if EMC2 wanted my financial donation, they would need to be much more forthcomming with information.

Dan Tibbets

That's quite a good point that I think has gone un-noticed in this whole thread.
Asking donations implies giving to people who donates an account of how and where the donated money has gone.

In this case, funding a design, IMO the fund raisers are obligated to at least give a reason to think that the designed WB-D might have hope of being successful.

This is not like asking for donations for medical studies or save the children. In those cases the funds go to consumables and salaries for medical studies to advance knowledge, or for food for children. Most people know that in general.

Designing a fusion reactor based on unproven technology through donations is something else. Although Dr. Nebel does have more credibility than I, I propose that I will design an inertial space drive based on Heim physics - Who will fund it? With Tajmar's positive experimental results, the Heim Inertial Drive has about the same level of publicly available credible results as does the Polywell fusor. So if you send a donation to EMC2, send a matching donation to me, because a working Heim Inertial Space Drive would be equally earth shattering as would be a working fusion reactor.

So there Dr. Nebel, by withholding ALL information, your sponsors put themselves in line for the golden fleece award and you relegate your efforts into the ranks of the Burkhard Heim's of the world. He was a genius IMO, but others have labeled his efforts as "Crackpot" and fringe physics. Throw us a bone and clear up the smell in the atmosphere surrounding your work.

While I don't harbor any suspicions of vaporware or of intentional misleading, I do agree that it is inappropriate for EMC2 to ask for donations without giving a clearer explanation of what exactly they intend to do with them. Just saying "design a commercial reactor demo" is meaningless.

So does that mean if I gave EMC2 $25 bucks, EMC2 would use that money to help pay for the design of a reactor that they then license for money at a better advantage to EMC2 than if they had to do so with all the design funding paid for by traditional investment?

I mean, what is the charitable benefit then of my contribution, other than to enrich the patent holders and EMC2?

If the funding was somehow set up in a charitable trust with the legally bound goal of publishing open source documentation of a bussard reactor and the attendant physics, then I could see it being a charitable matter.

Likewise, if it was set up as an honest investment vehicle --i.e. a kind of common-fund angel stock for privatizing the bussard design, with attendant risk/return to the investor (likely to cost more than it raises in the post-sarbox environment), again it would be legit.

But asking for money without any attendant binding on what the money's used for--it's just not right.

[MSimon]

when was the last time dr N had any real communication with this website? I was wondering where you got the information of the fuel mix in order to do pB11.

He was pretty active up until June 2009. Since then, not a peep.

Just to add to that point. His private messages to me have dried up.

[scareduck]

Just to add to that point. His private messages to me have dried up.

First the patent application lapse, now this. Not. Looking. Good.

[TallDave]

So there is obviousy a rather complex optimizaton to be worked out

That's always been one of the things I liked about this tech. It seems to have significant degrees of freedom.

Silence could be good or bad or (most likely) indifferent. It's easy to see it as bad when it's so frustrating to those of us trying to understand the tech.

But again, perspective. The fact that we have an eight-figure WB-8 contract says more than anything else right now. I find it hard to worry much about the vagaries of patent protections given that the post-WB-7 "peer review panel" funding rate appears to be about 5x what it was in the Bussard/WB-7 years, esp when the tech won't be commercial for at least ten years anyway even in the best-case scenario.

Very soon the important basic B scaling questions will start being answered. That's where the real worries are.

[icarus]

The fact that we have an eight-figure WB-8 contract says more than anything else right now.

Or it can mean nothing else than the govt. was desperately throwing money around to boost a crashing economy. Do you not recall that EMC2s eight-figure grant is part of the "Recovery Act" boondoggle? Under the same legal pretense the banksters got more than $100 billion (1 e11) wonder what that says about the banks on that rationale, they are awesome prospects for generating energy in the future?

Very soon the important basic B scaling questions will start being answered.

Hearsay. Officially, they don't got squat. Please stop publicly pumping this as something it is most certainly not, or until you can show otherwise. You are treading on very dangerous grounds, legally speaking.

[Giorgio]

Just to add to that point. His private messages to me have dried up.

That's pretty sad to hear, especially after all the effort you placed to divulge this technology and promote further research.

[krenshala]

Hearsay. Officially, they don't got squat. Please stop publicly pumping this as something it is most certainly not, or until you can show otherwise. You are treading on very dangerous grounds, legally speaking.

Don't you mean that Publicly they don't got squat? Officially, they might have all kinds of information and knowledge, that they just aren't releasing to us, the interested public.

This doesn't mean they actually have the info, just that we don't know one way or the other what they "officially" have.

[icarus]

This doesn't mean they actually have the info, just that we don't know one way or the other what they "officially" have.

Like, we don't know what they don't know, known knowns and known unknowns, yada, yada? We can split hairs over the official/public semantics ad infinitum, because it seems that's all that's left to do now that Polywell has gone 'black'.

Officially, they are cashing checks for at least 6 people's salary from a $7mm dollar grant project that is 'on schedue'. Beyond that, their official line is they don't got squat, more than what is on EMC2 website ... straight from their office, i.e. officially.

Nuanced results are better kept behind closed doors where the idiot public can't misinterpret them and falsely claim an energy revolution discrediting the field and endangering future funding streams, is the rationale given. Call me sceptical, but how is tokomak research still credible using that argument? Political logic at its finest.

Physics is the search for truths and thrives on truth and openness. Vagueness, half-truths, mis-information, lies and misunderstandings will poison any environment for fruitful physics.

[KitemanSA]

The fact that we have an eight-figure WB-8 contract says more than anything else right now.

If it were planned / budgeted Navy money I might agree with you. Indeed, I did agree with you last summer. But it finally sunk in that this is "Recovery Act" money and while I prefer it going to something like this rather than some other long-shot, it is still money that basically came with a "here, spend this by tomorrow" attitude. I kind of think the $300k for WB-7.1 was more telling.