There are very large corporations out there willing to put up the money if the WB-8 turns out positive.
I suspect this is the more likely path to quickly realize a full up commercial reactor. The Navy has its hands full just trying to get Enterprise and her 8 reactors out of the shipyard for one last set of workups and deployment. Of course, if congress would just let the Navy decommission her, well, there's your 200 million and then some.
I didn't find Alan Boyle's article satisfying, nor discouraging. On the bad side, we wait still/again for data and or confirmation. On the bright side, we are still waiting!
For some reason over the last few days it has been running through my mind that the progress of the Navy's various rail gun projects might be a good indicator of Polywell progress. From what I can tell, they're going to need Polywell power/size ratio reactors to effectively run the rail guns. If we suddenly see rail guns going into production then it would seem to indicate that they do indeed have a power supply for them.
mvanwink5 wrote:Once WB-8 is up and running, how long will it take the Navy to decide to fund WB-8.1 and WB-D with all hands on deck if scaling holds?
I'd estimate 1 month after review. Say 12 to 18 months from now.
And the money will be no problem. Our government (such as it is) will be desperate for some good news.
The Navy will be getting monthly reports, so at some point before the final report, assuming WB-8 operates and scales as predicted (which is my bet), won't the Navy push the WB-8.1 go build button early and fund WB-D design? Or is the Navy by the book sticklers for final reports before deciding? Or is it a matter of what EMC2 can support?
And at what point could utilities be lured into a consortium, after pBj is proven? There are a lot of small aging coal plants begging to be converted that won't be there if the wait is too long. I was never patient, there was always a way to get things moving.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
mvanwink5 wrote: The Navy will be getting monthly reports, so at some point before the final report, assuming WB-8 operates and scales as predicted (which is my bet), won't the Navy push the WB-8.1 go build button early and fund WB-D design? Or is the Navy by the book sticklers for final reports before deciding? Or is it a matter of what EMC2 can support?
I suspect more and more that WB9 is in fact the ~$30M final scale machine (100mW) prior to going to the WB-D (100MW). The WB-9 will probably be paid for not long after the WB8 report, theoretically due in Oct 2010, and will be designed to allow for pB11. I predict the money for the option CLINs 0003 and 0004 will be provided as soon as the FY11 funds are released, and that there will be a pre-solicitation (maybe directed, maybe not) before the end of Dec 2010. The pre-solicitation will be for a full scale demo.
Proof [if any were needed] that it isn't working in a 'net-energy' mode.
have you ever thought that perhaps they purposely tweaked the device to produce the bright plasma sor the puspose of a picture? how boring would it have been to the general public without the light
The difference is that Polywell has actual oversight. The US Navy.
The DOE has had oversight of tokomak fusion research for the last 40 years ...
the market will be the final judge, not government depts.
The military has this odd focus on actual concrete results in the short to medium term, whereas the DoE is in no small measure a jobs program for PhDs. Very different priorities.
zbarlici wrote:have you ever thought that perhaps they purposely tweaked the device to produce the bright plasma sor the puspose of a picture? how boring would it have been to the general public without the light
Recall the picture of a glowing plasma on the old EMC2 website, which specifically said it was a Helium plasma. It's probably a safe bet that they weren't trying to fuse Helium, but rather were seeking a visual demonstration of the magnetic field/wiffleball.
As usual, I seem to have created some misconceptions by my comments. First of all, what we said on our website is that the work on the WB-7 has been completed. We did not discuss the results. If you would like to conjecture what those results are, let me suggest that you notice the fact that we are working on the WB-8 device. The WB-8 was not a part of Dr. Bussard’s original development plan. This device came about as a result of the peer review process which suggested that there were issues that needed to be resolved at a smaller scale before proceeding to a demo. This was a conclusion that EMC2 heartily concurred with. I don’t want to leave people with the impression that everything on the WB-7 is identical to the WB-6.
Secondly, in our contract with the DOD, EMC2 owns the commercialization rights for the Polywell. However, commercialization is not something that we can do with our DOD funding. That is what we would like to look at with any contributions from the website. This will enable us to:
1. Design an attractive commercial reactor package.
2. Identify the high leverage physics items that most impact the design (i.e. how good is good enough).
3. Give us a base design when we are ready to proceed to the next step.
Alchemist wrote:For some reason over the last few days it has been running through my mind that the progress of the Navy's various rail gun projects might be a good indicator of Polywell progress. From what I can tell, they're going to need Polywell power/size ratio reactors to effectively run the rail guns. If we suddenly see rail guns going into production then it would seem to indicate that they do indeed have a power supply for them.
Why? The nuclear fission reactors that can be used on navy ships should be able to provide enough power for the railguns. The railguns will require 64MJ shots. The current nuclear power plants generate 104 MWe. The Aircraft carriers use two of these. I'm sure they could fit a few of these on a destroyer ship if they don't need to store all those explosive shells anymore.
However the storage of the giant capacitor banks might be a problem.
Alchemist wrote:For some reason over the last few days it has been running through my mind that the progress of the Navy's various rail gun projects might be a good indicator of Polywell progress. From what I can tell, they're going to need Polywell power/size ratio reactors to effectively run the rail guns. If we suddenly see rail guns going into production then it would seem to indicate that they do indeed have a power supply for them.
Why? The nuclear fission reactors that can be used on navy ships should be able to provide enough power for the railguns. The railguns will require 64MJ shots. The current nuclear power plants generate 104 MWe. The Aircraft carriers use two of these. I'm sure they could fit a few of these on a destroyer ship if they don't need to store all those explosive shells anymore.
However the storage of the giant capacitor banks might be a problem.
The real problem for Naval Nukes is operator training. A secondary problem for the smaller ships is the steam plants.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
