FRC+IEC ?

[TallDave]

So does anyone have any additional insight on Tri-Alpha's latest claims?

What claims are you referring to? This is the last I heard of:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-lig ... next-year/

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/tri-al ... atent.html

It will be interesting to see what they actually build. They are getting into that range of time where they believed they would have something useful.

This was interesting too:

Magnetic confinement is ineffective for electrons because they have a small gyroradius--due to their small mass--and are therefore sensitive to short-wavelength fluctuations that cause anomalous transport. Therefore, the electrons areeffectively confined in a deep potential well by an electrostatic field, which tends to prevent the anomalous transport of energy by electrons. The electrons that escape confinement must travel from the high density region near the null surface to the surface of the plasma. In so doing, most of their energy is spent in ascending the energy well. When electrons reach the plasma surface and leave with fusion product ions, they have little energy left to transport. The strong electrostatic field also tends to make all the ion drift orbits rotate in the diamagnetic direction, so that they are contained. The electrostatic field further provides a cooling mechanism for electrons, which reduces their radiation losses.

That's sort of the opposite philosophy to PW, in which electrons are more easily confined. I don't know what their field curvature looks like, though, so I don't know how applicable that "anomalous transport" is to Polywell. I've always been very fuzzy on the whole "field reversed" concept, esp the timeframes involved in reversal. Also, are they thinking their ion distribution will be something like monoenergetic? I wonder how much neutronicity from side reactions they're expecting and how that compares with Rick's estimate for a PW version he gave here a while back.

[Skipjack]

deleted...

[icarus]

I don't know what their field curvature looks like,

Yeah, it would be good to get the Figs associated with the patent, how does one go about that?

As to mono-energetic ions, as I read it the ions are confined in the plasma's self-induced magnetic field, as is usual in the FRC spheroidal torus topology, but are then spun up rotationally (about poloidal or azimuthal axis or both in a helical flow?) to fusion energies. The field increases with rotation rates up to where the self-induced magnetic field confinement times are 10 to 100 seconds. So thermal (Maxwellian) ion energies I'm supposing.

What I am fuzzy on is how the applied magnetic field is supposed to produce the electrostatic field for the well where the electrons are confined...

[chrismb]

So Chris, you dont think that this patent covers what they have been so secretly researching the past years?

Yeah.. back to the subject of the thread... hopefully..

I don't really have much to say or guess on that. All I was trying to say further up was that Rostoker & Monkhorst have, seemingly, set their careers on repeating and repatenting every conceivable configuration of FRC's, as if in hope that if they cover all permutations then one might end up working. I would tend to suggest that after your first dozen patents don't work out, that you hold your thunder and actually build a working device first before trying to patent it! But, hey ho... if you've had University funds to pay for it all then why stop?

It is, seemingly, human nature that particular ideas seem to get 'under the skin' of particular individuals, and forever after they keep pushing that one type of solution, rather than ever dropping something that didn't work out and heading for a new piece of paper. I guess it is explicable simply because as you study one type of device so you build more experience with the thing and thereafter you are always going to look favourably on your own 'child' simply because anything else is 'unknown'. The only person I know that seemed to move around different fusion ideas was Bussard - who, for all his bluster on the intractable problems of tokamaks, patented multiple toroidal thermal plasma inventions after his Polywell patent.

[Skipjack]

They also got quite some substantial funding from Paul Allen, IIRC.
The question is, if this patent is just another baseless attempt, as you say.
What have they been so secretive about the past years? Their own failures?
Seems a little hard to believe, especially since they have announced a big announcement for later this year (what a sentence).
Now, announcing an announcement takes some self confidence. So that announcement better be good...

[chrismb]

... if this patent is just another baseless attempt, as you say....

I don't think I am in any position to say this. Please excuse me if there is an unintended secondary meaning that could be drawn out of how I put it. All I am saying is that they have patented so many FRC-based patents before that it is nothing more than 'usual', in their case. It is possible that this time they've hit on some winning formula, but I would tend to think if you've missed a winning formula many times already then it means you're *less* likely to hit a winner on the next go, rather than improving your chances. I'd just give more credence in a completely fresh idea from a new player, at the moment, than the minor-mods we are seeing on all the commonly-heard-of players.

[GIThruster]

I would tend to think if you've missed a winning formula many times already then it means you're *less* likely to hit a winner on the next go, rather than improving your chances.

I would agree unless they've been learning from their mistakes, which is quite possible. If they hadn't been, would they still have funding?

[chrismb]

If they hadn't been, would they still have funding?

There's learning from mistakes....and then there's spin to keep your investors happy. So, the answer is; yes, quite possibly. The rewards are too high for, at least some, VC money not to go into fusion. It is the modern alchemy, and that was "very well funded" [on a medieval scale] for a 1,000 years.

[Skipjack]

I understand you fully Chris and I can relate. To me the only thing that does not fit into the picture is that ominous announcement.
If they dont have anything, why announce something. Especially since they have been very closed up for so long.
Oh well, I guess we will all know soon. It ist just some fun speculation.
I generally agree though, with all that you said. It makes sense.

[rcain]

... some diagrams sure would help on that patent app.

sort of an ion-cyclotron FRC from what i can work out. agree, someones very eager to try and cover all possible patentable bases. but wheres there potatos?

[CaptainBeowulf]

Cpt. Beowulf:
You mean someone actually put forward some insight?

You and D Tibbets each made a post which would have been the basis for an interesting discussion on page 1 of the thread before ZPE-patent-madness took hold.

Has everyone become unhinged?

I think the membership is suffering from Polywell news withdrawal. You'd think that Tri-Alpha news might be a similar enough drug to mitigate the symptoms (maybe like Polywell-methadone), but apparently it just exacerbates the condition...

[chrismb]

... some diagrams sure would help on that patent app.

sort of an ion-cyclotron FRC from what i can work out. agree, someones very eager to try and cover all possible patentable bases. but wheres there potatos?

Go to pat2pdf.org and type in the patent number; "7180242".

All shall then be revealed to you!

I have looked through it a few times, and it looks exactly like all the other patents they have filed, excepting for the inclusion of some references to containing electrons with electrostatic fields. I mean, that looks like the only difference! It is as if they've plopped the idea into the patent and hope that it kinda gets absorbed somehow, like an amalgam.

I'd love to discuss this more, but I find it difficult to understand why they think an FRC at fusion energies will sustain an electric field. An FRC is a 'full, classic' plasma, albeit in a highly unstable configuration, and such plasmas do not permit static electric fields.

I'm gonna try to read it again and pick up what the argument is, but my bet is that the examiner died of utter and fatal tedium going through ALL of the several pages of (small font) references put in. I presume that doing so is a necessary act of due diligence for the examiner to look at all quoted reference material, and if someone did so then I reckon they'd be a bit peed off at the end of it!

I'm gonna do some trudging through the patent prosecution records first, to see what light the examiner's comments might shed on this patent.

[chrismb]

OK, so that was straightforward. On the 14th June 2006, a non-final rejection was issued because the examiner concluded it was pretty much a copy of their earlier patent.

The claims were changed, and they seemed to have got the new ones into an acceptable form for the examiner to allow it on 14th Sep..

As per earlier discussions[/arguments], my guess is that, generally speaking, if an applicant is persistent enough to carry on after a non-final rejection then they'll just let 'em have it, for all the good it will do the applicant if it doesn't hold up in court later.

If this thing works, I reckon they'll have a real tough time defending it from the date of this new patent as it is so similar to the older ones.

Anyhow, the other interesting comments from the examiner were to point at Bussard's polywell patent and show that the ion/electron injection, as additions to an FRC, which are claimed in the first submission of this patent are not new ideas. However, in the first submission of this patent, claim 1 read "A method confining a plasma of ions and electrons within a chamber comprising the steps of magentically confining a plurality of plasma ions, and electrostatically confining a plurality of plasma electrons", which is, as we know, the exact reverse of Polywell.

In any case... Sorry, but I think this is dreamland++. I'll re-read the patent, but the bottom line is that fusion can be done in bulk plasma, and there is always a zero static E-field at fusion energies, or by beams in an e-field. You cannot have both.

[D Tibbets]

The scheem of confining electrons in a different manner than the ions,would have attractive features for modifying the dynamics. I of course have no idea what they are doing, but that has never stopped me before.

I suppose the neutral plasma might be split to a limited degree with 'tuned' magnetic field. If a high frequency , very short duration magnetic field shift is applied, would the electrons, because of their low mass/ inertia, be deflected more than ions? The ions might vibrate more (heat up), and the electrons may be moved to a deeper position in the magnetic field. At least briefly, this might in turn provide some electrostatic tug on the ions and pull them away from the border regions where most of the instabilities and subsequent confinement break down may occur.

Also, if they are claiming the ability to burn P-B11 they would have to be cooling the electrons in some manner (to lower Bremsstrulung) . Could the above perform such a function? If the opposing ion beams in each shot are initially monoenergetic, I'm guessing they will quickly thermalize. The Pollywell has to work hard to hopefully prevent this for a fraction of a second, and I think they mentioned ion containment times of ~ 80 seconds. I don't believe, even if they can modify the ion and electron paths to a degree, they can't acheive the geometric energy distribution that the Polywell acheives with it's quasispherical geometry. also, I presume that they do not have the advantage that the Polywell claims- that of letting the upscattering ions go, without crippling associated input energy costs. I suppose the longer ion containment time would compensate for this, but again, preventing crippling thermalization over those longer confinement times is a much more severe problem.

I wonder if any of my musings apply to their system?

Dan Tibbets

[chrismb]

I wonder if any of my musings apply to their system?

I don't think your musings apply to any systems. It is just not how plasmas work. They behave in an ambipolar fashion, and at fusion temperatures the ambipolar transport is very quick such that there never is any 'splitting' of plasma.

A plasma being transported through a magnetic field does develop a polarisation, but it is very small [compared with the scale of IEC devices] and is a continuum rather than a separation.