Talk-Polywell.org

ladajo wrote:As for Tokamak, yes it may/should work at full scale. But that does not make it sensible. It is like saying, "well, I can take all the gold in the world and make a small tower." Well, yes you could, but is the cost worth it? What did you achieve? Can you do it again?

See this link http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~bd512//tea ... ure_08.pdf on page 19.
First of all TOKAMAK has the heating technical problem.
While cost problem is secondary.
See that gas filled "neutralizer" is directly connected with vacuum chamber.
And I have an idea how to solve this problem.

No machine has exceeded the Lawson criteria in a potentially profitable way. The Tokomak is not on a course which will allow it to do so in the foreseeable future.

The Polywell reactor is.

Joseph Chikva wrote:Have you ever heared about Lawson criterion? And if yes, please inform me which machine overcome that?

Not the tokomak, unless they've come up with some means of preventing Edge Localized Modes and other turbulence loss mechanisms. The way the tokomak magnetic field gets weaker in some areas as the plasma presses outward is deadly to stability.

Also be noted that TOKAMAK's idea is simple enough - not more complex than Polywell, which would not be cheaper in case of comparable scale machine.
First table-top TOKAMAKs also were rather cheap.

A tokomak may not be so expensive for a given scale, but they have to be built HUGE to have hope of working, producing multi-gigawatts. On top of which the thermal plasma they hold is very bad for aneutronic fuels.

In contrast, the polywell promises to work well as a power reactor at 100megawatts or less, at high beta (higher power density), with a fuel energy distribution friendly to aneutronic fuels.

hanelyp wrote:Not the tokomak, unless they've come up with some means of preventing Edge Localized Modes and other turbulence loss mechanisms.

Do readings yourself and do not believe only to common myths of all Polywellers. Like this or like "10 kt TNT explosion in TOKAMAKs".
ELM is typical instabilities for so called H-mode (high confinement mode).
Read for example this link: http://www.psfc.mit.edu/~g/papers/nf97.pdf

By the way, IIRC you are the man speaking about "uniform current distribution in TOKAMAKs"?

Joseph Chikva wrote: Reasons? Are your "reasons" heavier than DOE experts' conclusions?
"I've seen". You've seen nothing and you do not know TOKAMAK at all.

Since the men who started the tokamak program in the US did it in order to get money for other, better(?) projects, and the folks keeping it going have personal reasons (their jobs) effecting their decisions, then yeah.

You know nothing about what I know. You can't read English worth a crap and you have a demonstrated bias toward me. Your opinion is worthless.

TDPerk wrote:No machine has exceeded the Lawson criteria in a potentially profitable way.

As originally formulated the Lawson criterion gives a minimum required value for the product of the plasma (electron) density ne and the "energy confinement time" τE.

For the D-T reaction, the physical value is at least
nT>1.5E20 s/m3

And this value has been overcome many years ago by TOKAMAKs.
But they still not overcome the so called "tripple product".

KitemanSA wrote:You know nothing about what I know. You can't read English worth a crap and you have a demonstrated bias toward me. Your opinion is worthless.

It is well seen what you know. And it is not my bias toward you. Simply you repeat popular here nonsenses the most frequently.

hanelyp wrote:

Joseph Chikva wrote:Have you ever heared about Lawson criterion? And if yes, please inform me which machine overcome that?

Not the tokomak, unless they've come up with some means of preventing Edge Localized Modes and other turbulence loss mechanisms. The way the tokomak magnetic field gets weaker in some areas as the plasma presses outward is deadly to stability.

Also be noted that TOKAMAK's idea is simple enough - not more complex than Polywell, which would not be cheaper in case of comparable scale machine.
First table-top TOKAMAKs also were rather cheap.

A tokomak may not be so expensive for a given scale, but they have to be built HUGE to have hope of working, producing multi-gigawatts. On top of which the thermal plasma they hold is very bad for aneutronic fuels.

In contrast, the polywell promises to work well as a power reactor at 100megawatts or less, at high beta (higher power density), with a fuel energy distribution friendly to aneutronic fuels.

For showing that you have not idea how TOKAMAKs work when you say "uniform current distribution because of extremely high plasma conductivity at high temperatures" see the same link http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~bd512//tea ... ure_08.pdf page 8:

• When driving current using a toroidal electric field, current is initially driven at the surface and then diffuses into the plasma
• Diffusion coefficient (formula)
• Plasma resistivity (Spitzer) (formula)
• For a plasma on the scale of meters, at 10eV the timescale is 10ms and at 1keV it's 10s of seconds

Where is uniformity? And as you can see, higher temperature (and therefore higher conductivity) heterogeneity timescale is longer.
Then during that time the so called "bootstrap current" begins with again non-uniform distribution.

Joseph Chikva wrote:

ladajo wrote:

While Polywell was not even concidered seriously.

Tell that to the government funding it has.

Reading fusion relating papers you often would find the standard phrase: "This work was sponsored by DOE. This does not mean that all approaches are equally considered by DOE as promising. Once I recall ASTRON - very nice idea. Where is that? Forgotten.

ladajo wrote:As for Tokamak, yes it may/should work at full scale. But that does not make it sensible. It is like saying, "well, I can take all the gold in the world and make a small tower." Well, yes you could, but is the cost worth it? What did you achieve? Can you do it again?

Tokamak, as far as I can see, is a one-off very cool most expensive science experiment ever. Will we learn from trying. Well yes. Will it be worth it, odds are not.

But it will be a cool looking tower of gold.

Here you are making one mistake: the cost of program is not equal to cost of machine. As I know you are a military man.
So, consider the cost of new missile development cost and compare that with the cost of each missile. For example, development cost of Javelin missile would reach billion, while one missile costs about one hundred thousand dollars. Feel difference?

Joseph,
ASTRON was considered seriously. That is part of it being funded. There are also things done knowing they will probably not work, but that the attempt furthers knowledge appreciably. Failed experiments are probably more important than successful ones. Your argument here is disconnected. You are saying because it failed it was not serious. I am saying that because they tried they took it seriously. You do not make sense.

As more comparing a weapons system to Tokamak. Hmmm. I would offer that yes, you are correct, and I fully understand as well that a development program costs way more than production normally.
I the case of Tokamak you must consider scale and cost as well as intent. Tokamak is purposed to see if we can make it work like we think it will. It is not to come up with a viable production system. That would be the next one built, the "Demonstration Plant". Given the scale and associated costs just to develop Tokamak, do you really think we will ever get to Demo? And then from Demo have anything left to go to production? I say no.
Many projects were never attempted because although it could be done, it was not resource feasible. Like I said earlier, if you use all the gold in teh world to build your Gold Tower, where will you get gold to build the next one? What did you achieve?

ladajo wrote:Joseph,
ASTRON was considered seriously. That is part of it being funded.

I know. Also I know that the second invention of Nick Kristafillos which is the part of ASTRON - the pulse high current induction accelerators (induction linacs) http://puhep1.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/a ... ofilos.pdf are still used and considered for use in Heavy Ions Fusion program.
But unlike TOKAMAK ASTRON program as such has been stopped and then forgotten after first step of its development.

i'm disappointed that such ignorant and irrational drivel even gets published.

happyjack27 wrote:i'm disappointed that such ignorant and irrational drivel even gets published.

What are you talking about?

I think he's talking about the article which MSimon posted starting this thread.

I'm fine with people writing pessimistic counterpoints, as it's freedom of speech, but, and it's a big but, I do find it to be defeatism, pure and simple. And defeatism should be ignored.

Keep in mind that 80 years ago (the 1930s) no one believed that they would be building a working atom bomb or a working fission reactor any time soon. The Brits and others were doing some very basic research on fission weapons (which eventually fed into the U.S. Manhattan Project), but they don't seem to have expected that these would lead to a working device as soon as 1945.

Similarly, heavier than air flying machines were only proven viable 110 years ago (1903), after a couple of decades of many people scoffing at the attempts.

In the overall scheme of things, mucking about with fusion experiments for 60 or so years (1950s to the present) isn't very long. It's really quite silly to declare defeat and suggest that we should throw in the towel. We've really just been on a learning curve, and we're finally understanding enough about plasmas to possibly build some viable devices.

If Manhattan Project/Apollo Project scale funding were thrown at the program for a decade, enough to robustly pursue a few alternative designs (like the atom bomb project did with "fat man" and "little boy"), I'd bet that a viable design would come out of it. With the current trickle of funding to most projects, and the Tokamak proceeding as a big science project, it'll probably take a bit longer.

Joseph Chikva wrote:

TDPerk wrote:

Joseph Chikva wrote:As from what I've seen, TOKAMAK is the most advanced approach accepted by DOE and others.

And has been persuasively argued here, the economics of a Tokomak are such that the math only makes sense as jobs programs for the over-educated ans insufficiently wise.

I'm not going out on a limb to say a commercial Tokomak of the DOE sort will never be built.

Any technology is expensive initially with the trend of further decreasing cost. From the other side the trend of permanent increase of energy’s cost is also observed.
And what do you prefer: to have expensive but viable technology of to have cheap but unviable one?

Joe, I hate to break your bubble, TOKes are never going to be a viable technology. How do I know? Because the head of The Princeton Plasma Physics told me that in response to my direct question whe he was doing a presentation on the latest work on the TFTR about 14 years ago now at Jefferson lab where I was working as a designer at the time. Ihave to say I was disappointed by his answers to my questions and nothing I have seen has changed those answers. TOKes are at this point just an expensive scientific jobs program.

Jccarlton wrote:Joe, I hate to break your bubble, TOKes are never going to be a viable technology. How do I know? Because the head of The Princeton Plasma Physics told me that in response to my direct question whe he was doing a presentation on the latest work on the TFTR about 14 years ago now at Jefferson lab where I was working as a designer at the time. Ihave to say I was disappointed by his answers to my questions and nothing I have seen has changed those answers. TOKes are at this point just an expensive scientific jobs program.

You are a very impressionable man.
Someone said bad words about his past wife with whom he lived 14 years ago. Another man was disappointed with that woman after those words.

Have you other arguments? All the more, if you really are/was a designer in organization allowing you the communication with the head of such (TFTR) program.
So, you should have some skill allowing you to think independently and not repeat here the opinion of others.
I brought you my own opinion (bubble ) well stated on facts and very simple reasonings. But instead I am receiving only “apostle said that there (TFTR) was only the job for salary”. May be and may be that man has another reason to say so.