Talk-Polywell.org

Skipjack wrote:

Robthebob wrote:I'm told by birds not to worry, it's still looking good.

That is great news, Rob!
Thanks!

Second that.

Why is emc2fusion.org no longer active with the domain for sale? Does the company have another website operating somewhere?

IntLibber wrote:Why is emc2fusion.org no longer active with the domain for sale? Does the company have another website operating somewhere?

Sounds like they went blacker and don't want donations anymore.

Reading the above posts, I surmise that the equipment mentioned may not be very good for EMC2's use, at least it seems to have lots of room for improvement in possible subsequent generations of equipment.

If by plasma guns they are referring to ion guns, gas conversion to ion (?) efficiencies of ~ 80-90 percent are marginal for Polywell use.
Gas puffers in WB6 and WB7.0 were problematic because the ionization process of the puffed gas was less than 100%. I've always assumed it was somewhere around 90-95%, though this is only a guess.The problem is that the well understood ionization process was time dependent, and in the small 30 cm machines a significant portion of the gas could transit the machine without ionization and this contributed to neutral gas buildup outside the Magrid and terminal arcing events. Bussard felt that larger diameter machines would correct for this problem because of the longer transit times for the neutral gas. Ion guns could also correct the problem*, assuming the ionization efficiency of the guns were better than the gas puffers, and injection of the low energy ions through the cusps could be handled without compounding problems. A few thousand volts on the ion guns may also be more than desired (or not, depending on placement relative to the Magrid).


I speculate that this gun might have been the one developed for WB7.1 or an earlier generation WB8 gun. It may have had some benefit in that machine, at least some different data, but a much higher gas to ion conversion efficiency may be an attractive goal for the next generation ion gun for WB8. This is pure speculation but it illustrates that EMC2 may have had a surplus ion gun that they made available to other researchers. It could be taken as a positive evolution in their efforts, or as a negative fire sale. I'm guessing it has little predictive value for guessing about EMC2 results, plans, or hopes.

* Actually the the gas puffers and the Magrid, and the high energy electron injection in the Polywell is an ion gun in it's own right. The efficiency- neutral gas leakage may have been larger than I generally appreciate. Picking through the information about WB6 tests, relative volumes inside the Faraday cage, volume of injected gas, speed of injected gas, initial vacuum level, Pashin breakdown voltage/ pressure relationships, Magrid diameter, and time to arcing could lead to a very rough estimate of gas ionization efficiency. Any takers? Bussard hinted at this, but I have not seen definitive answers.

[EDIT] Opps, The plasma gun was ~ 2 eV - much more compatible with injecting ions at the edge of the potential well. And, if this is a neutral beam plasma gun, and not an ion gun, the concerns about the percentage of neutral gas within the beam would still be important due to the arcing concerns.

Dan Tibbets

IntLibber wrote:Why is emc2fusion.org no longer active with the domain for sale? Does the company have another website operating somewhere?

The domain may not be "for sale", but instead whoever the provider is may use a DNS redirect for unknown names to a page that states it is for sale. Most people try to pull up a web page as their first check to see if a domain is available (can't find page, maybe its available for me to register). Back in the late '90s DNS registrars starting using scripts that would auto-magically have a domain resolve with a "for sale" page to try and get "sales" if it wasn't currently registered. This is the kind of page that appears to be coming up when you try to view the emc2fusion.org website. To me, this just means either the domain registration lapsed and/or the DNS entries for it have been removed.

This is Park & co's way to ask us TPers to go thru with the FOIA.

After the bureaucrat's shoebox approach cost years of delay, EMC2 may have rigged WB-8 with high enough power electron guns to tease out some extra information. Of course, the bureaucratic bright side is that it put off the effort and bureaucratic risk of arranging for real money. Maybe if they dance this shoestring science project around some more that they can put off that trouble for a couple of more years. You can try the FOIA, but these guys can red tape you until Bessie the cow comes home on her own.