General Fusion in the news

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Ok, I have been trying to understand what GF has been doing, and what the latest (September 25, 2013) pdf of slide presentation shows. What I think is that the entire September 25, 2013 slide presentation is about is GF's experimental investigation of three phases of plasma injection into the their machine. There is plasma formation, plasma acceleration, and final plasma compression (when the lead vortex collapses by acoustic compression). During their testing, it looks like they ran into a problem with short plasma lifetime. The short plasma lifetime was a stability problem when they compressed the plasma, and it looks like they solved this by changing the plasmoid shape from conical to a chalice shape.

To solve their stability problem they detonated shaped explosives around a cylinder to simulate the rapid compression the plasmoid would experience during acoustic compression generated by the collapsing molten metal vortex. The slides show pictures of explosives being detonated for various plasma compression tests. First compression test was May 2012 and it looks like they have begun their large tests (pages 41 to 47). The page 48 graph of plasma testing has two phases. First in yellow is testing of plasma formation and acceleration. Second, in red, is plasma compression testing, and the vertical line therefore must be May 2012 (and shows on the graph pictures of tests being conducted in the wilderness). Since the required chalice plasmoid shape (for stability) was determined during their small tests, "chalice" located on the graph must be before their large testing (in progress).

I have no idea if the time axis on the page 48 has any basis in reality, but I suspect GF is past the point marked by the "+" located between .01 and .1 x 10^20 m6-3 s keV. Comment speculation over at NBF makes me wonder if any looked at the slides, but maybe my understanding is completely wrong.

Given how cold Canadian winters are I wonder about how they can conduct these outdoor tests and who they get to conduct them (grad students? Eskimos? climate researchers?)
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

93143
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by 93143 »

mvanwink5 wrote:Given how cold Canadian winters are I wonder about how they can conduct these outdoor tests and who they get to conduct them (grad students? Eskimos? climate researchers?)
They're in southern British Columbia, aren't they? Winter is the rainy season.

choff
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by choff »

A little rain, a little chill, mainly just damp.
CHoff

KitemanSA
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by KitemanSA »

93143 wrote:
mvanwink5 wrote:Given how cold Canadian winters are I wonder about how they can conduct these outdoor tests and who they get to conduct them (grad students? Eskimos? climate researchers?)
They're in southern British Columbia, aren't they? Winter is the rainy season.
Winter is the colder rainy season. Summer is the warmer rainy season. ;)

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Rainy… great place to blow things up, a physicist's dream. :D
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

I checked out the General Fusion presentation once more at the Fusion Power Associates December 2013 meeting. I noticed that the General Fusion presentation has been updated so that the slide with the schedule has labels on the time axis that actually make sense. According to the new schedule General Fusion is aiming to attempt break even in 2014! These are the texts from the initial version of the schedule slide:

The Path Forward: 2013-2014
Nov-14 Feb-15 Jun-15 Sep-15 Dec-15 Apr-16 Jul-16 Oct-16 Jan-17 May-17 Aug-17 Nov-17 Mar-18 Jun-18 Sep-18 Dec-18

and these are the texts from the new version of the schedule slide:
The Path Forward: 2014
Nov-10 Feb-11 Jun-11 Sep-11 Dec-11 Apr-12 Jul-12 Oct-12 Jan-13 May-13 Aug-13 Nov-13 Mar-14 Jun-14 Sep-14 Dec-14

In addition to that a lot of the photographs with the explosion experiments have been removed so that there are now 30 pages instead of 49 pages in the file. The link to the revised presentation is here http://fire.pppl.gov/FPA13_Richardson_Gen_Fusion.pdf

It will be very interesting to follow the progress of General Fusion this year.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

According to the new schedule General Fusion is aiming to attempt break even in 2014!
That was what I had deduced before, after all there is a data point on the trajectory, end of the graph, and GF had figured out the winning "chalice." So, they had their breakthrough behind them. 2014 should be an exciting year for dark horse fusion efforts. Thanks for the update, as always.

I can't wait for the wheels to fall off the solar cell and wind mill green scams, and the other government (ITER) boondoggles. Progressive hubris.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

LOL, the graph time axis on the page that was replaced is still not right, chalice was determined summer of last year (2013) and they had started scale up testing before September 2013. It is better though than the previous graph. Richardson is a scientist first, and board members are probably trying to keep him from revealing as much. :lol:
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

swamijake
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by swamijake »

Don't get too excited. The current prototype is not going to put out more watts than it consumes. It is going to show scaling and operations according to theory. Key words is on page 15 of the presentation -> "Equivalent Net Gain".

It may be that this machine is meant to be net gain on D-T and they will only be using D, but I am sure they are just looking to make a few neutrons, not hit breakeven with the mini sphere.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Yes, net equivalent, proof required to secure the next stage of investment ($80M?) which is investment to build the hardware for net gain. Then comes the really big bucks to build full scale prototype and commercialization ($1B), complete by 2020 (2021 now?). The prudent path. I doubt they will go straight to full scale prototype, who knows...unless another dark horse project scoops them...

I'd say net equivalent is enough for fur to fly, solar, wind, ITER, Fission, Fossil, Venezuela, Middle East, Russia, Global Warming Nuts, all the cronies, and put the scramble to everyone else, other dark horse fusion efforts.

However, GF is not the go to project for 30 days to Mars, or Mars colonization. Too heavy?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Michel Laberge, the founder of General Fusion, will talk at TED in Vancouver on March 18, 2014 http://generalfusion.com/downloads/gf_p ... aberge.pdf. The Vancouver Sun has a news item on this at http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/ ... story.html.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

From article,
Laberge said he got the call to talk at TED because he is constantly networking in his efforts to promote fusion energy.
Well, that answers one question that has been in my mind, and that is why do I know more about where GF progress is than the other dark horses. Also, a quote from Laberge in the article, when addressing his invitation, and which I think gives some insight into his character,
“I guess its because I know people who know people who know people,”
Sometimes I expect some of the TED presenters to take a selfie right then and there, but Laberge is a down to earth straight shooter, with a sense of self humor, something I truly appreciate, but can't manage myself.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

mvanwink5 wrote:From article,
Laberge said he got the call to talk at TED because he is constantly networking in his efforts to promote fusion energy.
Well, that answers one question that has been in my mind, and that is why do I know more about where GF progress is than the other dark horses.
If General Fusion is successful with the current activities, then they need to collect sgnificantly more funding to commercialize their reactor. Attracting media attention will for sure help in attracting investor interest too.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

General Fusion hires a new CEO, getting ready for the big news would be my tea leaf reading...
From the General Fusion Web site:
General Fusion’s new CEO Nathan Gilliland wants to be ready for fusion “breakthrough”
“Starting to believe in the eventuality of our success is important.”

Feb 21, 2014 Michael McCullough
General Fusion's test-scale generator. (General Fusion)
General Fusion’s test-scale magnetic-fusion reactor. (General Fusion)

General Fusion, Canada’s most ambitious alternative energy company, hired a new CEO this week. Nathan Gilliland was the founder of Boston-based biomass energy company Harvest Power and more recently served as an entrepreneur-in-residence with Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms.

The appointment caps a management makeover that began in 2012 with the installation of Rick Wills, the former chairman and CEO of Portland, Ore.-based Tektronix, as chairman of the Burnaby, B.C.-based company. Last year, former Areva Group North America president and CEO Jacques Besnainou and Powerlink Transmission Co. president and CEO Fred Buckman became directors, adding energy industry expertise to the previously investor-dominated board.

As Gilliland puts it, General Fusion is transitioning from an internationally recognized but decidedly Canadian startup to one with a broader set external relationships with energy industry partners and investors around the world. It’s worth noting the team that brought the company to this point are all still on board: founder Michel Laberge is chief scientist (and will be recounting some of his adventures in fusion research at the upcoming TED conference in Vancouver in March); former CEO Doug Richardson is chief technology officer, in charge of the research team; and former chairman Michael Brown remains a director.

What he brings to the enterprise, Gilliland says, is “experience taking entrepreneurial companies that are a little chaotic and making them a bit more productive, more valuable, and being an architect for growth. I’ve done a couple of startups before this and I’ve had experience at a big venture capital firm. I’ve seen a lot of pattern recognition across those experiences.”

By the time Gilliland left Harvest Power in 2012, the company had 600 employees spread over 29 locations (including its largest power plant in Richmond, B.C.). He wanted to work with smaller, more entrepreneurial companies, he says of his decision to leave.

When approached by General Fusion last fall, Gilliland was impressed by its magnetized target fusion technology which—if able to prove its concept—could revolutionize the energy industry with emissions- and nuclear waste-free power. But he also liked the core team of Laberge, Richardson and vice-president of business development Michael Delage. Another thing he thinks he can bring to the company is confidence.

“We’ve created something that might just have a breakthrough here. We need to bring self-confidence to that endeavor,” Gilliland says. “Starting to believe in the eventuality of our success is important.”

The recent success of the U.S. government-funded National Ignition Facility in generating a laser-assisted fusion reaction where the hydrogen-based fuel served up as much energy as was directed at it is not so much competition as a source of credibility for a global fusion research effort that “has had some false starts,” Gilliland says. “Fusion isn’t just going to have one winner. It’s going to be like the wind industry or solar—it’s an industry, not just a technology. There will be multiple winners as this thing matures and we certainly hope we’re one of them.”
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

First "Trifecta" horse making a business move instead of a research funding move is pretty optimistic from my viewpoint.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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