20 years away, and always will be

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

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CharlesKramer
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by CharlesKramer »

Interesting chart, Preston.

Assuming it is based on valid assumptions and progress continues as it projects, when it break-even fusion? When is heat, containment density and containment time sufficient for p-B11?

If the chart is an accepted metric for evaluating fusion progress, why are NiF, Polywell, Tri-Alpha, and the Dense Plasma crowd so shamefully over-promising?

Part of the problem with fusion-hopefuls over-promising (and with the rampant denial-ism about failure witnessed here) is the way it crushes fusion credibility.

CBK
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TDPerk
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by TDPerk »

"That's not what heard."

Well who'd you hear it from? So far, everything up through WB7.1 is positive. As has been pointed out, we have no idea--explicitly--how WB8.0 went.

"No -- so far -- it has failed."

No, it did exactly what it was built to do, which was verify the usefulness of the simulation codes for nuclear explosions.

"The astute observer might start to detect a pattern here."

The point is they keep on getting closer, albeit with Tokomaks only at ruinously uneconomic scales.

The smaller scale is the point of the IEC work.
molon labe
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prestonbarrows
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by prestonbarrows »

CharlesKramer wrote:...when it break-even fusion?
There is a minimum density, temperature, and confinement time needed for ignition (Q>=1) for a given reaction.
TFTR has demonstrated these points independently, but never simultaneously. JET has demonstrated Q=.75 with actual DT at about 15MW. JT-60 has demonstrated conditions with DD that equate to Q=1.25 equivalent with DT (they dont have the necessary tritium safety systems). ITER is shooting for Q=10 with DT, or 10 times as much power generated by fusion than what is put in to drive it.
CharlesKramer wrote: When is heat, containment density and containment time sufficient for p-B11?
It is unlikely tokamaks will ever run p-B11. Something more exotic like dense plasma focus or field reversed pinch is probably needed.
CharlesKramer wrote: If the chart is an accepted metric for evaluating fusion progress, why are NiF, Polywell, Tri-Alpha, and the Dense Plasma crowd so shamefully over-promising?
These charts basically plot the Lawson criteria, or triple product. This is a well understood metric describing conditions needed for net-gain fusion, regardless if you are taking about a tokamak, inertial laser confinement, IEC or any other scheme. This is part of the reason most people are so confident that ITER will succeed as a proof-of-concept (though financial feasibility is likely still very very far off).

It is important to remember the difference between science projects and private companies. EMC2, Tri-alpha, Lawrenceville, et al are all private companies trying to make profit at the end of the day. These guys need to pay the bills and keep the lights on. There is always a tendency to over-promise when you need to get that funding money in the door. Especially for these high-risk, unproven, type projects.
CharlesKramer wrote: Part of the problem with fusion-hopefuls over-promising (and with the rampant denial-ism about failure witnessed here) is the way it crushes fusion credibility.
Agreed. Again, one has to mind the difference between 3 semi-random guys in a private startup company who are making claims while hunting for investors and the actual peer-reviewed, scientific community. It is regretful that the PR machine has more-or-less spun NIF as a feasible grid-ready power plant to the public; though it is fascinating science and has really advanced the fields of high power lasers.

ladajo
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by ladajo »

Charles,
If you wish to think that NIF was built for breakeven fusion, then you can think that. Those of use that know what it was actually built for will continue to see it produce useful work, as it has been doing already.

Your arguement is like saying morris-minis were built to be clown cars. But they suck at it. Whereas the designers built them to be economical metro cars with the ability to make periodic longer country/exo-urban forays. Which they excelled at, small, cheap, easy to get around in tight streets and parking, but still with a reasonable amount of internal volume. Clown car, can be, but not good at it. Urban workhorse, perfect.

Think what you wish.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

CharlesKramer
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by CharlesKramer »

All interesting, Preston, thanks.
prestonbarrows wrote:...are all private companies trying to make profit at the end of the day. These guys need to pay the bills and keep the lights on. There is always a tendency to over-promise
No doubt that's a factor. Something similar may be true for NiF and others getting government money -- they tell their story to the government, not investors, but the incentive to state the most optimistic case (plus a little moonshine and starlite) may be the same.

Still... I prefer to think the scientists behind the predictions of breakeven are sincere. And to the extent that's true the implications for fusion theory aren't good.

I freely admit I am the guy that saw an early Mozilla browser circa 1994. I realized it was interesting, but I didn't expect it to amount to much. :) There was a time when online-commerce for the whole family (especially after the failure of an online service called Prodigy) also seemed like a joke (5 years away, and always will be).

- Charles
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Robthebob
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by Robthebob »

I forgot to add, the history of the fusion effort had a lot of drama; without diving too deep into it, the reason why there are only two primary reactor designs, toroidal magnetic confinement and beam compression, is not because science and engineering demands it to be like that, it's largely due to politics.

Dont be angry at NiF because it failed to ignite like the name suggested (they might as well change the name to National unignition facility), be angry because the machine was really built for other reasons and got a big chunk of its funding because it claimed to be built for fusion.

Plasma physics is just a very insane field of study, we're progressing.

I can't give you physics and engineering explanations because I can't do justice (in fact no one can) in the discussion of the problems; I'm not sure if you understand, but unless we have a great model with enough computational power, we will have to build it to know if it works. We dont have even near a great model or enough computational power, and machine cost generally scale like or faster than machine size. For high Q machines (which I believe both toroidal magnetic confinement and beam compression machines are), to break even, you must have a huge enough reactor. Prediction of how big the machine needs to be are also something that is not absolutely certain. It's my understanding that beam compression scales better, but no one can really be sure due to the state of the theory (which is not because us scientists suck at life, it's because the problem is really really awful). I can give you hopefully relevant points if you wish.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

D Tibbets
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by D Tibbets »

CharlesKramer wrote:
D Tibbets wrote:It has been ~8 years since Bussard's Google talk and his admittedly optimistic predictions were predicated on a Manhatten like effort (though of much smaller scale)
That's not what heard.

-- The "Manhattan Project" has become a metaphor for the expectation a speculative goal can be achieved if just enough money is focused on it. But the Manhattan Project was a lot less speculative than most people realize. Fission was already proven, and Fermi achieved controlled criticality before the big money was spent. Fusion is arguably far more speculative. And my main point is many promising technologies get improved but not to the point of success.

-- Bussard in his Google talk seemed awfully smug (stars being fusion machines "and not one of them is toroidal." Bussard said he HAD cracked the problem -- with data only after his last fusion machine was shut down. He was convinced he has solved the problem of energy losses and had become ready for a demo machine.

CBK
The "Manhatten Project" in retrospect is a metaphor as you say. But, at the time it was by no means certain, in fact one of the most predominate German scientists publicly felt it was impossible. But, 'speculation' - and in part the Chicago research by Fermi suggested that it might work. Based on this and in large part the paranoia that Germany might develop a bomb during this time of total war was the stimulus for this maximum effort with much money and multiple simultaneous approaches done in parallel. At the time fusion was probably more understood and from a speculative viewpoint more doable. I think this is what drove the German heavy water efforts during the War. The rapid development of the explosive , electronic, isotope enrichment, plutonium production, etc. technologies and the huge production scale commited to the effort is what defined the Manhatten Project. It is not so much that it enabled the physics understanding and engineering know how, but that it did so in a very short period of time. Essentially, it demonstrated that money = 1/time. Less money(relatively speaking), especially less money spent on serial developments, while suppressing parallel approaches equates into a much slower rate of progress. Also, the risk of failure increases (all your eggs in the same basket). This is why the Manhatten project pursued both enriched uranium and plutonium. They were not sure if either was possible of doable. So they tried both simultaneously. As it turned out both were possible and doable.

As for your comments about Bussard, I am not sure of your point. Certainly any fusion machine found in nature is almost certainly spherical. There may be exceptions of course. Significant fusion may occur in a accretion disk (torus) around a black hole or in exotic neutron star surfaces or shock waves etc. But all of these represent physics much harder to achieve compared to mundane stellar fusion. And of course main sequence stars and perhaps especially brown dwarf stars are the very best of example of useful fusion machines in nature. I mention brown dwarf stars because they demonstrate the significantly easier conditions needed to fuse select fuels like deuterium- deuterium compared to hydrogen. D-T is even easier, but has it's own problems.
Bussard was confident enough and desperate enough to ask for quick persut of his predictions. But, he did clearly stipulate that his findings needed to be confirmed and expanded upon with a relatively cheap experiment (WB7) before progressing to larger efforts. He wished for a single plan to reach the final demo level as opposed to a piecemeal fund- experiment- evaluate cycle that might need to be repeated dozens of times. The risk would be greater , but the cost would be no more than going through several of the intermediate steps. So, if the final answer did turn out to be NO, the cost of determining this would be similar, while less time was spent.

Personally, I think intermediate steps are not unreasonable, especially as some geometry questions, and especially engineering issues need to be addressed. But the scale of the efforts are pathetic and frustrating. Especially as the physics can be proven conclusively with relative small cost compared to the Tokamak effort. Even more frustrating is the secrecy involved.

Of course we do not need terrestrial fusion power right now. At least that is the opinion of World governments and business. The fossil fuel players and global warming pundents, other ecological concerns, and many other inputs is what is governing fusion research progress, more so than the limits of the possible research limits.

I speculate that advances in Solar power may eventually mute the significance of fusion power plants, even if they are demonstrated. If cheap Solar panel efficiency can be improved to match the best very expensive space based panels (say about 30-40% efficient) the cost of providing electrical power by this means may be cheaper than a fusion plant, especially a Tokamak plant. Associated technologies in energy storage and transmission are also important. That is why a robust multi aspect research program is almost always better. It not only increases your chances of reaching your goal, it also increases the speed of getting there. And perhaps even decrease the final costs- especially if environmental issues are high on your priority list.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

prestonbarrows
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by prestonbarrows »

CharlesKramer wrote:...Something similar may be true for NiF and others getting government money -- they tell their story to the government, not investors...
This is very much the case. 90% of science is obtaining funding.
CharlesKramer wrote: Still... I prefer to think the scientists behind the predictions of breakeven are sincere.
These aren't mutually exclusive. On massive projects like NIF, there is a need for a dedicated PR department. Often, these people don't know much about the nuts and bolts of what is going on and the story that gets put out into the world may not exactly agree with what those actually doing the work would have said.

Also, science journalism in the US is generally terrible. Even if scientists release factual and conservative reports, they often get sensationalized and poorly paraphrased in the news. This is where the average Joe gets news about such projects and the whole process often ends up like a big game of telephone; even when people aren't outright lying.

Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World

ladajo
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by ladajo »

Good point Preston.

I would also add that in EMC2's case, they have been under a peer review process. They are also a little different in that yes they are private, but the bulk of the work has been as a government contractor supporting a research initiative.

The trouble with them is the lack of public transparency. It allows for wild and wide interpretation of where they are at by pundits.
If you are not inside the EMC2/Navy circle, you really just do not know what their status is. It is purely an interpretation based on the telephone game.

In any event, I would offer to Charles that his negativity should not be based on scientists and science, but on those that interpret what they are doing and where they are at. The Headline generators in essence. Look at all the mis-informed circular hype in Rossiworld. As far as I have seen it all purely boils down to "Rossisaid" and nothing of real substance. Even the recent vaunted "Third Party" report boiled down to Rossisaid. It was just more clevelry hidden in the suppossed independent (not so much) report.

Anyway, Charles, again, I say fusion is well understood, however, the means and methods to create the required conditions in an economical, controllable and productive fashion are what is the challenge. It is essentially a project that is seeking to shrink a sun down to fit in a box, and have knobs to make it change colors.

We know how to make stuff fuse, it is the application of the knowledge that has been the challenge. And in anything, knowing it can be done is half the battle. We know it can be done, now we are in the other half of the battle. It will be done. That part is not in question.
The gant chart youy are seeking does not exist simply because there are things in this part of the battle that we still do not know that we do not know. That is and has been the limiting factor, as it usually is with scientific research.

Patience.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

CharlesKramer
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by CharlesKramer »

Robthebob wrote:because the problem is really really awful)
No doubt. Physicists continue to overpromise, but perhaps with good reasons (scientific -- not just to impress investors/government funders).
Robthebob wrote:but unless we have a great model with enough computational power, we will have to build it to know if it works. We dont have even near a great model
That's kinda my point.

NiF (and before NiF Shiva) and for that matter the Dense Plasma Focus all claimed to base their predictions on a model. Bussards predictions, at least, were based on his intepretation of experimental results (albeit after the fact, when the experiment was already shut down).

But the predictions failed. The model is "not great" -- one might say proven not great.

CBK
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JoeP
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by JoeP »

The engineering is the hard part; the theory is there for the most part.

I think there is simply insufficient pressure to get it done as fast as we would like, especially since cheap (enough) fuels are still in abundance. There are centuries worth of coal, gas, and oil in the ground still.

Not to mention fission. IIRC, there are enough fissionable elements in the ground to last for many centuries. Yes, we have the nuclear waste and safety issues, but that is also an engineering and political problem that is resolvable. So when fossil fuels run low, or if the pollution gets too extreme, we will go there if in a big way we have to.

happyjack27
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by happyjack27 »

CharlesKramer wrote:
Add 5 years:
Why 5 years? Why not 10? or 1? What is the significance of the quantity 5 years here?
-- Nebel gone from EMC2, Bussard dead
so? people change projects and professions, and sometimes they die, too. i fail to see the relevance.
-- The claims made for Focus Fusion were at a minimum overly optimistic (never mind the practical problems to create a reliable many-times-a-minute pulse device for repeated and practical fusion)
I don't see that they were overly optimistic. Their results so far have exceeded their expectations. And continue to improve.
-- TriAlpha's actual progress is as secretive (and possibly as non-existent) as ever -- except the rumors stopped.
funded by bill gates. 'nough said.
I am aware of some modestly good news too. Possibly "progress" with Focus Fusion, and research that suggests p-11b fusion may produce 2x as many beta particles than previously hoped (increasing the chance of its value for electricity production). And the three efforts I mentioned and many others (and probably many that are not publicly known) are ongoing.

I'm not a scientist or (for that matter) a dedicated historian of fusion, and I will not quibble with anyone who feels the urge to re-write my summary. And, sure, in 5 years General Fusion (or someone) may make the announcement that will change history.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I would love to read some reasoned optimism), but don't all summaries lead to the same place? For now, the story of fusion remains what it has been since Spitzer's Stellarator of the 1950s: objects in the mirror are not as close as they appear. Unexpected problems continue to justify the joke "20 years away, and always will be."
for thousands of years, gasoline engines where 20 years away and always will be.

"Unexpected problems continue to...."

Firstly "Unexpected problems" is redundant. There are no expected problems in science.

Secondly, the unexpected is not a problem, it's a solution. Science seeks the unexpected. Scientists crave it. "Unexpected problems" are the GOAL.
Am I alone in feeling the hopes of 5 years ago were unjustified?
I'm sure you're not alone, but it's irrelevant. One could say the same for the hopes of 10 years ago, or a 100. And it all really depends on what "hopes" you refer to. Anyone
The problem may be the understanding of the physics of fusion is fundamentally incomplete, or just wrong.
Oh, that much is certain!
The fact some fusion technologies are comparativelly cheap (single digit millions) makes all the more shocking there aren't more and better funded efforts.
I'm pretty sure everyone here agrees with that sentiment, I know I do!
Why not try Focus Fusion with 100 electrodes or 1000 or just 5? And each time with different alloys. That's the Tom Edison worker-bee approach (compared with Nikola Tesla who could do the math and figure out devices in his head) but fusion energy appears to have neither kind of genius at work.
because those aren't the most significant questions to investigate. they already know how the number of electrodes and the type of alloy will affect the result. they can do the math and computer simulations for that.

they know all that stuff already. and building a 100 models and spending 1/100 of the time investigating each won't give them 100 times as much information, it will give them 1/100th the amount of information.

they need to investigate depth, not breadth.

what they need to find out is what they don't know that they don't know. and to do that you build the thing the best you can, and see what goes wrong, and then figure out why. that's what thomas edison did. that's what they are doing. and it has been very very successful. because of doing that, they have learned a lot and have made great improvements.

paperburn1
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by paperburn1 »

OR Just maybe the Galactic Overloads do not want us to reach into space... :mrgreen:
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

happyjack27
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by happyjack27 »

CharlesKramer wrote:
Robthebob wrote:because the problem is really really awful)
No doubt. Physicists continue to overpromise, but perhaps with good reasons (scientific -- not just to impress investors/government funders).
I don't think they overpromise. I think a lot of people aren't scientifically-minded enough to understand what they say. For instance, they might say that a fusion reaction produces x amount of ke per reactant, and then be disappointed when in the end result they only have y amount of energy. the physicist never said you'd have x amount of energy in the end. there's a conversion efficiency you have to multiply by, and the you have to subtract the power input to the machine. scientists can estimate those things too, and when they do, they are usually pretty spot on. and they include confidence intervals to boot. but of course if a person doesn't understand confidence intervals, they might blame the scientist for their own ignorance (and arrogance).
Robthebob wrote:but unless we have a great model with enough computational power, we will have to build it to know if it works. We dont have even near a great model
That's kinda my point.

NiF (and before NiF Shiva) and for that matter the Dense Plasma Focus all claimed to base their predictions on a model. Bussards predictions, at least, were based on his intepretation of experimental results (albeit after the fact, when the experiment was already shut down).

But the predictions failed. The model is "not great" -- one might say proven not great.

CBK
all scientific predictions are based off of models which are based off of theories which are based off of experimental results. and they tend to be very accurate.

also, all models are wrong. that's part of the definition of a model. if it were not wrong, it wouldn't be a model, it would be the thing.

happyjack27
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Re: 20 years away, and always will be

Post by happyjack27 »

prestonbarrows wrote:
CharlesKramer wrote:...Something similar may be true for NiF and others getting government money -- they tell their story to the government, not investors...
This is very much the case. 90% of science is obtaining funding.
...and that 90% could be filled by 1% of what we spend on funding the military.

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