Any official news as of late July 2008?
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Professor Science
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I was under the impression that EMC2 has already patented the Polywell?
Well this is my first post but as an inventor who is still going through my first patent I may have some insight. My understanding is the only patent that would still be in force would be the 2006 patent on optimal design. Chances are this patent could be gotten around by making other optimizations. Patents are not are not all they are cracked up to be and very difficult to enforce overseas.
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Barry Kirk
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That's good to hear...
So the way I'm understanding this is that essentially anybody who stands to lose from this technology spreading can't stop it.
The only thing that can stop it from spreading right now, is one of the following.
1) It doesn't work from a physics standpoint.
or
2) It can't be made to work cost effectively.
So the way I'm understanding this is that essentially anybody who stands to lose from this technology spreading can't stop it.
The only thing that can stop it from spreading right now, is one of the following.
1) It doesn't work from a physics standpoint.
or
2) It can't be made to work cost effectively.
1) It can't be, because there is no "nuance" in blowing energy out at the cusps. If there's "nuance" the experiments were successful, given that Dr Nebel pretty much said he was checking the Wiffle ball.Barry Kirk wrote:That's good to hear...
So the way I'm understanding this is that essentially anybody who stands to lose from this technology spreading can't stop it.
The only thing that can stop it from spreading right now, is one of the following.
1) It doesn't work from a physics standpoint.
or
2) It can't be made to work cost effectively.
2) This is the critical thing and a lot of very important hypotheses need to be tested. Are the hypotheses aligned naturally serial or can we do 'em in parallel? What's next, Brem tests? Given the WB works, brem will be the next critical thing won't it?
I dont know man, 128 gigawatts? Of course, this may not happen, we dont know how scaling works, but if 128 gigawatts of net power can be produced, oh wow, that's around 100 times greater than fission. This coming from a rather inexpansive reactor, something that's merely 8 by 8 meters. We wouldnt need huge buildings, just perhaps 1 in each city, and once we get the whole superconductor mess out of the way, and it really pump out the juice without us putting in much energy.Barry Kirk wrote:No matter what... This won't be free energy. It would be cheaper energy, but not free energy.
If suddenly our power bills were divided by 100, wow, that's pretty much free energy to me, I think anyways.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.
Free energy? Well, maybe so, but not Zero utility bills. Look at your electric bill carefully. It depends on your utility company but many, if not most Utilities charge a delivery fee per kwh, which is almost equal to the cost of electricity per kwh. The cost of maintaining the grid will not go away even if the cost of electricity does. Of course, getting rid of the inflating electric costs is our dream, hopefully we can control to some extent the inflating cost of grid maintenance. I guess my point is that cutting our electric bill in half is about the best we can hope for as individual consumers.
Aero
RobTheBob,
Where is that 128 GW coming from?
100 MWe is the initial power target. 1 W net would be a breakthru.
I agree with the folks who say the capital costs are not to be neglected. With wind and solar, the energy is free, but the cost to collect it, store it, and condition it are so great it is a non-starter for all but the most remote power grids, or with generous subsidies.
If the BFR works, the good news is that compact power sources of this sort may actually cost less than fossil fuel plants of the same capacity.
The power won't be free. It might be cheap enough to open up some commercial applications not practical today, particularly in the area of fuel synthesis and water desalinization.
Where is that 128 GW coming from?
100 MWe is the initial power target. 1 W net would be a breakthru.
I agree with the folks who say the capital costs are not to be neglected. With wind and solar, the energy is free, but the cost to collect it, store it, and condition it are so great it is a non-starter for all but the most remote power grids, or with generous subsidies.
If the BFR works, the good news is that compact power sources of this sort may actually cost less than fossil fuel plants of the same capacity.
The power won't be free. It might be cheap enough to open up some commercial applications not practical today, particularly in the area of fuel synthesis and water desalinization.
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Barry Kirk
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Well, this may be topic drift... But I don't care.
If the cost of electric generation goes through the floor, I don't see that as the death of internal combustion engines.
The beauty of hydrocarbon fuels are that they are a dense, convienient storage medium for energy.
They are easy to
1) Pump
2) Burn
3) Store
The engines that use them are compact and powerful.
Right now our source of hydrocarbon fuels is pumping them out of the ground, because that is the cheapest way to obtain them.
If the price of electricity goes down and the cost of pumped hydrocarbons goes up, at a certain point, it will become cheaper to locally manufacture fuel than to pump it.
Using electrolysis, water can be converted to Hydrogen.
Using the Sabatier process, CO2 + 4H2 -> CH4 + 2H2O
Other reactions could be used to produce other fuels like methanol.
Yes, you can use hydrogen straight up in fuel cells to power autos, but you might use other fuels as a storage medium.
Batteries are probably not the right way to go, they are just to expensive, both economically and environmentally.
If the cost of electric generation goes through the floor, I don't see that as the death of internal combustion engines.
The beauty of hydrocarbon fuels are that they are a dense, convienient storage medium for energy.
They are easy to
1) Pump
2) Burn
3) Store
The engines that use them are compact and powerful.
Right now our source of hydrocarbon fuels is pumping them out of the ground, because that is the cheapest way to obtain them.
If the price of electricity goes down and the cost of pumped hydrocarbons goes up, at a certain point, it will become cheaper to locally manufacture fuel than to pump it.
Using electrolysis, water can be converted to Hydrogen.
Using the Sabatier process, CO2 + 4H2 -> CH4 + 2H2O
Other reactions could be used to produce other fuels like methanol.
Yes, you can use hydrogen straight up in fuel cells to power autos, but you might use other fuels as a storage medium.
Batteries are probably not the right way to go, they are just to expensive, both economically and environmentally.
You're right, and please call me Robert, a 128 gigawatt reactor plant would be incredillogical to build, most likely due to the fact there's probably nothing that can withstand that sort of power output. Also, better to have as another poster stated to have 128 1 gigawatt reactors. Perhaps the 128 gigawatt one can be build in the future after we have a couple innovations, starships?Tom Ligon wrote:RobTheBob,
Where is that 128 GW coming from?
The basis of what I meant by free energy is the fact that each of these 1 gigawatts reactors, yes, I'm getting way over my head once again, it's like cheering for your favorite sports team, I know we need to break even first and everything, I just get excited really easily, have these following advantages.
1. costs relatively small amount of money compared to other types of powerplants such as combustion and fission.
2. location requirements are rather easy to meet, a small building housing the reactor would be enough, so really, it wouldnt be in the traditional sense of powerplants, the huge structures.
3. safety concerns are rather low, but then again, with any other powerplants, the safety concerns are all low, just compared to a plasma reactor, it seems that a IEC reactor would be much safer.
4. due to the above 3 reasons, it's safe to assume that the government can just build a bunch of them, perhaps 1 in every city or 1 for every 3 or 4 small towns, something like that. Regardless of everything else, in the end, IEC reactors will produce a lot more energy than we will need.
5. Also, there seem to be a lot more room for innovations, through the use of superconductors, reactor shape design, and other really fun physics stuff. On the other hand, when it comes to other powerplants, since everything is huge, it's harder to want to make things more efficent through the above mention methods.
Then again, I'm just talking and ranting here. Dont mind the children screaming and running around. (only my second year in college)
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.
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classicpenny
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Tom, the 128 Gw came from here:
http://www.petitionspot.com/forums/128- ... try2029001
It appears that jlafitte assumed 1 Gw for the WB-100, and then he scaled it up to 8m, without regard to effects of heat load on the magrid.
Bill Flint
http://www.petitionspot.com/forums/128- ... try2029001
It appears that jlafitte assumed 1 Gw for the WB-100, and then he scaled it up to 8m, without regard to effects of heat load on the magrid.
Bill Flint
I think even Dr. Bussard would find 128 GW optimistic. The highest I saw him push was reactors rated at 10 GW but operated at around 6 GW, proposed for some of his electric spacecraft.
(Edit, I see the comments below are redundant, as basically everybody above acknowledges it.)
I suspect there's a size limit beyond which they are impractical. First, the mean free path of ions at a given operational density must eventually produce a size limit. In order to get the particle trajectories needed, too large a machine probably requires droping density and reaction rate.
Second, there must be some power level beyond which the machine can't deal with the heat load. I found an analogy in the SSME's. The main engines of the space shuttle each produce just about 6 GW, on average over the burn time (calculated from the amount of oxygen utilized and the resulting energy release from reacting with hydrogen). Evidently it is possible to handle that level of power in a compact device, but it likely is getting close to a practical limit. We've talked at length here about magrid heat loading by fusion products.
(Edit, I see the comments below are redundant, as basically everybody above acknowledges it.)
I suspect there's a size limit beyond which they are impractical. First, the mean free path of ions at a given operational density must eventually produce a size limit. In order to get the particle trajectories needed, too large a machine probably requires droping density and reaction rate.
Second, there must be some power level beyond which the machine can't deal with the heat load. I found an analogy in the SSME's. The main engines of the space shuttle each produce just about 6 GW, on average over the burn time (calculated from the amount of oxygen utilized and the resulting energy release from reacting with hydrogen). Evidently it is possible to handle that level of power in a compact device, but it likely is getting close to a practical limit. We've talked at length here about magrid heat loading by fusion products.
M Simon did some BOE calcs and found that existing materials probably limit a BFR to around 100MW before you start losing r^7 power scaling because the heat load can't be allowed to grow that fast.
What that means is that above 100MW or so, additional power gains may have to be cranked down to r^2 (the inverse square law for radiative energy), which means cost is now probably rising faster than power (r^3 vs r^2). So the most economic BFRs, all else being equal, may be around 100MW.
That's almost certainly a good thing, though. Remember, one of the main problems with an ITER/DEMO tokamak is that to be efficient in producing power they have be so big that there's a lot of problems in distributing all their power efficiently. Generally speaking, the smaller you can make a fusion power plant, the more efficient the distribution will be, and the bigger the market for applications.
What that means is that above 100MW or so, additional power gains may have to be cranked down to r^2 (the inverse square law for radiative energy), which means cost is now probably rising faster than power (r^3 vs r^2). So the most economic BFRs, all else being equal, may be around 100MW.
That's almost certainly a good thing, though. Remember, one of the main problems with an ITER/DEMO tokamak is that to be efficient in producing power they have be so big that there's a lot of problems in distributing all their power efficiently. Generally speaking, the smaller you can make a fusion power plant, the more efficient the distribution will be, and the bigger the market for applications.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...
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OneWayTraffic
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Yes it's hard to imagine any current use for power that would be served by 1-10GW machines, that wouldn't be at least as well served by more, cheaper, 0.1-1GW machines.
As for the practical limit: As long as it's well above the economic break even, who cares at this stage? I'm sure we'll find out in time.
Worrying about this too much when the results for WB7 aren't yet known to us is putting the cart before the horse, though it's fun to do.
As for the practical limit: As long as it's well above the economic break even, who cares at this stage? I'm sure we'll find out in time.
Worrying about this too much when the results for WB7 aren't yet known to us is putting the cart before the horse, though it's fun to do.