Any official news as of late July 2008?

[MSimon]

However, even if I told you all I know it wouldn't amount to much and it wouldn't answer any serious questions. Like what are the exact results. When will they be announced.

Just fact that you are still posting and maintaining this site suggests that the news wasn't awful. Two questions: 1, Did the good doctor extend his sabbatical and 2, are we waiting for news about the test or about new funding?

Honestly, if you don't feel comfortable about answering, time will answer for you. I appreciate what you have done with the site and have no interest in putting you in an unpleasant position. I wish that the climate on the internet allowed for respectful treatment for the people who provide the content. On the other hand, I have been wishing that since my arpanet days.

I'm a FIDO net and usenet guy. Wild and woolly.

Flame wars today are so tepid in comparison.

BTW I await the news just as much as every one else here.

[Aero]

I discovered an evaluation technique used by the Air Force when the research objective is beyond current art and the reward for success is profound.
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php? ... pl&thumb=5
(The use of Mediafire as a free host is new to me. Now that I know how it lays out the post, next time I'll prepare the screen shot a little better. )
Oh - my point is that if the Navy used an evaluation technique in their review that is even remotely similar, then I'm sure that we passed with flying colors.

[MSimon]

Text of the above link:

Assessing research options is challenging when the goals are beyond known physics and when implications of success are profound. To mitigate the challenges a selection process is described where

1) research tasks are constrained to to address only the immediate unknowns, curious effects, or critical issues

2) reliability of assertions is more important than their implications

and

3) reviewers judge credibility rather than feasibility.

[energyfan]

edit : what may be the cause of the delays about the wb-7 working/not working, is it entirely physics related or can the navy be pinchy when it comes to money ?

[FredG]

edit : what may be the cause of the delays about the wb-7 working/not working, is it entirely physics related or can the navy be pinchy when it comes to money ?

The Navy simply has to many Navy officers in it for it's own good, of course this is coming from an ex enlisted man who may have spent to much time on a submarine

[Aero]

I don’t have any new information regarding the results of the review process, but I think that some hints have been dropped already. Check my logic, and remember, I’m desperate for news.

Recall a post by MSimon

Assessing research options is challenging when the goals are beyond known physics and when implications of success are profound. To mitigate the challenges a selection process is described where

1) research tasks are constrained to to address only the immediate unknowns, curious effects, or critical issues

2) reliability of assertions is more important than their implications

and

3) reviewers judge credibility rather than feasibility.

I admit that I have selectively sorted Dr. Nebel’s recent posts looking for what I want to see, but I have found these quotes in separate posts.

We've done the calculations. Neutron yield from a P-B11 Polywell machine (nonthermal) is about 1.0e12/sec. for a 100Mwe reactor. That's about 8 orders of magnitude less than a comparable D-T machine.

What the Polywell does is that it eliminates the blanket and sharply reduces the shielding, increasing the mass power density and leading to an attractive device. P-B11 allows you to do this. That's why the Polywell has a customer while the Tokamak doesn't, and hasn't had one for at least 25 years.

If p-B11 works, 5 years isn't unrealistic. The engineering on these systems isn't all that bad. Getting away from D-T makes it a lot easier.

Does anyone else see what I see? Review criteria 2. The results were reliable because wb-7 confirmed wb-6. (That is speculation, but with high confidence.) Review criteria 3. Dr. Nebel and the EMC2 team are quite creditable. Review criteria 1. The review team decided that the critical issue was "Does pB11 work?" Based on the last quote above, I speculate that EMC2 has a new contract to confirm that P-B11 works, or else I don't think he would have said that.

Anyway, that's what I see, we hunger for your opinion.

[MSimon]

Rick comments here frequently. If he had anything he was allowed to say I'm sure he would have said it.

[Barry Kirk]

The process is also known as reading the tea leaves.

Trying to piece together patterns and information from different sources.

Sometimes you can get a lot of information that way... Or sometimes you can fan the rumor mill with unverified information.

I'm sure when the cone of silence is finally lifted, we can see how close or far we are to the mark

[Aero]

Rick comments here frequently. If he had anything he was allowed to say I'm sure he would have said it.

Yes - And I'm equally sure that he is operating under a gag rule. Face it, the research is not so far along that the DOE couldn't still squash it. Except if it goes for another year and P-B11 is shown to work, (How would that go, how would they prove it?) then I doubt anything could keep the money from pouring in. Until then, tea leaves are all we have.

[fanofusion]

I don’t have any new information regarding the results of the review process, but I think that some hints have been dropped already. Check my logic, and remember, I’m desperate for news.

Recall a post by MSimon

Assessing research options is challenging when the goals are beyond known physics and when implications of success are profound. To mitigate the challenges a selection process is described where

1) research tasks are constrained to to address only the immediate unknowns, curious effects, or critical issues

2) reliability of assertions is more important than their implications

and

3) reviewers judge credibility rather than feasibility.

I admit that I have selectively sorted Dr. Nebel’s recent posts looking for what I want to see, but I have found these quotes in separate posts.

We've done the calculations. Neutron yield from a P-B11 Polywell machine (nonthermal) is about 1.0e12/sec. for a 100Mwe reactor. That's about 8 orders of magnitude less than a comparable D-T machine.

What the Polywell does is that it eliminates the blanket and sharply reduces the shielding, increasing the mass power density and leading to an attractive device. P-B11 allows you to do this. That's why the Polywell has a customer while the Tokamak doesn't, and hasn't had one for at least 25 years.

If p-B11 works, 5 years isn't unrealistic. The engineering on these systems isn't all that bad. Getting away from D-T makes it a lot easier.

Does anyone else see what I see? Review criteria 2. The results were reliable because wb-7 confirmed wb-6. (That is speculation, but with high confidence.) Review criteria 3. Dr. Nebel and the EMC2 team are quite creditable. Review criteria 1. The review team decided that the critical issue was "Does pB11 work?" Based on the last quote above, I speculate that EMC2 has a new contract to confirm that P-B11 works, or else I don't think he would have said that.

Anyway, that's what I see, we hunger for your opinion.

Aero -

I see what you see in Dr. Nebel's posts and would also like to believe EMC2 has a contract to confirm that p-B11 works in the polywell. But right now, we know nothing and feel comfortable in that if the data from WB-7 didn't at least (in part) confirm WB-6's, we would have heard something about it. What I'm not hearing from Dr. Nebel is the tone of resignation and that is a good thing.

I think Dr. Nebel's most recent posts show the exact points he has made with the review panel, Navy and other venture capitalists. These are the key issues that separate the polywell and make it more attractive to investors. The fact that he has identified some of the "warts" on this machine and still feels positive about it is encouraging.

[TallDave]

Aero,

Rick has also mentioned they have detailed reactor designs, so clearly at least some thinking beyond WB-7 is going on, which I suppose we arguably already knew given EMC2's existence and purpose.

I would imagine they are still in the review process. I'm assuming if they had a contract, they would at least be at liberty to divulge the fact they had one, if nothing else.

[cuddihy]

edit : what may be the cause of the delays about the wb-7 working/not working, is it entirely physics related or can the navy be pinchy when it comes to money ?

The Navy simply has to many Navy officers in it for it's own good, of course this is coming from an ex enlisted man who may have spent to much time on a submarine

FredG, as a former JO & still Naval Officer, let me actually quietly second that--we feel a bit top heavy now. Specifically, we have a 600-ship officer corps and a less than 300 ship Navy. But remember, you can build ships faster than you can build leaders.

The German Wehrmacht was officer and senior NCO heavy heading into the late 30s, it served them rather well at the begining of the war.

[cuddihy]

I don’t have any new information regarding the results of the review process, but I think that some hints have been dropped already. Check my logic, and remember, I’m desperate for news.

Recall a post by MSimon

Assessing research options is challenging when the goals are beyond known physics and when implications of success are profound. To mitigate the challenges a selection process is described where

1) research tasks are constrained to to address only the immediate unknowns, curious effects, or critical issues

2) reliability of assertions is more important than their implications

and

3) reviewers judge credibility rather than feasibility.

I admit that I have selectively sorted Dr. Nebel’s recent posts looking for what I want to see, but I have found these quotes in separate posts.

We've done the calculations. Neutron yield from a P-B11 Polywell machine (nonthermal) is about 1.0e12/sec. for a 100Mwe reactor. That's about 8 orders of magnitude less than a comparable D-T machine.

What the Polywell does is that it eliminates the blanket and sharply reduces the shielding, increasing the mass power density and leading to an attractive device. P-B11 allows you to do this. That's why the Polywell has a customer while the Tokamak doesn't, and hasn't had one for at least 25 years.

If p-B11 works, 5 years isn't unrealistic. The engineering on these systems isn't all that bad. Getting away from D-T makes it a lot easier.

Does anyone else see what I see? Review criteria 2. The results were reliable because wb-7 confirmed wb-6. (That is speculation, but with high confidence.) Review criteria 3. Dr. Nebel and the EMC2 team are quite creditable. Review criteria 1. The review team decided that the critical issue was "Does pB11 work?" Based on the last quote above, I speculate that EMC2 has a new contract to confirm that P-B11 works, or else I don't think he would have said that.

Anyway, that's what I see, we hunger for your opinion.

Aero, all those criteria are valid if the current state of the art after WB-7 is essentially "it may work for net power but still not sure how the scaling will work", but that still would mean Polywells not any closer than a viable commercial tokamok. Also the 3rd criteria would seem to indicate that WB-7 wasn't even going to answer the p-B11 question, that would requires a full-scale (at least net power DD) machine to test.

[gblaze42]

If we are trying to guess as to the outcome of the WB-7 testing, I'll put in my two cents worth.

From what Dr. Nebel has said, I believe they have detected activity (if this is neutron counts, I have no idea) but it was not very high, not quiet what Dr. Bussard had detected. It will show that fusion is likely to be occurring but may not be at useful levels and at present the polywell method/effect may not be scalable, so a larger type Polywell device will need to be created to see if fusion levels will scale and so the energy output. As Dr. Nebel stated about moving to a WB-100 which should show scalability or not, at not to a costly amount.


Personally, I would not be surprised that the Polywell would become a new Neutron generator and thats about it. Of course I would be happy if i was proven wrong.

[IntLibber]

Consequently, we are going through the peer review process. That's the right way to do things.

Couldn't agree more. A lot of people regard all fusion projects as a boondoggle, which isn't unreasonable considering the track record.

I wrote my Congressperson a while back, but basically just asked them to keep this on their radar and pay attention to what the review found.

I did the same with my Congress critter.

I also contacted Obama (one of my Senators) on one of his blogs but so far nothing has come of that.

Well Obama is anti-nuclear-anything, so its a waste of time to try there, the political left is almost unanimously against any kind of nuclear power (other than the few intelligent greens who have admitted nuke is the only solution to saving the environment).

McCain is pro-nukes and would likely back this IF he got into office. One thing we should NOT do is make polywell a political football. The pros wont want to be embarassed by risk of failure, and those agin it will do their best to make it seem like a scam and blame that scam on their opponents.

That said, if we can get positive results before the election from the experimental people, McCain could jump on board as part of a sound energy plan, and provided he wins the election, could do a lot for us.

If Obama wins the best we can do is keep a low profile and get private industry to back it, MAYBE find out if the chinese are developing polywell, to raise a media stink about a "Fusor-gap" and demand an Obama administration get off their butts.