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Shovel ready?...

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:40 am
by Mumbles
Anyone hear about the Navy giving $4 million to prove scaling laws for polywell? I heard it went to OSD today... Something about shovel ready project and stimulus funding...

Be Safe
Mumbles

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 5:57 am
by MSimon
Where did you hear that? I did a quick search and came up with nothing.

Holy grail vs Raising Sail.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:46 pm
by Helius
There is pressure on the Navy to research the other "holy grail" of energy.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1534/text

I'm still waiting for the Navy to be required to "raise sail" on Nimitz class Carriers occasionally, to use wind as "part of the mix" because "there are no silver bullets" when it comes to energy.

Re: Holy grail vs Raising Sail.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:43 pm
by Billy Catringer
Helius wrote:I'm still waiting for the Navy to be required to "raise sail" on Nimitz class Carriers occasionally, to use wind as "part of the mix" because "there are no silver bullets" when it comes to energy.

Given the materials we have today, we probably could build a square rigged ship the size of Nimitz, but landing airplanes on it will be problematical. Also, we would need to treble or quadruple our ETA's for her.

I read Johnathan Smith during times like these. He reminds me that this generation does not have a monopoly on lunacy. It does not make me feel that much better, but the knowledge that we survived bouts of madness like this one gives me hope.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:53 pm
by KitemanSA
Interesting bill. Requires the Navy to study Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs) (aka Molten Salt Reactors - MSRs) for use in Carriers. Given the power density advantage, I figure they'd be pretty good for Cruisers and the like too.

As to sails for Navy ships, might save some fuel while cruising. But could be a bit of a bill-board saying "here I am, shoot me" when deployed.

Navy Funding

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:51 pm
by PolyGirl
Perhaps the Navy needs to fund this project to ensure it will be able sail the high seas in the future!

The project Windjet has just set a new land speed world record for using wind.

Regards
Polygirl

Re: Shovel ready?...

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 9:57 pm
by Betruger
Mumbles wrote:Anyone hear about the Navy giving $4 million to prove scaling laws for polywell? I heard it went to OSD today... Something about shovel ready project and stimulus funding...

Be Safe
Mumbles
So did this really happen?

Re: Shovel ready?...

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:13 pm
by Mumbles
Betruger wrote:So did this really happen?
According to my source, who was in a position to believe, it was going through. That is why I asked the question in the first place. But I haven't seen anything on this board or anywhere else to confirm... Which I had. (Hope it is all just in the contracts delay right now...)

Be Safe
Mumbles

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:57 pm
by Aero
Then we need to look for it under some unusual, perhaps nondescript name. Recent contracts have named it a gaseous something-or-other device. Any guesses at a name for it? Of course we should be able to find EMC2 if the project is online and EMC2 is the vendor name.

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:57 pm
by KitemanSA
Actually, all we have to do is look at the Military's stimulus funding expenditure plan at this location:

http://www.defenselink.mil/recovery/

And way down in the weeds, past the lengthly housing stuff and in the RDT&E section, we will find that they plan:

Plasma Fusion (Polywell)
Demonstrate fusion plasma confinement system for shore and shipboard
applications; Joint OSD/USN project.
$2.0M

PS: It is on page 157 which is sheet 166 of 195. :D :D :D :D

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:42 pm
by MSimon
KitemanSA wrote:Actually, all we have to do is look at the Military's recover expenditure plan at this location:

http://www.defenselink.mil/recovery/

And way down in the weeds, past the lengthly housing stuff and in the RDT&E section, we will find that they plan:

Plasma Fusion (Polywell)
Demonstrate fusion plasma confinement system for shore and shipboard
applications; Joint OSD/USN project.
$2.0M

PS: It is on page 157 which is sheet 166 of 195. :D :D :D :D
Blogged at:

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-act.html

Actual Link

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:54 pm
by PolyGirl
The direct link for the paper is American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009

However KitemanSA has already listed all the information from that page.

Regards
Polygirl

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:40 pm
by icarus
Msimon: "Why hasn't the Polywell been fully funded ...."

Now you'll have to amend your signature ... ???

or is 2.0 mill not enough for now?

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:26 pm
by kurt9
It appears that the current work that Dr. Nebel and others are doing is to overcome the technical hurtles that Art Carlson and others have brought up here. Based on this, it seems that the polywell research is being funded at an appropriate level at this time. If the current work can overcome these hurtles, I think more money for an expanded effort will be forth coming. However, I still consider polywell fusion to be speculative until these hurtles are overcome or shown not to be show-stoppers.

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 12:18 am
by MSimon
icarus wrote:Msimon: "Why hasn't the Polywell been fully funded ...."

Now you'll have to amend your signature ... ???

or is 2.0 mill not enough for now?
You have a point. OTOH I won't consider it fully funded until we have a definite yes or no answer.

My goal posts are on wheels. ;-)

BTW the funding was less than 1/3,000th of 1% of the stimulus package.