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Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell R&D

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:47 pm
by Tyler Jordan
Greetings,

The past week I've been working on a 'meta-plan' to present to the community to fund polywell R&D to design and prove pB-11 scalability; and then to acquire funding to commercially produce such reactors. maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'd rather try and fail than sit back and continue waiting for others to make this happen....and waiting, and waiting...

Let three cats out of the box now....1) the plan calls for two organizations, one a non-profit R&D foundation and the second (a later stage) for-profit company. 2) the foundation is an open-technology transparent organization - no-IP, all work is available to the public as soon as it can be posted (I'm am sooo frustrated with EMC2). 3) all of this is to be funded via crypto-assets e.g. NXTcoin, Mastercoin, counterparty, or bitshares - there is solid precedence that this type of funding will work, although it adds a wrinkle or three, which is why I believe there needs to be two organizations (explained in the plan).

What I'm seeking right now -- anyone who is keen to be a collaborator with this plan - anyone who may be keen to get behind it (put their name to it) if they think, as I do, that it might work. I'm very open to any realistic changes to the plan. You don't have to commit to be a collaborator to see the plan! Happy to share it around and to take feedback, but contact me soon as I am hopeful that the plan will reach maturity in a week or three and I'll be posting links to it here and asking the community for it's support -- specifically, we will be seeking a good handful of well respected fusioneers to get onboard. So, If interested in a preview of the plan, please email me: jordan at earthsociety dot org

Who am I....I'm not a fusioneer, merely an individual who has had a strong interest in polywell since Bussard's google talk all those years ago....and still waiting. I believe in the tech, as I believed in bussard and continue to believe in the many people on this forum who are fusioneers who believe in it. I am a molecular-biologist by training, and have been involved a few start-ups over the past 20 years. More recently I've been involved (studying, investing, and some coding) in crypto technologies and through these technologies I now see a way forward to finance big projects....and so I've come back around to this community to see if we can darn well make this happen. What do I want from all of this? -- one billion dollars! -- lol.. I do not honestly care if I get anything from this - I'm taking a support role at the moment and pushing to make this dream happen. All of humanity will benefit and that is the key for me and the future of my two children.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 12:09 am
by ohiovr
Hi Tyler,

How do you know it will work? I am kind of skeptical that it will work. First of all, next year will be EMC2's 30th birthday. No power fusion yet. They've had 30 years. That's only 20 years younger than Tokamac. Sure there aren't nearly as many researchers in Polywell as there is in Tokamac. But I think the general principle of the machine should have been established by now. Whats the hold up? Whats the answer? If we only had more powerful magnets? Nigh on that; why do the magnetic fields have to be so blasted gigantic? In fact, they should know exactly how powerful, large, voltages, etc, etc, need to be by now. If they don't then something is very wrong. And do they? I don't think so.

There are several approaches to IEC fusion. Polywell isn't the end of the matter. I love this forum and the people here. But I'm kind of skeptical the polywell design will work at this point due to lack of results.

IEC fusion is the solution I think, one way or the other. Maybe Polywell but I am looking for new ideas.

This is not science. It is not science this fusion business any more. It is engineering. Polywell is engineering. Is it good engineering? Did they start with codes or just formulas? There are many details. A proper simulator is what you need, not a giant room full of cryocoolers, evacuated tanks, and transformers. Bussard and co did their first experiements with permanent magnets welded together. Did they have a code that predicted how it would turn out? Then they got larger electro-magnets. And larger and more powerful. And larger and more powerful. They have to stop that. They should have a reliable computer code to predict exactly how big the magnet has to be, how many teslas, how many KV and so on. Our understanding of physics has got to be good enough to simulate a Polywell with 100% accuracy. Forget building it. Maybe the code will show that Polywell can never work. But the same code could show how some different idea could work with the IEC fusion principle of an mono-energetic accelerating electric field.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2014 11:39 pm
by Tyler Jordan
ohiovr wrote:Hi Tyler,

How do you know it will work? I am kind of skeptical that it will work. First of all, next year will be EMC2's 30th birthday. No power fusion yet. They've had 30 years. That's only 20 years younger than Tokamac. Sure there aren't nearly as many researchers in Polywell as there is in Tokamac. But I think the general principle of the machine should have been established by now. Whats the hold up? Whats the answer? If we only had more powerful magnets? Nigh on that; why do the magnetic fields have to be so blasted gigantic? In fact, they should know exactly how powerful, large, voltages, etc, etc, need to be by now. If they don't then something is very wrong. And do they? I don't think so.
Who knows ultimately -- I'm proposing to initiate a open-technology research foundation, not to immediately build reactors.
There are several approaches to IEC fusion. Polywell isn't the end of the matter. I love this forum and the people here. But I'm kind of skeptical the polywell design will work at this point due to lack of results.
Lack of results, ?? how do we know? EMC2 is very mum about what results they did or didn't get. Again, this is the point of initiating an open-technology foundation - everything is published immediately, all designs are open to the public for critical examination.

IEC fusion is the solution I think, one way or the other. Maybe Polywell but I am looking for new ideas.

This is not science. It is not science this fusion business any more. It is engineering. Polywell is engineering. Is it good engineering? Did they start with codes or just formulas? There are many details. A proper simulator is what you need, not a giant room full of cryocoolers, evacuated tanks, and transformers. Bussard and co did their first experiements with permanent magnets welded together. Did they have a code that predicted how it would turn out? Then they got larger electro-magnets. And larger and more powerful. And larger and more powerful. They have to stop that. They should have a reliable computer code to predict exactly how big the magnet has to be, how many teslas, how many KV and so on. Our understanding of physics has got to be good enough to simulate a Polywell with 100% accuracy. Forget building it. Maybe the code will show that Polywell can never work. But the same code could show how some different idea could work with the IEC fusion principle of an mono-energetic accelerating electric field.
I agree that it's not science for the most part - the one part that is still science is an attempt to falsify scaling. EMC2 may have the data on this, but they've not shared the details.

An open-technology non-profit foundation can boost the knowledge of the community greatly and we can have answers once and for all.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still looking for help with the plan overall, but will be posting it up and seeking fusioneers to join the effort shortly.

edit: I would also add that I don't believe we'd get funding for a commercial reactor company with models only. We need real experience in building a prototype(s) to demonstrate that we have all the technical abilities to build reactors commercially.


Cheers,

Tyler Jordan

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 12:00 am
by ohiovr
Well I wish you luck and hope you do have fun doing this. It would be an exciting project. I like your foundation idea. Go 4 it

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:13 am
by MSimon
Good luck.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:13 am
by MSimon
You can count on me for support.

And if you need electronics hardware/software I'm ready to help: http://spacetimepro.blogspot.com/

I can start researching if you have even the rudiments of an initial design.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 11:33 am
by Tyler Jordan
MSimon -- thank you so very much :-) I've read many of your posts on this forum and I've even read a few posts on your blog - I have a lot of respect for you and I know others on this forum do as well.

I'm not a physics guy, I'm merely working to get a business plan together so that we can get funding. My initial aim is funding via a crypto-asset - this is a lot like crowd-funding as it is easy for the average person to put money in. It's better in that people can actually invest and not donate, but it is worse in that there are fewer people who know about it and it will take more marketing to get it off the ground.

I would like the research phase to be 100% open technology - all posted to a site with discussion and analysis for everyone to work on. I will finish the plan this week and post online for comments and then I'll work on a website for the project.

What we do need in the near future is a research plan. This is not my strong suit and I think it'd be great if we could get a core group of polywell'ers together to build some sort of consensus on how we can best answer the remaining questions of scaling and if p-B11 is workable. Other questions? I'm sure there must be many others...

Can I start by asking for a list of good questions - one's worthy of research? After that we need to define what experiments might answer those questions. And from there we can begin to figure out how much $$ is required - at least ball-park. I've put in some very arbitrary numbers in the business plan, but what I need to complement that is a good research plan.

All of this will be made public -- if I fail to get this anywhere, what-ever work that is put into it will be available to others to pick up and run with.

Thanks again for your support!! Very excited :D Keep watching this space....

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 12:57 pm
by ltgbrown
Tyler,

Based on the assumption that Polywell works and will "burn" PB11, I would say you need to figure out to do direct conversion.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 3:18 am
by ladajo
I think the entry argument is that it will burn DD/DT or DT.
Work from there.

pB&J is still not a certainty. DD/DT or DT is significantly more certain (but also not a done deal until the fat lady sings).

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:03 pm
by MSimon
I'm really not much of a physics guy either. I'm an engineer. I know enough of the physics to do engineering. I'm an EE type. Power and control. You will need an ME.

So first on your list should be a physics guy for design guidelines. Second an ME.

Question: Pulsed operation or superconductors? Second question B11 superconductors for long life or ordinary B supers for low cost?

For physics drmike might be good memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=48

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:44 am
by Tyler Jordan
ltgbrown wrote:Tyler,

Based on the assumption that Polywell works and will "burn" PB11, I would say you need to figure out to do direct conversion.
That would be ideal! My thought is that Burning Deuterium would be a pain - extra shielding, regular replacement of magnets, and dealing with all the mess of converting heat into electricity (presuming one would want to do so and not merely just using reactor for heat production).

IMO, p-B11 is the dream, so why not pursue the dream? Yes, it will be more difficult to achieve, but if successful, it seems it may be easier to maintain and the scale of the overall power-plant would be, hypothetically, much smaller - as converting heat to electricity is a 'big' issue.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:56 am
by Tyler Jordan
ladajo wrote:I think the entry argument is that it will burn DD/DT or DT.
Work from there.

pB&J is still not a certainty. DD/DT or DT is significantly more certain (but also not a done deal until the fat lady sings).
My interpretation of the Navy-EMC2 contract was that they would not have received further funding for producing the WB-8 reactor if they had not successfully tested the WB-7 reactor...in which they were hoping to fuse some deuterium. We know of course that it's not too difficult to fuse deuterium at a low level - we've been doing that for a long long time. So what was 'proven' with WB-7 that gave them the confidence to move forward with WB-8? We can only speculate. Dr. Park has indicated that what they did do was prove out the wiffle-ball concept - that they could maintain a high beta cusp...which hypothetically means that we could manage a fairly strong fusion reaction, provided we don't go all maxwellian at the core.

If we go with strong superconductors in the dodecahedron configuration, we hypothetically can increase the wiffle-ball strength further.....enough to control a p-B11 reaction? That's one of the key questions.

Am I mistaken about any of that? Could be....please correct me if I err. I'm not a physics guy, just a spectator.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 1:09 am
by Tyler Jordan
MSimon wrote:I'm really not much of a physics guy either. I'm an engineer. I know enough of the physics to do engineering. I'm an EE type. Power and control. You will need an ME.

So first on your list should be a physics guy for design guidelines. Second an ME.
ah. right. makes good sense.
MSimon wrote: Question: Pulsed operation or superconductors? Second question B11 superconductors for long life or ordinary B supers for low cost?
I would hope we can afford the most appropriate superconducting wire. It seems there will be a fair bit of labor and cost involved with manufacturing any type of magnet, is the differential in total cost, including manufacturing, so great that it's worth it to attempt pulsed first? Maybe it is. But if there is strong doubt that non-superconducting magnets may fail to produce, then perhaps it's better to skip it and swallow the cost.

Depending on how the financing goes, we may not have the option anyway...but that's not a question :-)
MSimon wrote: For physics drmike might be good memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=48
Thanks for the tip. I will get in contact with him.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 2:33 am
by ladajo
Tyler Jordan wrote:
ladajo wrote:I think the entry argument is that it will burn DD/DT or DT.
Work from there.

pB&J is still not a certainty. DD/DT or DT is significantly more certain (but also not a done deal until the fat lady sings).
My interpretation of the Navy-EMC2 contract was that they would not have received further funding for producing the WB-8 reactor if they had not successfully tested the WB-7 reactor...in which they were hoping to fuse some deuterium. We know of course that it's not too difficult to fuse deuterium at a low level - we've been doing that for a long long time. So what was 'proven' with WB-7 that gave them the confidence to move forward with WB-8? We can only speculate. Dr. Park has indicated that what they did do was prove out the wiffle-ball concept - that they could maintain a high beta cusp...which hypothetically means that we could manage a fairly strong fusion reaction, provided we don't go all maxwellian at the core.

If we go with strong superconductors in the dodecahedron configuration, we hypothetically can increase the wiffle-ball strength further.....enough to control a p-B11 reaction? That's one of the key questions.

Am I mistaken about any of that? Could be....please correct me if I err. I'm not a physics guy, just a spectator.
Tyler,
They pulsed High Beta, not maintained.
Also, the making of neutrons was not the defining factor for WB-7, all though as I am told, Dr. Bussard used to say the making neutrons is making money (in a funding sense). Folks think neutrons are sexy, but that is not what drives understanding the physics. That is a point lost on many.

IMPO, DD/DT has good chances. But there is an issue to be resolved first, and Jaeyoung Park has spoken and written to this several times now. It is the issue of driving the well. This is the next step.
High Beta is proven, wiffleball is proven. Now, can we drive a well efficiently enough in high pressure conditions to produce the velocities required? Building a sustained run high-beta machine is an engineering problem. Building a machine that drives the well is a physics problem. That is where this is headed. Once you get high beta + deep well, that gives you conditions for economical fusion as long as the drive component is efficient enough.

Re: Seeking assistance with a plan for well-funded polywell

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2014 2:44 am
by ladajo
MSimon wrote:I'm really not much of a physics guy either. I'm an engineer. I know enough of the physics to do engineering. I'm an EE type. Power and control. You will need an ME.

So first on your list should be a physics guy for design guidelines. Second an ME.

Question: Pulsed operation or superconductors? Second question B11 superconductors for long life or ordinary B supers for low cost?

For physics drmike might be good memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=48
Mike, I don't mean to be a shyte, but you are a self-taught controls guy, you are not an EE. You don't have the paper, and haven't paid the blood and sweat to get one. There are plenty of guys and gals out there who did pay the blood and sweat for the paper, who have just as much or more experience as well as some of them being better than you. You dismiss them by claiming EE and that is uncool. If you want to say you are an EE then go get the paper. Otherwise, you are a self-taught controls guy who actually doesn't know what he doesn't know from an engineering undergraduate program because he never did one. Lots of folks can speck stuff from a catalog, as well as manage projects. That does not make you a real engineer.
At best, it makes you an engineering technician without a degree (because there is even formal education for that which you don't have). Again, I am not trying to be a shyte, but you really should respect those who have the real credentials and do the real work.