Talk-Polywell.org

Lerner of LPP is upset that he doesn't get gov't funding. "Be careful what you ask for!" sez I. Government strings are steely and twitchy. Observe the St. Vitus' Dance that NASA goes through. His stance re private investment is that only profit-participation shares are for sale, no voting rights. On...

Precision of positioning seems to be key. A ring was tried, but irregularities expanded exponentially. Careful height- and tilt-of-pin matching is the current mode.

... While a Polywell might be scaled to GW sizes, from a piratical standpoint outputs of a few hundred MW will possibly be more attractive. ... I suspect the wild card here may be photovoltaics. I constantly see claims of improvement in efficiencies. If they ever get to efficiencies of 50-60% with ...

[ Low installed cost per MW is good. But if maintenance is a factor.... And of course in the beginning the plants will need to be manned. Operating costs, assuming a full engineering + tech staff team monitoring and on standby per 5-10 units, plus replacement electrodes, plus down time, etc., avera...

Ganged FFs would, if anything, have a lower installed per-Watt cost than stand-alones. And that's in the 5-10¢ range. How large does a Polywell have to get to match that? There's also the issue of "graceful failure". If a few FFs in a gang of 1,000 go down, that's readily dealt with, and compensated...

There are many options on seals. Is he actually using O-rings? Or is he using one time crushables? The joint designers normally provide ratings based on various torques and seal types. Or is he using a custom joint? Dunno. Log onto the site at the link and weigh in. I personally wouldn't know a one...

Lerner is asking for assistance in improving/minimizing the size of the 0-ring seals:
http://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums ... read/1022/

Any 'sperts about?

Yes, my opinion is that you can do stellar or microscopic over-unity fusion, but in-between is "forbidden territory"; plasma is just too dang frisky to permit "containment" during fusion. Lerner's observation that you must leverage instability, and exploit it, is key. (As for LENR, if it works at al...

There's another report, the collaboration conference, and the next scheduled ones. Setting up a data and speculation exchange website, etc. http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2011&month=09&day=30&id=47:dpf-collaboration-formed&Itemid=90 The size ...

AFAIK, no experiments with D-T are planned. The transition will be direct from D-D to boron.

I confused about where all the talk of bending an ion beam 90° came from. The alpha beam exits directly into the solenoid, and no "bending" is required.

"Simultaneity of Spark Gap Switch Firing in the Dense Plasma Focus Device" Looks like an interesting paper but I am not willing to support Springerlink with the 50 USD fees they are asking to access the paper. Hopefully next time they will publish it on arxiv.org. My screen says USD 34. Where did y...

... that academic science is in its death-throws. There seems to be an ever-increasing attempt to 'work-hard' in academia, but a decreasing amount of 'working-clever'. Too many 'productivity' targets, I guess. Idjit! That would be "death-throes"! :x :P :wink: Otherwise, fair comment. A condition of...

First, a rather detailed writeup by proud New Jersians, glad to have something better than a sleazoid TV show to be famous for: http://caldwells.thejerseytomatopress.com/stories/Fusion-in-our-Backyard-NJ-Scientists-Making-History,6110 And, as mentioned, a PR journal acceptance at JOFE, and another s...

krenshala wrote:At this point I think this may be a good thing, overall, for EMC2's development/testing of the Polywell. In six months, however, my opinion might change, pending new information.

... or lack thereof.

Just accepted, in the peer-reviewed Journal of Fusion Energy. The article, titled "Theory and experimental program for p-B11 Fusion with the Dense Plasma Focus," was authored by LPP lead scientist Eric J. Lerner and LPP senior scientists Dr. S. Krupakar Murali and Dr. Abdelmoula Haboub.