Talk-Polywell.org

Does nobody have any criticism of what I've written so far? Even p11B reactors would also produce neutrons, and hence produce radioactive reactor components. The half life for much of this material is only a few days or years though. It's low/medium level waste and again only needs to be buried for...

Petrol in Iraq costs ~$200 per gallon. Electricity is about as expensive. Transporting enough to keep the base generators running accounts for a huge percentage of the US military's logistics trail. Recently the military has shown interest in SSPS technology; that is launching a large deploying a la...

MSimon, everyone else seems to understand this point, but since you don't, I'll spell it out for you: Politics is about perception, not reality. Is that clear enough for you? Do you understand yet? It doesn't matter if it could work or not. If the people saying it are convincing enough, politicians ...

You know I believe that is why most rockets are situated to fly over water for the early part of their flights. You know I believe you haven't actually seen Mr Bussard's proposals for SSTO, have you? The need for coastal launch/recovery facilities is another one of those minor engineering problems ...

No long term contamination with fusion. Only neutron activation. Contamination can mean more than just 'can't clean away the last of the uranium'. Mr Bussard assumes the use of super conductors in his machines. Two of the better ones which is beginning to be used in mains systems (albeit experiment...

It is obvious you mean well, however the idea of using a Polywell as a WMD is simply ridiculous for a variety of reasons. Let me guess: They're so obvious you can't bare to lower yourself by actually listing them? The I can't be bothered to argue back argument sucks big harry ones and will do littl...

MSimon wrote:I see your point. If you are within a hundred feet of the rocket when it takes off the radiation could kill you.

I was also thinking of people standing a mile or more below the flight path and being exposed four or five times a day for thirty years. Only without the sarcasm.

Case for the prosecution: *Self sustaining polywells can potentially be very small and road/rail portable. *It's a powerful neutron source that does not require restricted material. *An unshielded Q=1 reactor can give people lethal radiation doses at significant distance. *It is radioactively inert ...

If you use water as the reaction mass it will provide more than adequate neutron shielding. And the people on the ground as it flys low for take off or landing? This is one of those 'non technical' problems with HTOL SSTO I mentioned earlier. 747 runways have very large noise footprints. You're loo...

Working fission plants are made of 404 stainless. <snip> Did I mention that neutrons are easily shielded with water and concrete? We actually have the technology to do this. Ah! Good good. A couple of issues still though. For obvious reasons a polywell can't have water or other kinds of shielding i...

You are expecting a miracle from Polywell. I'm not 'asking' polywell reactors to be anything. I'm pointing out that even if their predictions are true p11B reactors will have the same problems (and pose some of the same dangers) as any other nuclear reactor. With the added bonus that a small unshie...

You know what pisses me off? Emotional appeal. If you say "think of the children" then you are appealing to emotion, not reason. Wash your mouth out with soap and water. And your keyboard too while you're at it. And you know what annoys me? Idiots who can't recognize a logical argument when they se...

Irrespective of reactor design, p11B fusion produces 'less than 0.2%' of its total output as neutrons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Residual_radiation_from_a_p-11B_reactor] . Even if we assume 0.1%, then a 1GW 'regular size' power plant will still produce a MW of neutron flux. Assu...

The concord was slightly faster than a 747 — barely more than a factor of 2. A QED (i.e. polywell) engine would be dramatically faster than chemical rockets, by a factor of 100 to 1000. The two situations are not even remotely comparable. I still stand by my point. There are other considerations. I...

JoeStrout wrote:Maybe we should continue this in the Implications forum...

This has gone beyond funding hasn't it? As you wish, reply posted here.