More: The $8 million award

[KitemanSA]

The only politician that I am aware of that took a direct interest in Polywell is John McCain. Energy Secretary Chu evidenced some interest as well. I haven't seen anything from either of them since 2008.

And that is what your sig line is about, right? This is important enough for the admin to actually take SOMETHING of a direct interest and fund it specifically. Well, at least I think so.

[Aero]

Setting aside for the moment, the topic of credit for funding or blame for lack of funding, is their any indication anywhere that EMC2 may be able to do parallel experiments with the current funding? It is after all, 4 to 6 times more money than they had for WB-7.
A lot of us would like to see a dodec configuration compared to a truncube, and of course, addressing the continuous operation issue would be nice. Neither of these experiments are within the statement of work. Does that mean that they are ruled out from consideration at this time? Does that mean that, for lack of studied options, WB-9 must necessarily be a pulsed truncube?

[KitemanSA]

I thought the design for WB9 was supposed to be a continuous net power machine. But it has been a while since I read the SOW.

None-the-less I would love to see them do Dr B's WB 7 & 8 ("square plan form" cuboctahedron and "pentagonal plan form" icosadodecahedron), except I'd like to see the sides bowed to lie on a spherical surface. This is one of those things you can use sla... unh, student labor for.

[TallDave]

Aero,.

Not enough for parallel experiments at .8T, though I'm not sure if there's a new vacuum vessel here so they might be able to continue WB-7 experiments.

I would guess WB-9 will be designed as a continuous-operation dodec. There's already been continuous-operation WB models, and the physics don't appear to change from truncube to dodec. It probably depends on whether they think half an order of magnitude improvement is worth the added engineering.

OTOH Rick's team may have simulations that say a dodec offers more or less improvement than the 3-5x Bussard talked about. So who knows.

But I think you can safely bet any design labelled "reactor" will not be pulsed.

[Aero]

I got to thinking about the above. Given the detailed description in the Synopsis:

Plasma Wiffleball
Detail Desc:
Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract for modification and testing of plasma wiffleball 7. The requirement is sole sourced to Energy / Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2) who is the original developer of wiffleball 7 and holds the proprietary data rights. Effort funded by American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding. The address for EMC2 is 1202 Parkway Dr, STE A, Santa Fe, NM 87507-
7253. NAICS code 541712

And the statement of work saying that the magnetic coils will be 8 times more powerful, what parts of WB-7 can survive the modification. Or is the "Modification" verbiage just smoke to fill the need for a synopsis?

And Simon, given that the magnets are pulsed (copper, i assume) and the known problems of cooling copper in a vacuum chamber, do you think they might cool the WB-8 magnets allowing repeated runs in a day?

I guess my question to you, Simon, is, "Given $8 M, the statement of work, and one year to perform, what would you build along the lines of WB-7?" "Do you have a conceptual design in mind?" Sorry, that's two questions.

[93143]

except I'd like to see the sides bowed to lie on a spherical surface.

Why? Circles in these configurations already lie on a spherical surface.

[MSimon]

The only politician that I am aware of that took a direct interest in Polywell is John McCain. Energy Secretary Chu evidenced some interest as well. I haven't seen anything from either of them since 2008.

And that is what your sig line is about, right? This is important enough for the admin to actually take SOMETHING of a direct interest and fund it specifically. Well, at least I think so.

It would be nice. At this point it may not be necessary. I still like to keep the heat on. Maybe politicians are "whispering" to the Navy. Hard to say. What I do know is that EMC2 got $8 mil in TARP funds and $4 mil more promised.

Some one had to adjust the allocations to make that happen.

[MSimon]

And Simon, given that the magnets are pulsed (copper, i assume) and the known problems of cooling copper in a vacuum chamber, do you think they might cool the WB-8 magnets allowing repeated runs in a day?

I would expect that some sort of conduction cooling is being done. If they were doing liquid pumped cooling "continuous" (seconds) operation would be possible - if they had the power supplies to support it.

I guess my question to you, Simon, is, "Given $8 M, the statement of work, and one year to perform, what would you build along the lines of WB-7?" "Do you have a conceptual design in mind?" Sorry, that's two questions.

For $12 million I could build a 3T machine with 1 m bore on the coils (od on the order of 1.2 m), a 5 MW power supply (for the accelerator), a shield bldg, a custom vacuum chamber (spherical), aux eqpt and about $2 mil for contingency.

Obviously EMC2 has a different plan.

I can't figure out why a .8T pulsed machine is going to cost $8 mil. Unless it is very big. Say 2 m or larger coils.

[Skipjack]

I can't figure out why a .8T pulsed machine is going to cost $8 mil. Unless it is very big. Say 2 m or larger coils.

Maybe an experiment to veryfy the scaling that Dr Bussard predicted?

[Art Carlson]

I can't figure out why a .8T pulsed machine is going to cost $8 mil. Unless it is very big. Say 2 m or larger coils.

You should remember (actually, it would surprise me if you haven't already factored this in), that this is not 12M$ to build a machine but 12$ for a research program that includes building a machine. Whatever it costs to build a machine, I would allow an equal amount to build diagnostics. (Remember, if you don't have good diagnostics, that Carlson guy isn't going to believe you, no matter what you report.) And whatever your construction costs are, I would add an equal sum to run the machine for a year or two, give it a chance to tell you something. Working backward from 12 M$, that would give you only 4 M$ for construction of the machine itself.

[D Tibbets]

except I'd like to see the sides bowed to lie on a spherical surface.

Why? Circles in these configurations already lie on a spherical surface.

I've wondered if bowing the coils inward might help( I don't think you could bow circular coils- as mentioned). I'm guessing that you could change the cross section shape a mild amount- a more trapezoidal curved crossection rather than a circular crossection. Could the different geometry tighten up the throats of the corner cusps, or even the center cusp, while staying within the requirements of shielding, internal convex B fields, and preventing internal arcing from sharp corners. A square overall coil shape could have the corners turned in mildly to presumably tighten (shrink the Wiffleball holes) of the corner cusps, again limited by the need to maintain convex B-fields , shielding, etc. I'm guessing that improving the corner cusps may hurt the face centered point cusps, but I understand the corner/ funny / semilinier cusps starting in the corners are significantly more leaky than the face point cusps, even with the center point cusps being at lower B field strength because they are further from magnets ( unless you increase the minor diameter of the coils) and do not have as much field line compression. Noncircular magnets would presumably convert the round tight central point cusps into diamond or polygonal shaped cusps. Again, the presumed improvements in the corner areas outweigh the presumed increased loses from the 'point cusps'.

A lot of presumptions here. I wonder if EMC2 has a better handle on the system based on WB7 tests, and possibly 'improved WB 7' tests from last winter from ion gun input and interconnect changes. With anticipated WB8 results and computer advances, they may feel confident enough to spend a lot of money on modeling (what does supercomputer time cost these days?). Alternately, if they have a computer guru on board, and wanted to setup a internet based massively parallel network like SETI and others have done, I'd sign up. For that matter, how do home made super computers ( like parallel Playstation 3's) compare to the best current supercomputers, or the supercomputers of the early 90's ?

And finally, as M. Simon has suggested they may have decided to keep to the current geometry to keep things simple. If this baseline system can be made to perform adequately, explorations of other geometries and optimizations could then be pursued.

Dan Tibbets

[KitemanSA]

except I'd like to see the sides bowed to lie on a spherical surface.

Why? Circles in these configurations already lie on a spherical surface.

Yup, but they make for REALLY screwy virtual "out" magnets (concave rather than convex) and result in a line like cusp between the real magnets rather than the point like cusp Dr.B. seemed to want. Using the "square" plan-form magnet improves the cusp, using the bowed returns the sphericity and increases the convexity. The better of both worlds without having to go to the X-cusp.

[Tom Ligon]

I have not been called in for any high-level discussions on the subject. I've encountered mid-level people in several parts of the government who are aware of the effort, apparently follow it closely, and want it to work. They know who I am and they contact me if they want questions answered ... and they're entitled to my opinion if they ask, either as a private individual or as a member of SIGMA.

For now, I'd say it has the right amount of attention. Over-hyping at this point could hurt. The project's funding is growing and (purely based informed speculation here) would seem to be making excellent progress. If it proves itself, I'm quite confident it will be funded to fruition, and either McCain or Obama would be fools not to. I don't think either one is a fool.

This project is being kept going by the mid-level, the people actually charged with knowing what is going on, in detail.

[alexjrgreen]

I can't figure out why a .8T pulsed machine is going to cost $8 mil. Unless it is very big. Say 2 m or larger coils.

This is all about giving pB11 a realistic chance...

[Aero]

I can't figure out why a .8T pulsed machine is going to cost $8 mil. Unless it is very big. Say 2 m or larger coils.

You should remember (actually, it would surprise me if you haven't already factored this in), that this is not 12M$ to build a machine but 12$ for a research program that includes building a machine. Whatever it costs to build a machine, I would allow an equal amount to build diagnostics. (Remember, if you don't have good diagnostics, that Carlson guy isn't going to believe you, no matter what you report.) And whatever your construction costs are, I would add an equal sum to run the machine for a year or two, give it a chance to tell you something. Working backward from 12 M$, that would give you only 4 M$ for construction of the machine itself.

Actually, I think its worse than that. Someone correct me here because its been years for me, but as I recall, contract money income is first divided into several colors of money. The colors have names like:

General and Administrative
Overhead
Fee
Direct
and I think another color that I don't recall but I think their were 5 colors.

G&A runs about 18%, Overhead about 80%, Fee maybe 10%, Direct about 40% (really, what is left over) and the other color (Contingency?) was small. They don't add up to 100% because they re normalize after they take colors out. Fee comes out first. Its been to long, I don't recall, but I know that a substantial chunk goes into Company internal R&D, which is good, and a huge chunk of overhead goes into paying the cost of personnel fringe benefits, (Insurance, paid vacation, ...). Anyway, the Direct money goes to the actual construction and experimentation. I think it will be less than $4M, but Direct pays "actual cost" of equipment and actual salary. The Secretaries and Security guards still must be paid from the contract money, but that is not Direct cost.

Of course we don't know what EMC2's rates are, companies keep their bid rates close to the vest for competitive reasons.