Recovery.Gov Project Tracker

[ladajo]

In this case, they would seem to be limited by the current contracting plan. They have so much funding to do so much at a time. Yes they could hire more staff and press for WB8.1, however, they are NOT done with WB8 yet, and any press would come out of hide.

As far a "positive" results go, as I said earlier, to me it is a clear indication that at a minimum the machine is doing what they designed it to do. It was designed to scale up the magnetic field by a factor of 10(ish), and also to run with ion injectors vice puff gas, with improved diagnostics to analyze the plasma, the ion distributinon, the electron distribution, and moniter fusion events and distributions.
So if they said results are "not negative" that means that everything is working as least as it should. You guys all know that they are VERY careful with what words to put in the "report". So in choosing to say they will run the machine 9-12 months more, and that it is operating as designed with "positive results" is a clear message. And it is a good one.

Recall that I suggested that behind schedule meant that they would not go to peer review until late summer or early fall. Then it would take probably up to six months from then to get the WB8.1 money to kick in physically. That follows right along with the time frame posted. They are saying that they expect to wrap up the WB8 program (all funding exhausted) and move into either DD/DT only or WB8.1 for PB&J by March 2012.

This all makes sense if you take the emotion and frustration out of it.
Maybe we can hope that the next report gives up fusion and scaling results somehow. Like "WB8 device running fuel according(or exceeding) to model predictions, power output is scaling according(or exceeding) to theory."

I, for one, think that this report may well spur a competing DD/DT crash project somewhere (China? Russia?) once it circulates a bit. You all well know that many folks are watching this forum and the project from around the world.

I remain exceedingly happy.

[Skipjack]

I can let the cat out of the bag now. Procurement difficulties rather than experiment gone bad.

That is good to know. It is a very unexpected explanation, but at least it does not indicate the failure I was afraid of.
So that is good. Thanks for the clarification!
Good to see you here again, btw. Was starting to miss you for some odd reason

[Betruger]

'grey' is even more depressing.

It is? In the greys is the secret sauce, if any, that'll make it work.

RNebel's probably back at Santa Fe doing design work on WBD, note his status still remains on the EMC2 website.

Then again their website isn't anywhere near real time for updates. But this is one possibility I was thinking of. Even if you're as jaded as Chrismb's counter-suppositions, the fact is that EMC2's had a WB-D in their plans for a while now.

[KitemanSA]

If you mean 'conditionally unable', as in 'come to have expected as much/conditioned over time to anticipate nothing', then that'd be an 'affirmative'.

So you are "conditioned" by a lack of data to the assumption that evil is going on?
Quick, hang the ebil Coka Cola bottlers cuz they refuse to reveal their trade secret formula!

[KitemanSA]

(If you keep accusing me of saying these things are a scam, then maybe I should just declare anyone with faith in 'polywell' to also be accusing tokamak as 'a scam'?)

Those that have "faith" in Polywell may have reason on their side to declare tokamak a scam. Billions in cash and no one even hints at an economically viable system. Good physics research maybe, but scam for energy, probably. At least, if Polywell eventually works, it looks now that it could be economically viable.

Tokamak = scam + research.
Polywell = high risk development + research.

[KitemanSA]

misunderstanding - i wasnt expecting more news from emc2/navy, until the end of the period at least - simply meant ''from the competition" really - FoFu, Rossi, possibly - ... just trying to sound optimistic, stem the bordom.

Ah! Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

ADM Rogers(?): "The end result of all communication is confusion".

[mvanwink5]

An old fossil unit retrofit, put out of commission by EPA stiff arming, and completely depreciated, still has the turbine, condenser, and auxiliary power substations and pumps, would be ideal and a quick D-D retro. Maybe Simon is already angling? Somebody still in the game aught to. EMC2 would very likely license design numbers and configuration just to get it built. Costs can be written off and Utility commission would require no arm twisting as it is Green. Just saying...

[Skipjack]

Guys, lets hold back our horses a little bit, shall we?
Neither ITER nor Polywell are a scam. They are both honest research. I do know people working at ITER and they are really trying. Unfortunately, ITER never turned out to be what they wanted either. A lot of politics are playing into all of this too. Whenever something gets so big that politicians are paying to much attention to it, it gets corrupted.
Still, the ITER project (even though unfinished) is already providing lots of new findings that will beneft all lines of fusion and nuclear research for generations to come. It may never turn out to be the answer to our energy problems though.
Still, the people working on it, are good people with good intentions. Lets not offend them by calling this a scam.
I would never call Polywell a scam either, of course. The people involved with it, also have honest intentions and they clearly want to see whether they can make it work. Maybe they will even. I am honestly absolutely clueless about how things are going. Information is to sparse.
Remember, nobody involved with Polywell promised that it would work.
Now if you asked me about Rossis thing, then I am not sure that is not a scam. He promised that it would work. So if it does not... Again, I cant say for sure, but it is very different from Polywell.

[ltgbrown]

This is very exciting news. I look forward to hearing about all the methods used to count neutrons and the counts they got.

I guess it is time to keep an eye out for funding for WB-8.1!!

[tomclarke]

In this case, they would seem to be limited by the current contracting plan. They have so much funding to do so much at a time. Yes they could hire more staff and press for WB8.1, however, they are NOT done with WB8 yet, and any press would come out of hide.

As far a "positive" results go, as I said earlier, to me it is a clear indication that at a minimum the machine is doing what they designed it to do. It was designed to scale up the magnetic field by a factor of 10(ish), and also to run with ion injectors vice puff gas, with improved diagnostics to analyze the plasma, the ion distributinon, the electron distribution, and moniter fusion events and distributions.
So if they said results are "not negative" that means that everything is working as least as it should. You guys all know that they are VERY careful with what words to put in the "report". So in choosing to say they will run the machine 9-12 months more, and that it is operating as designed with "positive results" is a clear message. And it is a good one.

Recall that I suggested that behind schedule meant that they would not go to peer review until late summer or early fall. Then it would take probably up to six months from then to get the WB8.1 money to kick in physically. That follows right along with the time frame posted. They are saying that they expect to wrap up the WB8 program (all funding exhausted) and move into either DD/DT only or WB8.1 for PB&J by March 2012.

This all makes sense if you take the emotion and frustration out of it.
Maybe we can hope that the next report gives up fusion and scaling results somehow. Like "WB8 device running fuel according(or exceeding) to model predictions, power output is scaling according(or exceeding) to theory."

I, for one, think that this report may well spur a competing DD/DT crash project somewhere (China? Russia?) once it circulates a bit. You all well know that many folks are watching this forum and the project from around the world.

I remain exceedingly happy.

It is still an interesting story - but not really a spectator sport.

[tomclarke]

Guys, lets hold back our horses a little bit, shall we?
Neither ITER nor Polywell are a scam. They are both honest research. I do know people working at ITER and they are really trying. Unfortunately, ITER never turned out to be what they wanted either. A lot of politics are playing into all of this too. Whenever something gets so big that politicians are paying to much attention to it, it gets corrupted.
Still, the ITER project (even though unfinished) is already providing lots of new findings that will beneft all lines of fusion and nuclear research for generations to come. It may never turn out to be the answer to our energy problems though.
Still, the people working on it, are good people with good intentions. Lets not offend them by calling this a scam.
I would never call Polywell a scam either, of course. The people involved with it, also have honest intentions and they clearly want to see whether they can make it work. Maybe they will even. I am honestly absolutely clueless about how things are going. Information is to sparse.
Remember, nobody involved with Polywell promised that it would work.
Now if you asked me about Rossis thing, then I am not sure that is not a scam. He promised that it would work. So if it does not... Again, I cant say for sure, but it is very different from Polywell.

No comparison Rossi & Polywell. At all. Nebel is a competent physicist, and honest. Rossi in no physicist, and at very least has got himself in trouble with the criminal law on two separate grounds.

And his reactor will not do what he says it will do. That is a pretty safe statement given all current evidence.

[TallDave]

ladajo -- Again, that sounds about right to me. "Operates as designed" is more than a lot of people expected.

Obviously I've been harping on the loss scaling question specifically for some time, and I don't think we can infer too much on that, but this is definitely some value of "good news," and good cheer is definitely warranted.

[Skipjack]

No comparison Rossi & Polywell. At all.

Yepp, that is what I meant.

[hanelyp]

I would hope that Dr. Nebel would be careful enough to not describe "quality results indicating poor confinement" as "positive results". On that basis I take the report as indicating results consistent with operating theory. Solid numbers would, of course, be nice.

[PNeilson10]

We have a English vs American Cultural thing going on here.

Snarkily expressed expectations of failure seem to be the dominant cultural motif in England.

Optimistic, clear spoken expectations of a chance of success is the American Way. Yes, we Americans know that con artist's are everywhere and as a result most Americans have a fairly good ability to sense a con. We also know just how hard it is to do something really new and really hard and admire those that honestly take on the challenge of a new or hard project.

I have been debating taking on a new and hard project myself, here in the USA. I have been uniformly cheered and praised by friends and acquaintances for thinking about taking a chance on a project with a self described 1% chance of success.

I wonder what the response would be to my thoughts of attempting this near impossible (likely foolish) project in England?

P.S.

It's nice to read tomclarke, when he takes a more positive attitude on this forum than in other forums where I joust with him!

Tom, care to prove me wrong with a wall of text?