Talk-Polywell.org

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 103327.htm

I am still skeptical, but these predictions are at least something positive after months of nothing but negative news on the Tokamak side of things.

Difficult to interpret that without some clarity on what they're talking about. Reporters get all manner of things into their heads! The idea that 'self-generated' currents can aid stability is a difficult one to swallow.

I suppose solar flares and lightning are extreme examples of self-focussing 'current channels', but I'd only be guessing...

I remember reading years ago ( Scientific American, not Popular Mechanics about some work that *might* have lain tangential to the 'StarWars' project. It was to do with pulsed energy transfer, at levels above those possible with 'physical' bus-bars. You're talking ST-ish 'plasma conduits'. Presumably the energy would be used to pump an ICBM-poppin' laser or such, but this project was 'civilian', studying the 'switch gear'.

IIRC, they found the power stream would spread a dozen ways due as many mechanisms-- Until they hit a power threshold. After which, the plasma would self-organise and settle down...

That was a dozen-plus years ago, and I've no reference. It was certainly a 'linear' configuration, rather than the toroidal tokomak. They were not trying for fusion, they were just trying to transfer power...

The bootstrap current is a real phenomenon and is generated by pressure gradients in the plasma. There are lots of papers written on Bootstrap current, I believe the first people to theorise its existence were Howard Wilson and Jack O Connor.