Talk-Polywell.org

The Helion website has seen a small update.
There seems to be an upcoming article on Popular Mechanics and a new publication
http://helionenergy.com/?p=121

The whole website design has seen a makeover. The publication I've already seen. It was posted on the MSNW website earlier. I haven't heard about a Popular Mechanics article, though.

[It's clear that Helion has a connection to John Slough. The question is, does John Slough have a connection to Helion? I assume Phil Wallace is acting on behalf of John Slough et al, but so far I haven't seen any direct acknowledgement by anyone actually connected with Slough or Helion that such is the case.] Wait, there's a bit about MSNW and John Slough on the "About Us" page. Is that new?

It would be nice if Slough and company got a piece of the investment pie now, as well as Tri Alpha and General Fusion.

It's clear that Helion has a connection to John Slough. The question is, does John Slough have a connection to Helion?

AFAIK, Helion is the commercialization of the research that John Slough is doing at MSNW. He is behind both.
That is at least what I understand about what I see on their website and from what Art Carlson told us about his visit to Helion Energy in his post a while back (do a forum search on John Slough).
From what I understand they still have not found investors yet

The publication seems to be rather new, from what I see. It is not 30 days old yet. Because of that, it is still available for free on the IOP website.

good to have it confirmed that John Slough==Helion.

this is the same paper i've seen also, though prettied up.

a good read, though seems a bit short on some details, conclusions and direction.

on positive note, it expresses some surprise that experimental results seem better than theory predicts.

(problem of the code (theory) not modeling magnetic reconnection properly - vis. x-separatrix twixt the two colliding FRC plasmoids. is being addressed with new code.)

also, of note:

Slough, et al wrote: It is notable that the gain has no dependence on the compression coil radius, and only a fairly weak dependence on the FRC length.

Slough, et al wrote: Given the FRC confinement scaling, and the ion temperature within this range, the neutron yield is essentially independent of the ion temperature. More precisely, the increase in fusion cross section at higher temperature is offset by decreased density and FRC lifetime at a given compression magnetic field.

Slough, et al wrote: The overwhelmingly larger ion mass dictates that the ions receive virtually all the heating from {highly efficient} kinetic conversion of the FRC motion

(explication in curly braces my own}.

The authors, state confidently, that the Lawson criteria for Q>1 should be attainable by method.

and:

Slough, et al wrote:Reactor costs will generally scale inversely with the fusion power density which in turn scales as β^2*B^4

therefore, needs to build one 3X bigger - or rather 3X 'more powerful'.

is aiming at a Q=5 device, 2–4 Hz operation producing average power of 40 to 60MW, based on 0.2m radius compression core (for stability), {deduce length 10's meters}. deutrium + tritium + lithium fusion blanket.

(200-500MW for eventual production machines, cascadable)

concludes with 'need for further research', which is understandable, together with an expectation to 'spur a renewed urgency'. which i think they need to work on.

involvements/funding to date from: Helion - MSNW - Department of Energy, NASA, and the Department of Defense

Art Calrson, once said, John Slough is a better scientist than he is a business man. Lets hope Phil Wallace (CEO) has what it takes. To pick up some pace.

Philip Wallace, President - CEO Helion - presented at: 'Alternative Energy Innovations 2009' - ( http://alternativeenergy.dowjones.com/D ... pageid=150 ) - dont know whether anyone here is on the DJ mailing list, but seems a promising forum to watch. Apart from that I can find little on Wallace.

- Helion was after 20m$US back in 2009 - ( did they ever get it/near to it yet? )- for full scale prototype anticipated ready by 2011/12. ( http://gigaom.com/cleantech/helion-ener ... on-engine/ ). Plus, additional 100m$US on top of that to ready production engine/plant.

also - they need the sexy pix on the front of their website, not hidden in the bowels. and where's the 'NEWS' section?! (news pages seem to be missing on so many blue-sky sites, FoFu and Prometheus excepted. do they think it doesnt matter? what happened to the 'urgency'?).

I hope Helion hurry up and get their act together. They appear to have a lot going for them.

Ivy Matt wrote:I haven't heard about a Popular Mechanics article, though.

Oops, somehow I missed the front page of the website. It will be interesting to see which fusion programs are mentioned in addition to Helion/MSNW.

That's quite an interesting read.
Good find Skipjack.

200-500MW for eventual production machines, cascadable

I find his pulsed approach very sensible. He is trying to work with what he knows he can do, rather than what he would like to do.
A car engine has more than one piston as well. It is basically a cascaded, pulsed device.
I dont see why his fusion engine should not be comparable to that?

i love his approach also. just hope he gets some money on the table soon and astonishes the world with a Q>1 machine that really works. for some reason he appears to have found himself at the bottom of the pecking order, re finance. by rights he should probably be at the top.

i love his approach also. just hope he gets some money on the table soon and astonishes the world with a Q>1 machine that really works. for some reason he appears to have found himself at the bottom of the pecking order, re finance. by rights he should probably be at the top.

Agreed, I think that he is probably already closer than anybody else with his last prototype. I really dont get how people like General Fusion can get the funding, but Slough does not. And I am not saying that GF should not have gotten the funding, I really love their approach also, but I think that Slough has a higher chance of making it work.
Also, think about what a huge impact even a Q=1 device would have on the way the world looks at fusion. With only one such device working (and only somewhat working, even), I could see a gigantic boom in funding for fusion research all over the world.
Right now Fusion has the stigma of always being "30 years away". Investors usually think in 10 years tops.

i fully agree with what you say Skipjack. like many here i have followed the fusion dream for many decades already, only to be to be dissapointed at the pace of technical progress and the lack of economic and/or political incentive to MAKE it work. perhaps, now is finally the time we see that change.

rcain wrote:for some reason he appears to have found himself at the bottom of the pecking order, re finance. by rights he should probably be at the top.

[You think he's at the bottom of the pecking order!!...

I'll tell you about being at the bottom of the pecking order!....... ]

chrismb wrote:

rcain wrote:for some reason he appears to have found himself at the bottom of the pecking order, re finance. by rights he should probably be at the top.

[You think he's at the bottom of the pecking order!!...

I'll tell you about being at the bottom of the pecking order!....... ]

have you ever considerd Freemasonry?

Skipjack wrote:I really dont get how people like General Fusion can get the funding, but Slough does not.

Being a scientist is just but one of the tiles in the puzzle to make a company.
More than everything else right now he needs connections with investors or he needs to find someone that can bring the investors to him.
If you remember General Fusion made headlines all over the web few months ago with their ideas and this brought to them publicity, interest and connections. Investors smelled a potential business and just followed the trail.

Now ask yourself how many people even know about the existence of Helion Energy.....

That guy needs a good CFO.

Giorgio, I would agree with you on that one.
Having a good concept is only half the rent. You also need to be able to sell it.

have you ever considerd Freemasonry?

Have you ever costed out a project in stone? It is rather far from Free.