Helion [Tri-alpha?] efforts and recent publication.

[chrismb]

(Just pulling over some parts into a proper thread for tri-alpha):

Because there is no new physics involved and the concept is proven to work.

Oh, really?!!? ... could you quote me some references, please...

Even Art Carlson was pretty convinced by their demonstration.

err.. I think you'll find that Art's interest was that FRC's work 'better than expected'...

..FRC's were expected to be really crap at confinement, so it's not saying much...

http://www.helionenergy.com/Helion_Pres ... n-Web2.pdf

I surely don't buy a sales presentation for investors as a reference source!!!

It is nonsense to suggest that a thing will work providing the claims are high enough. If it falls below its claim, it may well fall at the point of 'not working at all'.

I've seen this argument here for polywell and Rossi recently and whatever else in the past so often.

Chris, the only thing that is debatable is the scaling laws and even those look pretty solid from experiment.
I also said "overestimating". I did not mean that they were falsly assuming that there was any scaling at all with size.
I should maybe have said "slightly overestimating", to be more precise, because some people seemingly enjoy pulling an argument out of thin air, if it suits them.
I do however think that Slough has a pretty good shot at it. I have not seen anything more credible yet, have you?

Well, I will not disagree with you last sentence, which is presumably where you are trying to get to with your thinking/discussion (but I still take issue with 'scaling laws look pretty solid').

...so let's look at this good find that IvyMatt has found...

[chrismb]

John Slough et. al. have recently submitted an article, "Creation of a high-temperature plasma through merging and compression of supersonic field reversed configuration plasmoids", to Nuclear Fusion. I don't know enough about Slough's work to know if it contains anything that was not publicly known before. The article is free for 30 days from IOPscience. It can also be obtained here.

I'd like to hear other's comments before/[if!] I make any further ones with detail. But will start by saying...

18 pages for a journal article...! I found it difficult to get to the heart of this paper. [..edit.. just noticed that the IoP version is a better 10 long]

The reported data is strange for a specific reason - I cannot find any actual absoulte neutron counts. They go to the trouble of installing a calibrated detector, provide an equation to determine absolute reaction rates then... only plot neutron outputs on an 'arbitrary' scale.

I also could not determine many of the experimental conditions - length of pulse, energy inputs needed to drive the pulse, etc..

The 'discussions and conclusions' kicks off with some non-sequiturs about what the experiment demontrates might be a 'potential', but then moves very swiftly on from that statement into 'there are no limitations to full scale'. They took 18 pages to write this up, yet the couple of paragraphs it would take to cover the most important bits are missing; no neutron counts nor power inputs, and the missing predicate logic between 'experimental potentials' and the conclusions drawn.

[Skipjack]

surely don't buy a sales presentation for investors as a reference source!!!

Sorry, if you are once again looking to detect a scam, then you really have issues. These are serious people and they have done serious research. They are not scammers. I have very little reason to doubt his character and their research is peer reviewed.
Fact is that FRCs are very well understood by now. There are tons of papers by various sources on the topic.
Fact is that his math and experimental results are solid enough that not even Art could find holes in them (and he was familiar with the topic to begin with).
Fact is that they have a machine that is running and that can reproduce the results repeatedly (!). It is not something that they blew up "right when they had the perfect results"... If you know what I mean.
The only thing where they could be wrong is that they somehow screwed up the scaling laws without anybody - including Art- noticing.
Then the proposed scale up wont yield the predicted results and this is - as I mentioned- the risk that makes this a risky investment. Otherwise I would have already invested into them myself somehow.
Anyway, I was trying to say that from my POV it looks pretty good. I give them the same chance of success as any Tok out there (and FRC is basically a Tok that has been cut and stretched out). Iter and Toks also have to rely on scaling laws that had to be derived from experiments and theories. If you believe that Toks will make it, then you should believe that FRCs can make it.
The big advantage of FRCs over Toks is the much simpler geometry. This is what makes them more interesting than Toks, because they can be built for less money.

Also, you dont even get the company right, which is telling about how much you have actually concerned yourself with the subject.
They are not Rostoker et al who run Tri Alpha. They are Slough et al at Helion Energy.
Rostoker and Tri Alpha are also experimenting with FRCs (from what is known), but like most people, I have not the slightest clue what they are really up to. My understanding is that Rostoker tries to do steady state device that burns PB11. That does sound a lot harder.
Slough instead goes the easy path and tries to reduce the risk by doing what is already known to work, just bigger.
E.g. this is not a steady state device, instead it is pulsed at 10 Hz.
They burn TD which is known to work and not PB11. All much simpler and less risky.
So again, I dont see where you are trying to disarm them.

[chrismb]

surely don't buy a sales presentation for investors as a reference source!!!

Sorry, if you are once again looking to detect a scam, then you really have issues. These are serious people and they have done serious research. They are not scammers. I have very little reason to doubt his character and their research is peer reviewed.

I was trying [hard] to be I agreement with you and say there is some interest here. But you make it hard for me to do so!

Why is it you [and others] say 'you're doubting the veracity of XYZ, which means you think it is a scam'? This is a nonsense conclusion over my motives for wanting to drill down into something! A thing can be wrong without being a scam!!! Those who undertake a wrong venture may do so for a variety of reasons - and in fusion that has been typically due to delusion.

Is this another 'Rossi' type argument, then? Because there is no evidence they are scamming, everything they say in sales literature must be true??!!!

Can we please stick to a proper, logical, objective, discussion about this, here [for once!?]?

[chrismb]

The only thing where they could be wrong is that they somehow screwed up the scaling laws without anybody - including Art- noticing.

Really! Only the scaling laws could be wrong, eh!?

I give them the same chance of success as any Tok out there (and FRC is basically a Tok that has been cut and stretched out). Iter and Toks also have to rely on scaling laws that had to be derived from experiments and theories. If you believe that Toks will make it, then you should believe that FRCs can make it.

Maybe. I wouldn't say that's an unreasonable POV. There again, I don't believe toks will make it, in their current form.

Also, you dont even get the company right, which is telling about how much you have actually concerned yourself with the subject.
They are not Rostoker et al who run Tri Alpha. They are Slough et al at Helion Energy.

Fair play. I genuninely thought [still think, actually] they are a spinoff of the Rostoker work. There is no 'helion' patent I can find, so I do not understand what their commercialization plan can be. Maybe there is one in progress....

[Skipjack]

So you think that Rostoker was the only one checking out FRC- devices? Slough is at the University of Washington.
Rostoker is at the University of California, Irvine.

[Skipjack]

Really! Only the scaling laws could be wrong, eh!?

From what I understand, they have a device that delivers predictable results that are in line with their theories and that are repeatable.
They say that all they have to do is scale up the device and they will get a Q>1 (they are actually going for a Q>5, IIRC) and for that, they dont even have to get that much bigger.
Let me put it like that:
A FRC device is very simillar to a Tok, the physics are very simillar to a Tok also. If you are among those that believe that Toks can make devices with a Q>1, then you should have little reason to doubt that the FRC can work as well. I am very sure that Toks can do Q>1, I am 100% convinced of that. I just dont think that they will ever make for usable reactors. FRC devices such as the one proposed by Helion can do that, because they are somewhere in the middle ground. They try to achieve less with MUCH less effort and cost. So they still get a positive sum, but a smaller one.

[chrismb]

So you think that Rostoker was the only one checking out FRC- devices? Slough is at the University of Washington.
Rostoker is at the University of California, Irvine.

I think he's the only one patenting FRC devices. ergo.....

[chrismb]

From what I understand, they have a device that delivers predictable results that are in line with their theories and that are repeatable.

Well, it's all quite difficult to determine that if there is no data on input and output conditions. Hand-wavy stuff in the middle by honnête hommes don't impress me much.

To demonstrate predictable results to my complete satisfaction, my preference would be to see a two-column table with predictions in one column and results in the other. Why not?

[chrismb]

A FRC device is very simillar to a Tok, the physics are very simillar to a Tok also. If you are among those that believe that Toks can make devices with a Q>1, then you should have little reason to doubt that the FRC can work as well.

..and I think they face pretty much the same OBVIOUS hurdle:

Once these machines start pumping out the fusion product energy, what happens to the plasmas then!? Getting these fusion plasmas to generate the energy is just the start of the beginning. We're not even at the beginning yet. All those lovely magneto-sonic instabilities that you only see once you actually start generating power! Oh boy!...

It is not exactly rocket science to point out that if you have a tough time getting a stable plasma in normal conditions that if you then start pumping MegaWatts of nuclear particles through it.. it ain't gonna help stability, now, is it!?!

You might argue to your heart's content that this is just something to lump into a 'scaling factor', but it isn't. There's a whole host of new physics mechanisms on the far side of Q>1 that folks haven't even begun to understand yet ... and why would they if they've never been there?

[Skipjack]

Once these machines start pumping out the fusion product energy, what happens to the plasmas then!? Getting these fusion plasmas to generate the energy is just the start of the beginning. We're not even at the beginning yet. All those lovely magneto-sonic instabilities that you only see once you actually start generating power! Oh boy!...

Which is why this machine is pulsed?????!!!!!!!!!

[Skipjack]

I think he's the only one patenting FRC devices. ergo.....

This means absolutely NOTHING!
I know companies in many fields, big players that have never filed a single patent.
You can be working in a field for a long time without a patent. I will check for patents for this though. I am almost sure he has one.
Anyway, there is no evidence whatsoever that he and Rostoker are even anywhere close.

[Skipjack]

More reading material published by Slough:
http://burningplasma.org/web/ReNeW/whit ... source.pdf

[chrismb]

Which is why this machine is pulsed?????!!!!!!!!!

...and we know that these pulses are on a shorter timescale than the instabilities arising from a fusion burning plasma? How can we know this? If a magneto-sonic instability from fusion product emissions disrupts an FRC in nanoseconds and the pulse is microseconds, clearly there would be a problem, would there not?

[chrismb]

I think he's the only one patenting FRC devices. ergo.....

This means absolutely NOTHING!

I didn't say it did. I was just explaining where I had misguided myself into thinking there was a connection.

(You really don't need to be so defensive. I'm not trying to attack anyone, I just want a discussion on the technical merits.)