New Alan Boyle article

rj40 · Post by **rj40** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:32 am

I wonder if the reviewers might come up with a list of N things that must be demonstrated before they would recommend funding a $200M+ net power device. So then Rick Nebel has to convince the Navy to fund another device that all agree is capable of demonstrating that N number of things. If he cannot convince the Navy, then he goes for other funding in order to continue forward. VCs? At any rate, with what little we have heard, it still sounds like some good (read useful) science has come out of this.

Jboily · Post by **Jboily** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:10 pm

I wonder if the reviewers might come up with a list of N things that must be demonstrated before they would recommend funding a $200M+ net power device

I think this $200 M cost to develop a net power device can and probably will be divided in a multiple of funding phases. Even if full funding is obtain for net power, I would expect a phasing approach to the development. I have never seen projets, large nor small, done without phasing. This is part of engineering and projet management.

If it were up to me, the next phase may very well be to fund the development of a 1 meter device to pinpoint scaling parameters. The design phase of this 1 meter test device would use the current WB-7 setup to experiment with configurations and operation modes. Further phases would be using this 1 meter devices to furthur experiment with POPS modes, ions focusing, materials and so on.

I think the $200M is to bring the development to net power level. It will take further investments to get to commercial level, with strict system engineering design and appropriate safety measures.

I am hopping that the funding sources would realize the clear and immediate need for this device to be developed in the shortest possible time. It would make sense that the next phase is to demonstrate these N things before to go to the main and huge effort to develop a comercial net power device, and will probably be best done with a larger device then the WB-7.

Once this next phase is done, the road would be clear for a race to the commercial finish line. At this point, the funding sources need to set this up so that profits can be made, for the investors to be interested. A government controlled commercial device usually do not appeal to investors. Eventually, the establishment of a commercial venture will be needed.

Jb

DKelley · Post by **DKelley** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:28 pm

OK, take the following monologue with a grain of salt (of course, that could be said for much of the speculation here in the past couple of months). Anyway:

Looking at a few comments from the article and from other posts on this site:

MSimon quoted here: viewtopic.php?p=8865#8865
"All I can tell you is that my usual sources have dried up. Totally. Not even idle chat."

And from the article:
"Bob Bussard was a truly innovative person... I hope he will be remembered for that."
"Regardless of what happens to it, we're going to get this thing well written up..."
"It's kind of a mix."

I could interpret these bits this way: after much excitement at the beginning of the peer review it was determined that a potential showstopper appeared. Maybe someone did ask a question that just can't be answered, and with some reflection really does appear to be a showstopper. This could certainly lead to a period of quiet. For an analogy, think of a football game (the American or world version, doesn't matter) when an exciting play ends only to find that a player has suffered a serious, life-threatening injury - this can lead to a very quiet stadium, and somewhat muted play afterward.

Next, Dr. Robert Bussard should be remembered for his important work for the possibility that this particular project was groundbreaking, despite the potential that it may not be quite what all hoped for, if a showstopper was found.

Finally, interpreting the last quote, “It's kind of a mix,” that sounds like a good-news, bad-news qualifier. Let's continue with the argument that a showstopper was found (the bad news), might there still be more theoretical physics whose research is worth pursuing (the good news) that Dr. Nebel could continue for a time? Shoot, it can’t be all bad if important, “nuanced” findings are made to further physics research regardless of where this takes IEC research, right? And maybe LANL is happy to defer some of its budget to let him pursue this research on another project, at least for a time? (I'm assuming that his other employer is not paying his salary while he pursues this research?)

So that is my 2-cent wet blanket. If someone could dry my wet blanket, that would be nice.

zbarlici · Post by **zbarlici** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:13 pm

DAMMIT dammit!(crossing fingers)

Torulf2 · Post by **Torulf2** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:46 pm

???
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/ ... 01440.aspx

icarus · Post by **icarus** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:54 pm

Sounds to me like the whole thing is getting tied up in the usual government bureaucratise, waffle words, endless shuffling of papers around desks and the whole gambit that has made tokomak fusion such a boondoggle.

Regardless of the physics success or not, the interesting science and technical possibilities has generated enough publicity and interest to make it now a bonfide cash cow to milk the tax-payers for as long as it can.

If there is any hope left for this idea to make it into a commercial success, it is time for private industry to grab the ball and run with it and get these weasel words and political machinations out of the way.

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:33 am

Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned that maybe a show stopper had came up, forcing the dearth of positive and gleeful news. (Not in those words.) It has occurred to me that there are things other than science that can stop shows like this one. I'm thinking company size at the moment.

There is a huge difference between a team that can beneficially spend $2 million in one year, and a team that can beneficially spend $200 million in two or three years. How big is EMC2? A team of fewer than 10 professionals could easily consume $2 million in one year. Lets, say 5 to 10 professional employees. That's 200 to 400 thousand dollars fully burdened plus hardware per employee.

So, say it takes 3 years to spend the $200 million. That's from 166 to 333 of the same caliber people, but a lot of them must be administrative staff, so it will be more people than that. My point? Can EMC2 actually grow to handle the next phase in time to do it with confidence? Or do they need to find a prime that they can subcontract to? Someone like SAIC, or maybe General Atomic.

So my question is, how big is EMC2? They may be able to do the work but can they handle the contract?

Post by **JoeStrout** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:46 am

icarus wrote:Sounds to me like the whole thing is getting tied up in the usual government bureaucratise, waffle words, endless shuffling of papers around desks and the whole gambit that has made tokomak fusion such a boondoggle.

Regardless of the physics success or not, the interesting science and technical possibilities has generated enough publicity and interest to make it now a bonfide cash cow to milk the tax-payers for as long as it can.

Icarus, I think you've misread this situation rather completely. A cash cow implies cash; there isn't enough cash in this to keep a small local government office running. It's not enough to be noticed at the state level, let alone the federal. Dr. Nebel is doing great work on a shoestring (as Dr. Bussard did before him), and the bureaucrats are staying blessedly out of the way, as far as we can tell. Sure, there is some oversight and the funders want a detailed report on what results their funds are generating, but there's nothing wrong with that.

The "waffle words" you mention are just part of science, or at least, of responsible science. I'm an engineer, but trained originally as a scientist, and I speak that way myself — I never say what "will happen" but only what "might happen" or "will probably happen", since nothing is certain about the future. We speak about what the results may mean, because there's always the chance that our interpretation is wrong. When results are complex, we describe them as complex, or (yes) "nuanced." Nothing wrong with that. It is irresponsible to imply more certainty than you can actually, honestly, have; and the careful, precise ways in which a scientist reports results with the correct amount of certainty may sound like waffling to a casual observer (many of whom are used to thinking and speaking in absolutes).

In addition, you don't announce results until they've been peer-reviewed and ideally published, or at least presented at a respectable scientific conference. That's because the reviewers (in either case) may uncover some flaw that you hadn't realized. To announce your results prematurely is arrogant (since it implies belief that you can't be wrong, and that your peers are either not competent or not needed to review your work) and irresponsible (since you may, in fact, have made some mistake, and you do the public a disservice by announcing results that are wrong, since many people will never hear about the retraction).

So, at this stage in the process, if Dr. Nebel's team has produced some interesting results, I would expect him to be speaking about them very little, and what he does say, to be circumspect and include lots of waffle words. If we want the details, we must be patient and wait for them to be written up and published. That's just the way things work (with rare exceptions, like Pons and Fleishman — and see how well that turned out for them).

Best,
- Joe

drmike · Post by **drmike** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 12:08 pm

Very well said Joe. As a scientist/engineer myself, I've found it really embarising when I make a mistake, and I've come to appreciate the review process. The more questions people ask, the more you learn in the process of coming up with answers.

There is a lot of basic physics that has not really been dealt with since Langmuir wrote it up 100 years ago. As an engineer I understand the "let's build it to work" attitude - sometimes you really don't need to know the details, you just need to know how to deal with them. But I think to make fusion really work, we need to revisit some of that basic science and understand some of the details.

I hope EMC2 will be able to prove that doing more science will help answer many questions. The answers will tell us just how hopeful to be for the basic concept - and it may turn out that it can't work. Throwing a lot of money at it may be great for science, but the return on investment will be far different than anticipated (i.e. you won't get energy out, but you might get a great MHD after burner on a coal plant).

Good luck Rick and crew at EMC2!!!

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:46 pm

I think this $200 M cost to develop a net power device can and probably will be divided in a multiple of funding phases.

Well, this is a simple binary decision: either they fund a WB-100 or they don't. If they do, it's going to take roughly that much to get it working, whether they do a one-meter radius non-cooled machine first or not. A one-meter cooled device would cost about the same as a 1.5 m but never reach net power, so it wouldn't really make sense.

I wonder if the reviewers might come up with a list of N things that must be demonstrated before they would recommend funding a $200M+ net power device. So then Rick Nebel has to convince the Navy to fund another device that all agree is capable of demonstrating that N number of things.

That is possible; they might ask for something like a 30cm radius non-cooled device for further proof of concept, at a similar cost to WB-7. However, keep this is mind -- Nebel has argued (as did Bussard) that given what we know and the dollars involved, the next step should be WB-100. With the political atmosphere regarding energy production what it is, some other entity, public or private, might be willing to step in and say "Hey, let's build this thing" rather than spending another two years fiddling around with smaller machines.

And Nebel has said they have detailed reactor designs, which I assume are for a WB-100 machine.

I also second Joe's comment above, and I would further add that no one should assume it's a given that WB-100 will work as hoped. This is a huge technical leap, in many ways more difficult than putting a man on the moon.

Jboily · Post by **Jboily** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:08 pm

Quote:
I think this $200 M cost to develop a net power device can and probably will be divided in a multiple of funding phases.

Well, this is a simple binary decision: either they fund a WB-100 or they don't. If they do, it's going to take roughly that much to get it working, whether they do a one-meter radius non-cooled machine first or not. A one-meter cooled device would cost about the same as a 1.5 m but never reach net power, so it wouldn't really make sense.

Yes, you are quite correct, I was saying 1m device, but was thinking a radius that would be close to the expected commercial reactor radius.

The actual size of a commercial reactor is quite unknown at this time, whatever the radius of the test device that will be build next, it will not be the final proper size of any more refined design.

Even with full funding of a 100Mw commercial reactor demo unit, there will be this intermediate step needed. It can be done at a much lower cost, and reduce the design risks of the net power demo unit.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:21 pm

Well, the power scaling laws are well-established and we know the heat load limits, so a commercial power machine should be around the 1.5m radius Bussard predicted for a 100MW Polywell, if such a machine is possible. Beyond some tweaking of magnet strength versus size, the refinements won't change the former, and the latter won't get a whole lot better without major breakthroughs in materials science.

As Art has noted in another thread, if physics requires a machine much larger than that, then there won't be any commercial applications.

This is why Nebel and Bussard have argued we should go ahead and try a 100MW machine next. We won't learn a lot from another smaller machine and a larger attempt might as well be net power sized.

Jboily · Post by **Jboily** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:32 pm

Refinements won't change the former and the latter won't get a whole lot better without major breakthroughs in materials science.

Well, there are some factors that affect the radius quite a bit, like losses processes, Ions focusing, POPS mode, conversion efficiency, ... and so on. Experimentation with the next devices will help pinpoints these parameters. Unless you are saying that these factors are already well understood.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:33 pm

There's certainly more to learn on all those, but they shouldn't affect the radius of a hypothetical commercial machine that much (even if, for instance, you could get 100MW from a .5M device, the heat load makes it impractical to do so). I think it's fair to assume no net power machine will be smaller than about a meter radius due to basic scaling law, and no commercial machine will be larger than 5M due to cost.

Given those basic constraints, once net power is achieved I imagine further improvements will focus on boosting efficiency by reducing losses.

Josh Cryer · Post by **Josh Cryer** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:43 am

Hey guys. Two questions, first, and foremost, were the neutron counts comparable to WB6? I think that is the single most important question that needs to be answered here, at least in my mind. It may not be currently answerable, however, which leads me to the next question.

I'm assuming EMC2 is under the same or similar NDA that Bussard was under. That is, that they cannot release any data regarding Polywell until the program is effectively over and the Navy has had their way with it. If so would that not mean that we may not see any data regarding EMC2s experiments at all in the foreseeable future? (This is, again making more assumptions, thinking that they would get continued funding which would obviously be the case were the data promising.)