TheEEStory.com

Some educated speculation gleaned from the WB8 contract:
http://tinyurl.com/nlecq6

Generic: thanks for the link ... that's great news!

amazing stuff, very cool. I wonder how long till implementation?

Great....
Lets hope it all comes to fruition.
Polywell, EEStor and Cyclone Power - http://www.cyclonepower.com/

Dr. Richard Nebel, head of EMC2 corp. which is basically a group of 5 scientists carrying on with Dr. Bussard's work, believes he'll have the answer as to weather Polywell Fusion will work in less then 2 years....exciting stuff!

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05/dr-richard-neb...

cyclone said efficiencies nearing those of the best diesels. Ok but still not that high. I do like the fact it can burn anything. A Volt system car may benefit from an engine/generator like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard

Last edited Thu, 25 Jun 2009, 1:09am by Pyjamas Before Christ

Very interesting commentary during the Q&A on the problem of putting together the pieces of basic research and engineering prototypes without adequate funding, a problem driven by political forces.

Wow, what a mouthful about "revolutionary ideas" being ignored by the scientific community, the government, and the investment community!!!

Thanks, PJC!

Shoot--please note that my prior two posts immediately above refer to the Bussard video.

Yes, please , here are some more videos for you to enjoy

Thank you Pyjamas!

Had no idea there were more videos available beyond the google chat. Looking forward to watching them after work.

I was thinking of my back yard, the grass that I cut. A Cyclone lawnmower, fed on grass clippings, which can be used in a Cyclone generator to charge an EEStor capacitor - car or home. I would not care how much grass clipping it required to charge up either.

I am about to have my monthly wrestling match with my ic lawnmower...

It concerns me that the powers that be want us all dependent on their services. This would be some independence...

woot!

"Energy Matter Conversion Corp., (EMC2)*, Santa Fe, N.M., is being awarded a $7,855,504 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for research, analysis, development, and testing in support of the Plan Plasma Fusion (Polywell) Project. Efforts under this Recovery Act award will validate the basic physics of the plasma fusion (polywell) concept, as well as provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion. Work will be performed in Santa Fe, N.M., and is expected to be completed in April 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to FAR 6.302-1. The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, China Lake, Calif., is the contracting activity (N68936-09-C-0125)."

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/09/polyw...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/...

Yup

Exciting stuff...Dr. Nebel has been unusually quiet lately but I'm sure he's busy...=).

Still, they claim they will know whether the scaling laws will hold up in 2 years, and if all goes well, commercial plants could be operating by 2020.

The combination of Polywell and EEStor would be enough to practically eliminate fossil fuel use.

The good thing about Polywell is that they now have carefully peer-reviewed experimental evidence from WB-7 and a scientific rationale which everyone agrees is possible. There are still many uncertainties, which will mostly be resolved over next two years with data from WB-8.

It is much more likely to provide useful fusion power in the next twenty years than ITER! Not that that is saying a lot.

Tom For once we agree totally.

Private company raises Government funds based on:
Idea 20 years in gestation.
Missed delivery dates.
Polywell idea is routinely dismissed by eminent scientists.
The data is not published (secrecy per the US Navy).
Secret peer review by unknown reviewers.
Reasonable - not excessive - money available.
The Navy no longer calls it a 'AGEE' but a fusion device breaking secrecy.
Initial application likely military, not commercial.
Religious Web Site filled with believers and skeptics.
Potential to change the world.
Disclaimer: I follow and post on both web sites.

Why is this different from EEStor?

Just one difference that I can see.
Government not private enterprise money.

big improvements in material science is also helpful. Improvements are being made in manufacturable superconductors that have a high enough thermal conductivity that they can be effectively cooled. Making the x-ray spectra very narrow is probably the most important thing if they are going to use the B11+H reaction.

Why is this different from EEStor?

The participation of the US Government is much less visible (if at all) for EEStor and it appears as though EEStor is coming to market a great deal faster.

If Polywell requires substantial current integration at the alpha collector, I can't think of a better capacitor bank than series connected EESU's.

Go, Polywell, Go!

Polywell is the only other project that seems to me to have a chance to have as big an impact as eestor. I guess polywell...if it works out, would be bigger. I havent read too much on it but I've spoken to DoD folks who believe in it.

eestorblog wrote:

... as big an impact as eestor. ...

LOL as big? it's much much bigger!

PNeilson 9.9/2 wrote:

Tom For once we agree totally.

Private company raises Government funds based on:
Idea 20 years in gestation.
Missed delivery dates.
Polywell idea is routinely dismissed by eminent scientists.
The data is not published (secrecy per the US Navy).
Secret peer review by unknown reviewers.
Reasonable - not excessive - money available.
The Navy no longer calls it a 'AGEE' but a fusion device breaking secrecy.
Initial application likely military, not commercial.
Religious Web Site filled with believers and skeptics.
Potential to change the world.
Disclaimer: I follow and post on both web sites.

Why is this different from EEStor?

Just one difference that I can see.
Government not private enterprise money.

Glad you make comparison, it is illuminating.

Polywell has its "P will change the world" dreamers. But the "centre of gravity" is that it is unproven, worth finding out even at 10% chance of working (though there are degrees to working in any case - it could be useful as a neutron source).

No-one is inventing new science to explain it. The scientific discussion takes place without unfounded optimistic speculations.

The scientific case for Polywell has been made properly and while there is debate about whether this is correct, it is good science and any external scientist reviewing it would say that at least it has small chance of working and should be checked.

Nebel does not claim that Polywell will work, and in fact claims nothing except that he is collecting worthwhile data. Others (a panel of indepenent scientists) evaluate this data and decide whether funding continues or not. Said scientists have no commercial interest in the issue.

Polywell has recently won $8,000,000 funding based on such an independent review.

Now here is what would make Polywell LIKE eestor:

Polywell gets funding by selling license to public company that promisses to make billions by making Polywell-powered spacecraft.

NASA take some interest in Polywell but refuse to say what this is, they do not claim to have ever seen a working Polywell prototype.

You get the idea...

PS - also - no-one has ever suggested that the EMC2 crowd are faudulent.

Last edited Sun, 20 Sep 2009, 3:54pm by ee-tom

eestorblog wrote:

Polywell is the only other project that seems to me to have a chance to have as big an impact as eestor. I guess polywell...if it works out, would be bigger. I havent read too much on it but I've spoken to DoD folks who believe in it.

I sincerely hope Polywell's impact will be very different from Eestor's.

ee-tom

Have you been following Polywell closely enough that you have an opinion about its chances of success, and by success I mean commercially viable power?

They must have been pretty positive results from the WB-7 tests, I think the grant was larger then most expected.

And yes, Dr. Nebel has never publicly stated that it will work but if you read into some of his older posts on talk-polywell, he seems pretty confident in some of his forward looking statements.

Why are we spending Billions on ITER and only Millions on Polywell?????

Tom

A few more facts.

Dr. Bussard raised his first $20 million or so of public financing for Polywell based on outrageous, unverified, fantastic claims. Any physicist asked about Dr. Bussard's claims 10 years ago said he was a crackpot. As the last of his money ran out a few years ago, on his sixth attempt at a polywell, he said he had a success. He had a tiny shred of data of questionable quality. He then spent several years without funding and died while popularizing his ideas and seeking funding. Oh, and he did write patents and has a polywell patent.

Dr. Bussard's Google video spurred an internet campaign lead by M. Simon (perhaps aided by the data) that got a small amount of funding to try and replicate Dr. Bussard's last results.

We think Dr Nebel's replication results were successful, he got more funding in any event. There is no public data so we just don't know what Dr. Nebel found.

Someone could attribute nefarious motives to Dr's Bussard and Nebel as you do to Dick Weir. After all, the public evidence is the same. But I won't.

The only real difference I find between Polywell Energy Generation and EESU Energy Storage is that EEStor has to function with private money vs. Polywell's public money.

I see that everything EEStor has done is necessary to function as a private company. I base this on my own experience founding and running a private company. My only commercial complaint about EEStor is that they have not raised enough capital to move fast enough to be successful.

Therefore, I read your response as:

1) You are basically against any kind of privately financed technological development.
2) You are for any kind of government funded technological development.

Now I know why England lost the empire.

Best wishes from an Ugly American,

Paul

Robw wrote:

ee-tom

Have you been following Polywell closely enough that you have an opinion about its chances of success, and by success I mean commercially viable power?

They must have been pretty positive results from the WB-7 tests, I think the grant was larger then most expected.

And yes, Dr. Nebel has never publicly stated that it will work but if you read into some of his older posts on talk-polywell, he seems pretty confident in some of his forward looking statements.

I think it is a long-shot. There are many unresolved issues - if it was clearer it would get more main-stream funding. But through a long-shot I do think there is real possibility. The WB-7 results were clearly positive. Wait two years (at least, unlike Eestor, you have a time limit).

If it is positive after two years, the prospects of commercial power will still be uncertain, but I would expect big excitement and effort thereafter.

Therefore, I read your response as:

1) You are basically against any kind of privately financed technological development.
2) You are for any kind of government funded technological development.

Now I know why England lost the empire.

How about:
I support scientists who go for high risk/return ideas and don't make preposterous claims (Nebel)

I don't support scientists who make absurd claims based on zero evidence, and talk nonsense (Weir)

If some scientist came out with support for Weir's ideas about ultra-high ED ceramic dielectric and a plan of investigation to confirm/deny it I would back that. But they won't, because the science case can't be made, even as a long-shot.

If it was not for Bussard's preposterous claims Nebel would have nothing.

Weir is not a scientist - he is trying to build a business.

Like I said - for you (and most of the English) any commercial intent is suspicious. For me (and many, maybe even most Americans) if you don't have commercial intent who cares!