This is good news. It appears that Richard Nebel and company have sufficient funds to verify if polywell will work and, if so, take it to the next level of development. This is indeed good news.
However, I second Art Carlson's idea of getting more discussions going on John Slough's FRC concept. Although we hope for the best, the FRC concept does appear to be on sounder scientific footing and we need a backup option in the event that the polywell concept does not work out. We want fusion power, preferably polywell, but if not polywell, any fusion concept will do.
EMC2 Gets $8 million
KitemanSA wrote:
Chrismb,
Now come-on chrismb, ya GOTTA suppose that SOMETHING interesting is happening here.
It was implied that some interesting findings were likely to have been the reason for the budget going from 2M to 8M. It's a non-sequitur; projects in which interesting findings are made may well attract more funding, but that doesn't mean more funding is consequent to interesting findings having been made. (I believe this is called in logic a "fallacy of the undistributed middle".)Robthebob wrote:Come now Chrismb
All of us know that magnetic confinement schemes have always been slow to progress, because their machines has to be big. That's just how the physics works, and big machines cost a lot of money, especially high tech/high science machines.
)Funding means interest. More expensive doesn't necessarily mean more interesting. You're confusing a boolean with a scalar.That's a bit like arguing that ITER's funding must mean there is [10billion/5million=] 20,000 times more likely that something more interesting is happening in Cadarache than in Santa Fe
This means now we have a chance to find out what the B scaling looks like. There's a good chance this will either set the table for a reactor or disprove the concept.
TallDave wrote:Funding means interest. More expensive doesn't necessarily mean more interesting. You're confusing a boolean with a scalar.That's a bit like arguing that ITER's funding must mean there is [10billion/5million=] 20,000 times more likely that something more interesting is happening in Cadarache than in Santa Fe
This means now we have a chance to find out what the B scaling looks like. There's a good chance this will either set the table for a reactor or disprove the concept.
There's also the beauty of covering new ground of discovering new questions. I'll bet Dr. N and team is going to get plenty of ... "What the heck?" type moments ahead.
It looks like this is the award vs. solicitation of the original $2 million line item in the proposed "recovery" funds.Aero wrote:MSimon - Is this the same project, with new budget figures? But your original post implied new wording so I thought maybe their had been a contract mod, at least. ???
As for Rick's reaction over receiving $8M instead of $2M, note that we never knew, and still don't know how much Rick was asking for. But if the performance period was extended along with the money then its still business as usual without the need to stop work every year to chase down money. That by itself would be a big help to the project.
I'm thinking that the $2 million was not the real number. Just a place holder.
I think this is still WB-8 experiments + WB-9 design.
Some one more into the ins and outs of solicitation vs funding ought to chime in here.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
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kunkmiester
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The quoted part also says that this money does not expire at the end of the year. That means if they only spend 2 mil this year, they'll have 6 mil next year. This gives Nebel a lot of flexibility in how to spend it. If he's already bought a machine, he'll probably hold off on buying another one with the new money until he has some results to build on. I can see some better sensors being acquired though.
Evil is evil, no matter how small
I agree and that means things are moving. I like it when things are moving. I hate stasis.This means now we have a chance to find out what the B scaling looks like. There's a good chance this will either set the table for a reactor or disprove the concept.
In science the outcome is not as important as the fact that research is actually happening. Even a failure can teach us something important. Even though, I do hope (as most people here, I suppose) that results will be positive. I am a very impatient person by nature (it is one of the flaws in my personality). So the fact that things are moving and they are now moving faster makes me very happy. I hope that the increased budget makes things move even faster now (though there are things that dont speed up linearily with the available budget, unfortunately).
Anyway, I am very excited.
I figured 10 million for seven 3T SC magnets, power supplies, and a shield bldg. plus an operating budget. So $8 mil may be right for .8T pulsed magnets.TallDave wrote:I'm guessing this money only covers one machine (WB-8 ) and the design for WB-9.
What do you think Simon? 12 .8T magnets plus a vacuum chamber to fit them, assembly, testing... that sounds like about $8-10 mil to my inexpert ears.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.