Polywell being discussed afar!

[choff]

Fusion power would greatly extend the life of the oil and coal industries, though it would reduce the influence of oil on politics. Transportation and refinement costs would drop off.
With oil wells where the pressure has dropped off, it becomes possible to literally dig right down to the pool and haul it up. This is a big deal because well life is currently controlled largely by well pressure and not total reserves.
It would allow clean coal to become a reality and not a fiction, and allow cheaper implementation of environmental safety measures.
Even though oil and gas usage would drop off as a fuel, the poorest 2 billion people on the planet will be able to afford the middle class lifestyle of Europe and America, that will greatly extend the demand for plastics, rubber, and every other non-fuel use for oil and coal.

[JCee]

I doubt the plastic and rubbers from oil will surge too much there is a quite revolution occurring in Biotech Plastics that is happening whether or not Polywell is successful.

Biosynthesis: Yeast yields plastic ingredient

Nature Volume:467, Page: 887 Date published: (21 October 2010)
DOI: 10.1038/467887c Published online 20 October 2010

This paper goes over a cheap and easy to way to make polyethylene from a genetic engineered yeast. This process is way past the Lab stage and into the Pilot Plant production stage. The traditional method to make the polyethylene precursors from oil is expensive and difficult. This method will cheaper and easier even if electric prices plummet. Once the first direct replacement of a Major Conventional Plastic takes place there will be an explosion in the develop of other BioTech replacements for other common plastics and rubbers.

[ladajo]

Fusion power would greatly extend the life of the oil and coal industries, though it would reduce the influence of oil on politics. Transportation and refinement costs would drop off.
With oil wells where the pressure has dropped off, it becomes possible to literally dig right down to the pool and haul it up. This is a big deal because well life is currently controlled largely by well pressure and not total reserves.
It would allow clean coal to become a reality and not a fiction, and allow cheaper implementation of environmental safety measures.
Even though oil and gas usage would drop off as a fuel, the poorest 2 billion people on the planet will be able to afford the middle class lifestyle of Europe and America, that will greatly extend the demand for plastics, rubber, and every other non-fuel use for oil and coal.

You make an interesting point. So how would the cost of recovery for non-pressurized reserves compare to the cost of polywell? How does cost of non-pressurized recovery compare to pressurized?
The predication of polywell impacting the international energy market is in its ability to supplant existing sources as a cheaper alternative. All that being equal, the real question is where would the equilibrium point be and how fast will we get to it? The follow on question, is how does this shift in the market impact oil and gas dependant state economies and stability? The question after that is how does a new cheaper access to energy impact growth and stability of states that can not currently afford 1st or 2nd world levels of energy consumption?
And finally, how does this aggregate impact the continuing struggle between states and regions over resources and power?
In an extreme, I think that polywell has an ability to re-write the rules of engagement for the current world (and in the future possibly extra-world) struggle of life and primacy.
Existence is conflict, and in conflict we all seek to succeed, to do not is to give cause for a cease of existence.

[Giorgio]

This paper goes over a cheap and easy to way to make polyethylene from a genetic engineered yeast. This process is way past the Lab stage and into the Pilot Plant production stage. The traditional method to make the polyethylene precursors from oil is expensive and difficult. This method will cheaper and easier even if electric prices plummet. Once the first direct replacement of a Major Conventional Plastic takes place there will be an explosion in the develop of other BioTech replacements for other common plastics and rubbers.

You have a good point, but bioengineered plastic has the big disadvantage that to manufacture it you need to use land otherwise used to produce food.
Cheap oil will eventually drive the use of land toward more profitable crops.

[JCee]

You have a good point, but bioengineered plastic has the big disadvantage that to manufacture it you need to use land otherwise used to produce food.
Cheap oil will eventually drive the use of land toward more profitable crops.

Actually with the use of yeast you just need the equivalent of large Breweries to make the compounds but you may have a point anyway the sugars and nutrients that are usually necessary to grow the yeast typically come from crops.

Possiple Solutions
1) A two level fermentation with an algae being raised to produce sugars to feed the yeast could probably get around that problem

2) The insertion of Chloroplasts into the yeast to make its own energy.

3) Transfer and insertion of the genes to make the polyethylene precursors in an algae instead.

No guarantee any of the above solutions will work but I would bet one would. Of course I might be a bit biased.

[AcesHigh]

I already posted it before, but Brasken opened a huge plant in southern Brazil to produce only bioplastics.

"Although its main feedstock is naphtha, the company Braskem's Green Ethylene plant was inaugurated in September, 2010. This green ethylene plant is an important step forward the strategy of becoming a global leader in sustainable chemicals. The plant is the largest industrial-scale operation in the world producing ethylene made from 100% renewable raw materials, i.e., sugar-cane. The project was conceived and installed in less than two years based on Braskem’s proprietary technology.

Located at the Triunfo Petrochemical Complex in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the plant will produce 200,000 tons of green ethylene, which will be transformed into an equivalent volume of green plastic."

[jsbiff]

Fusion power would greatly extend the life of the oil and coal industries, though it would reduce the influence of oil on politics. Transportation and refinement costs would drop off.
With oil wells where the pressure has dropped off, it becomes possible to literally dig right down to the pool and haul it up. This is a big deal because well life is currently controlled largely by well pressure and not total reserves.
It would allow clean coal to become a reality and not a fiction, and allow cheaper implementation of environmental safety measures.
Even though oil and gas usage would drop off as a fuel, the poorest 2 billion people on the planet will be able to afford the middle class lifestyle of Europe and America, that will greatly extend the demand for plastics, rubber, and every other non-fuel use for oil and coal.

I've sometimes wondered - could the advent of cheap power from fusion (or even increased use of fusion - though polywell, if it actually delivers, looks like it might produce power at, perhaps, orders-of-magnitude cheaper than fission(?)), actually lead to an increase in use of fossil fuels, and an increase in carbon emissions?

I first got to thinking about that question, when I heard about bitumen/oil sand/oil shale. My understanding is that if you can get lots of cheap energy for steam production, you can produce a LOT of oil from the oil sands and oil shales in various places around the world. Presuming your earlier statements are true, it sounds like a similar situation prevails for oil wells that are currently considered 'dead', but have a LOT more oil available, if you have cheap energy available to extract it?

[bennmann]

Why would society pump old oil up from the ground for very long?

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

If fusion became a reality of our infrastructure, companies would make algae farms and just use electric lamps to "feed" the cultures. No need to ever pump oil out of the ground again. This also has the benefit of recycling carbon waste.

[D Tibbets]

Why would society pump old oil up from the ground for very long?

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

If fusion became a reality of our infrastructure, companies would make algae farms and just use electric lamps to "feed" the cultures. No need to ever pump oil out of the ground again. This also has the benefit of recycling carbon waste.

In reality, it all boils down to cost and attitudes. First electricity or process steam from a Polywell will not be several orders of magnitude cheaper. Bussard at one point claimed a ~ 50% decrease in grid power based on the Polywell. There are a lot of other factors that feed into the final cost. In any case , if there is any significant impact, it will take 10-40 years to penetrate the markets.. If the Polywell works and is cheaper, it will be used. By that time the current confusion, and politics about possible global warming will hopefully be resolved. That may be a significant driver (in addition to costs) on the paths taken there after.

Dan Tibbets

[TallDave]

I believe Bussard at one point published something in which he envisioned Polywells on ships processing biowaste into fuel, which becomes cost-effective when you have cheap fusion energy. We're probably headed somewhere like that if Polywell pans out.

[jsbiff]

I believe Bussard at one point published something in which he envisioned Polywells on ships processing biowaste into fuel, which becomes cost-effective when you have cheap fusion energy. We're probably headed somewhere like that if Polywell pans out.

I'm a bit confused. . . if you have a polywell on your ship, wouldn't you use the energy from it to directly drive your ship (e.g. Steam Turbines or electric motors), instead of using the energy to process biowaste to fuel?

[KitemanSA]

I believe Bussard at one point published something in which he envisioned Polywells on ships processing biowaste into fuel, which becomes cost-effective when you have cheap fusion energy. We're probably headed somewhere like that if Polywell pans out.

I'm a bit confused. . . if you have a polywell on your ship, wouldn't you use the energy from it to directly drive your ship (e.g. Steam Turbines or electric motors), instead of using the energy to process biowaste to fuel?

There are many things on ships that need fuel besides the Main Propulsion Unit and Main TurboGenerators. Think planes, helos, small craft... Oh, and other ships that are perhaps too small to redily use a Polywell. Carrier's supplying the Frigates?

[ladajo]

Polywell (as envisioned) will fit on a Frigate or a submarine. The initial selling concept for the navy was submarines.
Aircraft are another issue. Although, there is a concerted effort to move to UAV and UCAV and make these fuel cell/electric.
X-47 for now is Brayton, but it is not that big a leap to go electric.
A quote from my day today in DC by a senior navy guy is that JSF will be the last major design revision for navy manned combat aircraft. Efforts are now shifted to unmanned.