To date, most HP has not gone into the Plasma side of things.
Wow, what does that even mean?
Game the system to get money, then game the money to build credibility, then use the credibility to get more money.
C'mon, you're just throwing Coke bottles from the bleachers with seeming backhanded intimation GF is not legit. As far as I have seen, GF has made significant and documented progress on plasma compression, has full scale plasma injection equipment built, and ongoing testing program. More funding envy?
I hope all 'dark horse' fusion efforts get their needed funding even if it is staged based on achieved milestones.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
Ladajo,
I agree with one sentiment, however, which I think is at the heart of your fusion project risk assessment complaint of GF, and that is that successful plasma conditions is the toughest and the most critical aspect of all the fusion projects (and riskiest, excluding ITER which has the broadest risk profile) and in particular, GF.
Further, in my inexpert opinion, Polywell is better positioned than GF with their approach after proving cusp plugging works, but until a larger machine is demonstrated I would not put all the bets on EMC2.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
Yes, I think all efforts should be pursued, just not blindly. In the case of GF, I am not intimating that they are going to fail. I think it is a distinct possibility, and that it probably centers on the lack of true effort regarding plasma dynamics by them to date. They have been more worried about squishing the plasma, vice looking into what happens to the plasma when squished.
Hopefully, some of this new money will address that. And for the record, all the approaches are at high risks of failure, just some more than others. I leave those risk assessments as an exercise for the reader. And to be clear, I do think GF is at more risk than Polywell for a positive outcome. Everyone can make their own assessments.
I also think that Polywell is positioned better. In fact, outside of ITER, Polywell is probably on a safer path than the others for probability of success. That in itself does not mean I think Polywell will work. It means that I think Polywell has a stronger foundation and is pursuing a more reasonable outcome given the foundation than other approaches. Which, except ITER (which will work, just not economically for the foreseeable future), means it should be getting a better level of support. Unfortunately, just as in all our daily lives, timing and politics tend to influence more than skill and justice. However, that said, in the longer run, skill and justice do tend to play better.
From my perch, I think Polywell will get funding. It is the when and how that is the question. Maybe we will see some movement in the next month or two. If not, I suspect it will be problematic. One can only slow roll to a limit. And based on paperwork we have seen, the limit approachith.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
asdfuogh wrote:>In fact, outside of ITER, Polywell is probably on a safer path than the others for probability of success.
What planet do you guys live on?
Not sure what you are getting at.
ITER will more than likely work, and produce breakeven power. That does not mean it is a viable energy source methodology. If anyone thinks so, they need to understand that they are analogous to saying that the Apollo program was a viable travel methodology for regular moon access. It was not, even if at one point we thought it might be. It, and ITER, just like the Apollo program, will not scale.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
I would also add that considering the steady technological improvements in all the fields related to Fusion research, by the time ITER will produce break even there will probably be plenty of other designs in a more advanced stage if not already in a near commercial production.
Worth to remember that "today" the planned starting date of Deuterium-Tritium operation in ITER is 2027 with a technology that will be (by then) 30 years old!
Anyhow, while it might not be the first commercial machine, my bet for the fusion machine of the future is still on the Polywell.
The design is a beauty of simplicity and elegance and in engineering simplicity and elegance rarely don't work well together.
As I said before, time will tell.
I agree, at this point, we really don't know which, if any, approach will get there. It may be something not thought of yet.
But at this time, I think Polywell is better positioned from a technical standpoint to move on to a net fusion device.
Now if we can align resources appropriately...
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
My jab wasn't aimed to say that ITER or tokamaks will necessarily be successful. My jab was aimed at the terrible perspective that the people of this forum have developed regarding the Polywell.
>In fact, outside of ITER, Polywell is probably on a safer path than the others for probability of success.
"Safer path than the others." By what measure? Polywell is the least well-known of the alternatives, one of the worst funded, and its academic collaborators (and research from third-parties without obvious conflicts-of-interest) are few in number. How could you possibly posit this?
I like the idea of the Polywell. But it's not going to be built on the fluffy speeches of this site. If Polywell wants real investment from venture capitalists, for example, then it's got to find some reputable academics whose careers aren't dependent on its success to judge its work so far and whether it is worth investing in. Investors don't just throw money at problems, and they aren't going to work to understand why they should invest in the Polywell over, say, General Fusion, which is a larger, more organized company, or Helion Energy, which was built on the work of several professors from Univ. of Washington.
Also, don't bank on investors based on the "green energy" angle. There's little reason for them to go that route when there are more than enough low hanging fruits on the side of solar/wind/wave/etc. Polywell has to be able to show them that it's qualitatively different, that it is reachable (via reputable academic judgement, for example), and that they're actually organized as a group and not the inconsistent dissolving mess it seems to have become since Bussard died and Nebel left.
Sounds like an opinion from someone banking their career on ITER, but that is just the way it 'sounds' to me, so that is a purely subjective jab. I'm sure it only just sounds that way and you are in fact just being objective.
By the way, without testing how does one get all the foot draggers and naysayers to line up and say 'Yep'? I would also say Ladajo's view is not capricious and is instead based on showing Grad's cusp plugging hypothesis is validated and lays the foundation for all cusp machines going forward. Did you miss that? Not bad from EMC2's remaining rabble.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
>Sounds like an opinion from someone banking their career on ITER, but that is just the way it 'sounds' to me, so that is a purely subjective jab. I'm sure it only just sounds that way and you are in fact just being objective.
I would not classify myself as objective. However, my work is not on tokamaks.
>howing Grad's cusp plugging hypothesis is validated and lays the foundation for all cusp machines going forward.
It was indication of this, but not strong enough to say that it was validated. Certainly not enough to say that it has the highest chance of success compared to the other approaches.
>Not bad from EMC2's remaining rabble.
I agree. Not bad, but investors aren't looking for "not bad".
Have you read the paper that just posted? What more do you want regarding validation of Grad?
I would also offer that EMC2 has been peer reviewed by an independent board all along. I would also offer that none of this board had an interest in success of fail of Polywell. In fact, they have been candid and forthright in their critiques, both positive and negative, which in turn assisted the EMC2 team in making some good science.
When I say a safer path, I mean one that is better grounded and supported in physics.
Rumor has it that Dr. Park will be speaking again soon. I think it may be interesting.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
ITER is progressing slowly and I agree it will probably reach it's goals provided there have not been any fundamental oversights in the physics. Whether it can be a design that can expand into a sustainable near steady state machine that feeds itself is another matter. As for breakeven, the refurbished JET may trump ITER by at least a decade. Other approaches may surpass ITER in it's time frame, but probably not surpass the JET tokamak for bragging rights.
Bu,t to what purpose? Until Tokamaks can demonstrate, at least on paper, that it is a viable economic source of power, it is mostly an academic exercise. I say mostly because some lessons learned with the Tokamak research may have alternate applications in other designs. There seems to be a small school of thought that Stellarators may be a better approach and it may benefit most from Tokamak lessons.
As for risk, the Polywell seems to have the scaling advantage over FRC. It has demonstrated deep multi KV potential wells and Wiffleball trapping. When ever I see something about FRC, they seem to still be operating at only a few hundred volt energies.
The DPF may may also have demonstrated scaling closer to goals, at least from some graphs presented by Learner, etel. And, I admit that I am impressed with their achievements on a shoe string budget, even more so than the Polywell.
Despite the political convolutions that has slowed ITER by several decades, I have the impression that it is a bridge too far. It is too big for it's purpose. A scaled up JET reactor with a goal of a Q of 1-2 might have given the needed information more cheaply and quicker. It might also have been a better testbed for associated essential technology, like lithium blanket tritium production. As it currently stands, such issues will not be addressed till after ITER, when DEMO rears its huge head in 20-40 years after presumed ITER success is achieved. Work with a more intermediate JET or possibly several other existent Tokamaks may have addressed edge instabilities such that Beta might be pushed a little bit resulting in much more feasible Tokamak or Spheromak designs with out the very expensive and time consuming giant lab of ITER.