General Fusion in the news

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

You two guys do know that "General Fusion" is a company?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

D Tibbets
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by D Tibbets »

hanelyp wrote:
D Tibbets wrote:About the electron diamagnetic effects pushing outward to form the Polywell. What is the role of the ions? The plasma is almost neutral. FYI, while it is beyond my pay grade, there are interactions between the electron and ion pressures.
Given that ion energy is low at the edges of the plasma, ion partial pressure at the plasma / magnetic field interface would be low. Similarly, given that electron energy at the center is low, electron partial pressure there is low. My gut says total plasma pressure is constant across the interior volume. The chief role of ions on electron pressure would seem to be their impact on the potential well, kinetic+potential energy being constant across the volume.
pv=nrt. The energy is small on the edge for the ions so the exerted pressure is also small. That makes sense, though I still struggle with appreciation. Perhaps comparing it to a metal hydride hydrogen fuel tank is analogous.There metal holds onto a lot of hydrogen and only leaks it out only when pressure and temperature overcomes the hydration (?) process. This allows for the retention of relatively large amounts of hydrogen with gas pressures that are surprisingly low. The potential well for the ions would act similarly. Either only rare ions would reach the Wiffleball border and exert pressure on the wall, or conversely many ions may reach this point but their average energy/ temperature at this radius is very low.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

parallel
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by parallel »

GTThruster,
I don't think it is as great as you suppose. The neutron level they claim at 1% is from a model. The actual level is probably 5%. This means the whole thing will become lethal in a few months.

As usual, hot fusion seems inevitably expensive and we would be better served diverting that research money to LENR.
I've given up reporting on LENR progress as the thread is made unreadable by the trolls.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

So, what has LENR got to do with General Fusion? General Fusion is the name of a company that is developing a fusion device, paid for by venture capital. Got it?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

GIThruster
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by GIThruster »

NASA is currently doing a LENR investigation. I'll let you know if they get something interesting.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Skipjack
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Skipjack »

The guys at quantumheat have been trying to replicate Cellanis stuff for months now without any positive results...
Just saying.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

You LENR guys are as bad as msimon is about drugs. It isn't enough to write 10,00 posts about fantasy on its own thread...just like msimon. There is just no hiding from the LENRards. :shock: :)
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Next Big Future has a new article for General Fusion http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/genera ... .html#more

So what is new, I thought, GF was supposed to be going for net fusion with their mini sphere and full scale pistons and full-scale plasma injectors, with plasma injectors being the key area for development. The article talks about commercial by 2020, not full scale prototype, commercial, but nothing was said about whether or not the 2013 goal of net gain with the mini sphere or working out obstacles with the full scale plasma injectors.

So, I went to the GF web site where supposedly more was being said, however, to my surprise there is no longer anything said about the full scale injectors, status or otherwise. Nothing. All the information on status, pictures of test apparatus, all gone. In fact, the website was really stripped down on interesting testing videos. And, nothing about going for net this year with the mini sphere. Indeed, nothing about testing with the mini sphere this year, just the goal of 2020 commercial and the cost of $500 million to do that.

So, it seems the real news is less information, except for whose who added to the board, "In September, General Fusion added some serious scientific muscle to its team, appointing two renowned names in energy and technology circles to its board" (who adds their scientific muscle to a board?). It smells like a big financing move is afoot, after all, money people seem these days to have no interest in technical detail (why add science muscle to a board when how good the coffee is is the most technical question likely to be asked).

All I can say is that these fusion projects these days seem to think no information is best. Maybe GF reached their 2013 goal with their full size plasma injectors and everything with the mini sphere worked out and they are going black except for the money, and that also maybe going black.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Where We Are Going
Full Scale, Net Gain Prototype

In the next phase of development, General Fusion will be constructing a full scale prototype system. The prototype will be designed for single pulse testing, demonstrating full net energy gain on each pulse, a world first.
I guess the mini sphere testing has moved on to the next phase (an astounding milestone if true). I think deep pocket money has been lined up, too.

No fanfare, no proof (obviously), for this conjecture, but unless they are asking me for money I doubt they will give it to me. Back to the lawn chair and cooler.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Carl White
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by Carl White »

mvanwink5 wrote:The article talks about commercial by 2020...(snip)...they are going black except for the money, and that also maybe going black.
So, you figure no more news until the turn of the decade?

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Carl,
I have no idea how much we'll know. Tri Alpha and EMC2 (Polywell) are certainly keeping quiet. I can only guess that GF is following suit.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

mvanwink5 wrote:Carl,
I have no idea how much we'll know. Tri Alpha and EMC2 (Polywell) are certainly keeping quiet. I can only guess that GF is following suit.
I would disagree with that Tri Alpha Energy is keeping quiet. As I posted earlier they have a massive amount of contributions at next weeks 55th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics. Since 2010 Tri Alpha Energy has had tens of contributions in that conference.

I would also disagree with that General Fusion is doing the same. They post on their webpages conferences which they attend: http://www.generalfusion.com/media/conf ... nd-events/.

EMC2 is certainly quiet about their results, but it is interesting to see that they have put up their website again. It remains to see whether they will put new content there as well.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

crowberry,
Yes, there are published papers and more coming, it is just that I can't tell what Tri Alpha's milestones are much less their projected completion dates. At least we have a commercial target date for General Fusion. However, I can't tell what General Fusion's results were for the mini sphere even though it looks like (can't tell for sure, maybe I am wrong) they are moving to the next phase, the full size prototype.

I am surprised the Polywell website is back up. Maybe they have finished with all the WB-8 testing? Rob has hinted they are doing well, but there is no way to know what that even means.
Best regards,
Mike
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

swamijake
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by swamijake »

The next phase for General Fusion is to take the plasma injectors and bolt them to the mini sphere, start firing it and count the neutrons. If they are on track they will move to a commercial sized unit. I'm pretty sure they are funded through to full test of the assembled unit.

The last presentation I saw (which I think I found here) had the sphere performing above requirements (main issue being timing and resiliency of the steam hammers) , but the plasma injectors still had a little way to go to get to the required plasma density. They have been publishing papers regarding their work on the plasma system.

They can't put everything together at their location in Burnaby. I haven't heard where they are going to assemble the whole test rig, as they have a few interesting requirements.

High Ceiling - (I assume they want to keep it inside)
Large power connection - (those capacitor banks and lead pumps must be fairly hungry)
Industrial zoned and set up for containment of contamination - (how many tons of liquid lead?)

The team is pretty experienced in building and testing high tech stuff.

The board additions are pretty interesting. MIT nuclear scientist, former ceo of Areva. Good technical addition and good utility addition.

If the physics works they're doing the right things.

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

swamijake
Thank you for clarification on GF progress. For some reason I had it in my mind that the plasma injectors had been installed, but of course why would they do that before achieving targeted plasma compression and lifetimes. As I understand it the full scale plasma injector performance is the remaining milestone for "net gain."

Assembling the whole mini sphere, hammers, injectors, sub systems must be a sight, and not cheap. Thanks.
Best regards,
Mike
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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