Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

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CherryPick
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by CherryPick »

classicpenny wrote: Every week of delay in seriously addressing the AGW catastrophe is making its consequences more difficult to correct. Many of our planet’s great coral reefs are already doomed, and the breakup of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with its accompanying ten foot increase in sea level is already inevitable. The only way to seriously address AGW is to cut CO2 and Methane emissions in any way we can; to do this we must replace almost all of our fossil fuel energy sources with carbon-free energy. The Polywell may be the only alternative with the potential to do that in an effective, economical and reliable manner.
The goal of the AGW cult is not to reduce CO2 emissions but to extract money more effectively than ever before. The big government people do not like working alternative energy. Unreliables like wind and solar are expensive enough to rise the prices of carbon based energy which is good news for those who want to earn tax money.

Cheap abundant energy is their worst nightmare. They want dependent people who rely on the government. People are difficult to control if the cost of living goes down. Biofuels were shoot down. Nuclear is destroyed with propaganda and regulations.
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Teemu
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by Teemu »

ladajo wrote:I would wager that Dr. Park has submitted new patents given the release of the paper in the wild.
He is not one to leave himself and EMC2 unprotected.
Or maybe there is nothing to patent at the moment. You can't patent "We've done further tests and it seems to work as suggested in previous patents and publications", just like you can't patent "we've done a bigger wheel and it seems to follow the scaling laws".

ladajo
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by ladajo »

Wait and see.
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)

Betruger
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by Betruger »

Sure hope politicians aren't brought in till after the cat's undoubtedly out of the bag.
You can do anything you want with laws except make Americans obey them. | What I want to do is to look up S. . . . I call him the Schadenfreudean Man.

Robthebob
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by Robthebob »

Dear ladajo,

Can you address classicpenny's posts? (as much as you can)

-Robthebob
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

Robthebob
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by Robthebob »

A. I know Energy won’t like it, but as a taxpayer I’m asking them to drop their biases, and do their Congressionally designated job.
You go out there and find any plasma physicist/electric engineer, it's pretty much a guarantee they havent heard of, do not know enough about or are not proponent of polywell. This is the community DoE listens to as far as where to send the money. Granted, people hardly ever admit that they've just been messing around for the last 60 years and request people send the money elsewhere. While scientists and engineers may operate slightly above human biases, polywell is still not foolproof; granted donut machines and beam compression have their own share of issues, but they're the king of the hill, dont expect them to step down until we've built a demo plant with the gauge running positive. That sounds extremely pessimistic, but that's how it is.
B. I know the Office of Naval Research believes that the Polywell is ready for private investment, but they are mistaken.
you should talk to ladajo about this. He's way more informed about the subject.
The p-B11 Polywell will turn out to be one of the most important developments in the twenty-first century. It will be as big as the Apollo Project or the Manhattan Project, and the sooner we can start to treat it as such, the better off we will be...
Like I said, while the fundamental issues with beam compression and donut machines are perhaps worse (or at best equal) issues for those machines than the fundamental issues with polywell (granted we havent made bigger polywells with better e-guns and plasma injectors; the equivalent for beam compression is NIF (or for argument's sake the successor of NIF), which we know how that turned out; the equivalent for donut machine is ITER, and that's long ways away...) the mainstream approaches just have vastly more proponents. I know I know... is this a popularity contest? What are we? still in high school? But WE ARE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL.

Besides... the directing of money of DoE is very tight, especially right now. Most of the money is going towards mainstream approaches; in fact a huge amount of the money is going to ITER. Polywell is just not in a good position to seek money from DoE. You cant relocate money that would otherwise go to ITER, because it makes the US look bad on the fusion energy front internationally. You cant relocate money from other projects domestically, because people will fight tooth and nail for their rice bowl.

The real best hope (in my opinion the clearest path) is to continue staying under the radar. Until there's a demo plant with the gauge running positive or at the very least, a bigger machine with bigger and better e-guns and plasma injectors, we are not going to convert many of the field experts to our side.
1. We must begin to treat this as the top level national priority it will become.
I dont disagree with you, but let's not toot our own horns.
2. We must implement Polywell development without delay, and encourage it to proceed with utmost dispatch. The longer the existing program is in limbo, the more valuable people will be lost, and the longer it will take to restart. This is NOT like building a house, where you can just bring in another crew of carpenters to finish the job – there were probably four or five physicists in the history of the entire planet who fully understood the issues: one of them is already dead and one of them is over 80.
I'm convinced that now there are literature out there about WB effect; it will not be possible for polywell to completely disappear anymore (unless there are hard experimental evidence that invalidates the results of Parks, et al) When there is so much support (while still in the super super minority of plasma physics community), you bet that even if emc2 completely disappear from the face of the Earth right now, someone will step forth, the progress may be delayed 1 or 2 decades, maybe even more, but WB effect is no longer this crazy old plasma physicist with under funded set up telling the world that it happens, IT DOES HAPPEN!
3. A development program like the Polywell, that is breaking totally new ground, must have a minimum of strings attached so the researchers are free to make appropriate changes as new discoveries surface. If private venture capitalists are involved, they will want to control their money and there will inevitably be serious strings attached.
There're strings with government money too. The ideal case is emc2 getting angel investor money, who are basically fully committed and have full faith in the path, because that would be no strings. Realistically, I'm not sure that is an option available right now. The easiest path is probably angel investors who are willing to provide just enough money; we can't expect to go 100% on day 1 (that's only possible with the ideal case).
4. Venture Capitalists are traditionally unwilling to invest more than $100 million. While they may be drawn in by Dr. Park’s initial request for $30 to $40 million, they will inevitably balk at his request for $200 million that will certainly follow in two or three years.


I think that's perfectly fine. Show the bigger machine with better e-gun and plasma injector works, and that's pretty much all the proof anyone will need. So yes, right now asking for 200 million in 3 or 4 years is a lot, but in in 3 or 4 years, with the data, then asking for 200 million is reasonable.
5. China and Korea are interested in becoming investors. Iran has already spent $8 million on their own Polywell program. I do NOT want the U.S. to end up buying Polywell’s from China or Korea or Iran! - not when the Polywell was invented by an American and initially developed by the Navy. That would be both humiliating and infuriating; and it must not happen!
As long as we get to fusion, even this (among most other less desirable paths) are completely acceptable in my book.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

choff
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by choff »

I wouldn't worry too much about methane, it breaks down faster than CO2, plus there's evidence the permafrost is increasing rather than thawing, as for the Antarctic, the glacial melt is geothermal.


http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/06/10/a ... r-melting/

http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/25/arctic-time-bomb/
CHoff

classicpenny
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by classicpenny »

CherryPick wrote:The goal of the AGW cult is not to reduce CO2 emissions but to extract money more effectively than ever before...Biofuels were shoot down. Nuclear is destroyed with propaganda and regulations.
Some cult!
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Just look at all those evil cultists in Hobart Australia
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Biofuels were shot down because we burn fossil fuels to produce biofuel;nuclear fission was shot down for good reasons: Chernobyl, TMI, Fukushima Daiichi...how many disasters does it take?

mvanwink5
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by mvanwink5 »

Classicpenny,
The CAGW funding is all political, the UN IPCC is political, activists with a "green" agenda and socialism hopes in their dreamy eyes are populating those organizations, forgotten Climategate 1,2,3? So, please take your pictures to "General." Polywell makes tremendous sense on kWh and capital costs alone. And look to General Fusion Inc. if you don't think VC's will properly fund Polywell.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

classicpenny
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by classicpenny »

This is the time to be trying to get Dr. Park the money he needs. Isn't this something we can all agree to?
I am doing my best to get congress to add a separate $40 million Polywell line item to the 2015 Energy budget: I am trying to get Dr. Park the money he needs for his next step, in a way that seems obvious to me. Of course there are other ways to get him the money. I know other people are working on some of them, and I say more power to them. It is undeniably to Dr. Park's advantage to have multiple financial pathways to choose from.
To those of you who are US voters, and also want to help: one suggestion might be for you go to the official website of your US Senator or Representative and -using their contact web page- apprise them of the situation and make recommendations as you see fit.

mvanwink5
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by mvanwink5 »

CP,
I understand your thoughts on funding even when I find the CAGW political narrative to be just to fund political cronies and push for more power over the unwashed serfs. Day 1 of the published Park paper I rashly, out of useless frustration, hammered (politely) on my senator. However, TPB's are crooked as a dog's hind leg and although you might hope to find some "honest" ears, I am reminded of what happens when those political idiots get involved in anything, anything. There was a bridge and trucks would try to pass on the way up and end up slowing both lanes. To "solve" the problem, the politicos kept anybody from passing. So, you see, all you may do is to muck up things by getting the stooges to stomp around. Washington does not work like you think. They are idiots with power, funded by crooks.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

classicpenny
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by classicpenny »

mvanwink5 wrote:Washington does not work like you think: They are idiots with power, funded by crooks.
You may be surprised to know that I agree with you in part: in Washington there are many shortsighted people (who do indeed look like idiots) who have indeed been bought by crooks. But - to restate - it is to Dr. Parks advantage to have a choice of financial pathways. That way, he will be in a better position to negotiate for a minimum of strings and other options he may want.

ladajo
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by ladajo »

in 3 or 4 years, with the data, then asking for 200 million is reasonable
Yes.

EMC2 needs funding. Personnaly, I think it is a prime candidate for crowd funding. The problem with that is the unprecedented levels it would need from that sort of lane. To get it moving forward, You are talking $15 to $30 million over three or so years.
One of the problems I think is very clear once you notice it. That is the team.
In order to do this work you can't go to the local 401 and hire an electrician, and then get another one the week after.
It is specialized work with specialized experience. And the only guys who really have it are those who are on the team. This is most definately not general plasma work.
There is a reason that the WB principle took about 60 years from conception to proof. It was not easy.

Getting congressional money ponied up is not full proof. Congress funds and unfunds stuff at will, for no apparent logic other than the almighty purchase of votes.
How many votes do you think funding EMC2 is going to get the average member of Congress? It may cost them votes.

Anything coming out of ONR right now is second and third hand and even beyond hearsay.
If you were not in the room, or talking to some of the folks who were in the room, you don't have the real story.
At this point, unless Congress or OPNAV jams EMC2 up ONR's nose, they are not going to fund it. They do not have the money.
That does not mean that the navy may decide to fund another way to fund it. It is about buckets of money. And ONR RDT&E is more flexible than OPNAV RDT&E.
If someone of clout at OPNAV thinks it is worth picking up on a funding line (and there is a lot that woudl go into that choice), then they will.
Does that mean that EMC2 will take it? Dunno. Ask EMC2. They may find a better route that guarantees a solid team for at least three years. Because it really is about telling the team that they can focus on the work, and are not pinch hitters, part time or seasonal.
Here is a contract of employment for 4 years. Period.

In any event, experiences with congress feeling pressure, and in turn pressuring DoD most often ends up with un-intended results that don't relate to the original bright idea. And, these results are usually to the negative. Just my two cents.

I am sure the Dr. Park has ideas where to get money. Now it is a matter of what that money will cost, and how reliable is it over the proposed term of the project.
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)

Skipjack
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by Skipjack »

ladajo wrote: Personnaly, I think it is a prime candidate for crowd funding. The problem with that is the unprecedented levels it would need from that sort of lane. To get it moving forward, You are talking $15 to $30 million over three or so years.
Seeing that LPP had problems getting even 200k via crowd funding, I have no hope that this will work.
ladajo wrote: Getting congressional money ponied up is not full proof. Congress funds and unfunds stuff at will, for no apparent logic other than the almighty purchase of votes.
I recently saw a really good speech by Jeff Greason from XCOR (who I admire for a lot of reasons) about how congress decides on their funding for the space program. It is a really good explanation for why this does not work well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2kIPLsUn0

classicpenny
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Re: Dr. Park to speak at UW-Madison

Post by classicpenny »

Skipjack wrote:Seeing that LPP had problems getting even 200k via crowd funding, I have no hope that this will work.
I recently saw a really good speech by Jeff Greason from XCOR (who I admire for a lot of reasons) about how congress decides on their funding for the space program. It is a really good explanation for why this does not work well:
If I had $40 million to invest, I would ask Dr. Park if he was interested, but I don't have it. I DO pay taxes to the US however, and I DO have representatives in the US government, and I can TRY to get Dr. Park funding that way. I want him to get his funding as soon as possible and I believe he will be in a better position to negotiate if he has more than one funding pathway to choose from. We DO want his funding to continue, don't WE?

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