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EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 7:01 am
by crowberry
EMC2 is upgrading their website. Currently there is only the text
Updates are pending, please check back soon!
and the following picture:
The picture has been taken in November 2010, so maybe it is WB-8? The website URL is
http://www.emc2fusion.org/.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:43 pm
by ladajo
Seems too soon for mini-B. But it sure looks like mini-B and chamber.
8 is big. The chamber is big.
Edit: It is WB8 for sure. My brain is still foggy this morning.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:47 pm
by Betruger
So sexy. Almost as sexy as... T-P.org's perpetual torpor.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 2:26 pm
by DeltaV
How did they keep the GoPro attached to the 11B ion?
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:14 pm
by mvanwink5
Maybe they decided to get a clue and try to get some money. That previous website was a guarantee turn off for any investor, like going to an interview in baggy jeans, 'T' shirt, blood shot eyes, and 2 day old stubble. One would think they had all the money they needed when in fact they couldn't afford the e-guns needed to run WB-8 and had to build a device smaller than WB-6 just to prove they needed the big e-guns they knew were needed years ago. Business IQ = 70. It is a shame they didn't have the real business world savvy of General Fusion; it takes smarts and business brains. Based on how long it has taken since the funding dried up I suspect 70 is a generous number.
Of course, one might wishfully hope that they have funding lined up, but then why is Park still hitting the campuses? Bored? Just waiting for the check to clear? Yes, yes, yes... have patience, the news is just now coming... and how many years have we heard that tired old song? But it's not my company and this is not the only fusion project. IF, IF EMC2 gets a believable world class business team like GF, with a VC group with brains, then I will grow fusion sized patience.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:12 pm
by happyjack27
if they are re-doing their website to attract investors, it's on a shoe-string budget...
.... had they a few more seconds on the "coming soon"...:
<html>
<head>
<title>EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<p><img src='
http://www.emc2fusion.org/DSC_8246.JPG'>
<h1>EMC2 FUSION DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION</h1>
<h2>Updates are pending, please check back soon!</h2>
</body>
</html>
as it stands, the html they put up isn't even valid - the're missing the closing body and html tags.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:43 pm
by crowberry
General Fusion built their water based demonstration experiment where aluminium foil was evaporated to create a shock wave and managed to produce neutrons. This and external reviews was enough to convince the VC people to fund further development. General Fusion however also underestimated the time to demonstrate net gain and the time needed to be able to plan a prototype reactor, so it should be remembered that fusion is a very hard problem.
EMC2 has been in a rather different position because of the Navy funding which has prevented publication of results. The reviews that have been made have also been classified. To prove the feasibility of the Polywell EMC2 needs to show simultaneously the deep potential well and Beta=1. There is no point in creating business plans until those two conditions have been shown at the same time. Achieving this goal needs more funding which they are probably trying to raise.
The last contract on FPDS had a sum of $400 000. I don't know what it was for, but it could be something to help EMC2 with until they get other funding. They have interesting data on WB-7 and WB-8 and hopefully they will be able to publish that.
Previously there was practically no information from EMC2. This year there has been the paper, seminars and now the website will be updated, so there is much more information flow now. It will be interesting to see what the web site will contain after the upgrade.
Edit: Fixed a typo
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:49 pm
by TallDave
crowberry wrote:EMC2 is upgrading their website.
The picture has been taken in November 2010, so maybe it is WB-8?
Pretty picture, thanks for sharing!
Yep, based on the lack of nubs that appears to be WB-8.
If we're lucky they're redesigning to announce WB-9.
If we're really,
really lucky WB-9 is a 100MW prototype reactor.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:07 pm
by mvanwink5
Crowberry,
You are being generous, GF had their naysayers too. Remember, WB-x to WB7.1 data? But put that argument aside, the point is that a good science team (which is not in doubt for EMC2) without the business acumen will go nowhere fast and that is where EMC2 is. As a comparison, it is no accident that GF got funding as their founding science team had good business smarts. Sometimes scientists think science is enough, it isn't.
As I said, I'll find the 'fusion is tough' patience when I see some world class business talent show up at EMC2. Anybody want to stand up and say EMC2 has that?
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:55 am
by crowberry
mvanwink5
It is obvious that science alone will not be enough for producing practical fusion reactors. You need risk investment for the expensive engineering work and for that you need to have a business case. On the other hand if the science base is unproven, then attracting VC money will be hard. EMC2 really needs to show scientifically that the Polywell is a viable fusion reactor concept. Because the simultaneous demonstration of a deep potential well and the Beta=1 condition while measuring the electron losses and neutron output is still missing, the EMC2 still has a science problem to solve as their first priority. Once that is done it will be much easier for them to attract new funding and then they will need to turn to the business case of the proposal. The current situation is of course rather difficult as the Navy funding has ended and they still need 30 M USD for their next step.
From some of the articles about General Fusion and Helion Energy it can be read that the investors have liked the fact that both companies expect to be able to build prototype reactors based on their current knowledge and experiments, without any "scientific breakthroughs".
Tri Alpha Energy seems to be somehow different, because they are working hard on the basic science to demonstrate the feasibility of their concept, but somehow they have been able to attract the most funding so far compared to the other privately funded fusion companies. EMC2 as well as the other fusion contenders might learn something in that respect from Tri Alpha Energy?
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:48 am
by choff
I like the new pic on EMC2's site, however it turns out as a power source, it will always be a work of art.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:18 pm
by DeltaV
crowberry wrote:General Fusion built their water based demonstration experiment where aluminium foil was evaporated to create the chock wave and managed to produce neutrons.
I didn't know GF was waving chocks already. They must have solved the problem with gyroscopic precession of the liquid during high-rate turns.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:20 pm
by mvanwink5
EMC2 still has a science problem to solve as their first priority.
The Navy gave EMC2 ~12 million to build WB-8, which wasn't enough money. There was no new configuration, just determination that really big e-guns are needed to start it up. Where is the science in that other than the size of the e-guns was not known, but now is known. What is an investor's risk now? Just the cash to buy the big guns and run the tests.
Judging by the papers GF has generated from their VC funded testing, I would say that there is significant science involved and their issues aren't engineering, their issues are the science. In fact their big selling point to VC's is that if the science can be worked out, the engineering to implement it is in the realm of today's capabilities. Of course, EMC2 can say the same thing only their issue is simply that they need cash for big e-guns. GF has the cash they need. What is the difference?
So, no. EMC2's problem has from day 1 been simply just the cash to be able to run their testing. Adequate cash - that falls completely in the realm of having business sense. Big guns were the known obstacle when Nebel left, years ago. The rule for a project is put the cash in place for unknowns, like really big e-guns. Clearly that wasn't done. Business, project management.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:20 am
by crowberry
Part of the difference is that General Fusions concept is based on the LINUS experiment from the 1970s. LINUS was never built, but there were some papers published and several people worked on the concept. Some of those people helped General Fusion with advice and probably also as external reviewers. In this way General Fusion had already from the start outside people who understood what they were doing and planning to do. This probably helped them in attracting the first rounds of funding. Of course it also helped that the founders had experience from the industry as well.
The Polyewell is a newer idea and there is no external previous experimental idea to directly build on. This is why it is important for EMC2 to raise awareness of their arXiv preprint in the fusion community by giving seminars at the major plasma institutes. But they really need to show that accomplishing a deep well at the same time as Beta=1 is possible, before claiming that the Polywell is a viable fusion reactor. If and only if that can be shown, then they have to go for the VC funding to build a pilot reactor. Operating on Navy funds with no permission to publish anything did not give much of a chance to apply for VC funding. Now the situation is different, so we will see what they can do.
Re: EMC2 website upgrade in progess
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2014 7:50 pm
by TallDave
Well, WB-8 was intended to test scaling. It sounds like we learned the wiffleball scales pretty well, but the well depth does not scale quite as well. That sounds like they're seeing more maxwellianization than expected. And apparently they're not even trying to do p-B11.
So, presumably the next step is: get some fusion from WB-8.
One thing I'm not 100% clear on is how much the electron optics really matter. As Rick showed, at ITER conditions Polywells would produce 62,500 as much power, simply because of the higher beta, even with no focus at all. Not sure what would be required to drive that temperature/density in the core, though.
I see I wrote essentially this same comment two years ago. Anyways, I won't get excited until we hear about some neutron counts from WB-8.