No news is good news????

[paperburn1]

Has anybody heard anything worth mentioning in the fusion area. We seem to be in an information desert out here.
The last good news was from Dr. Park.

[mvanwink5]

The last I had heard, Dr. Park was supposed to be acquiring private funding for $30 million with his hands tied behind his back because the Navy would not allow important status information to be shared due to secrecy. Then recently that restriction or some of that restriction was eased. Also, patents had been filed and accepted(?)

I have not heard if there has been serious interest or not, but it is not likely we will hear anything until a deal has been struck if there was such interest.

Does that sum it up?

If nothing happens this year, perhaps Ladajo will have greater Naval support success with the new regime.

[ladajo]

I remain optimistic, especially in my view that EMC2 has the most developed, and probably best chance in the small scale fusion argument.
Funding takes time; Serious investors follow serious protocols.

[nferguso]

I would bet on General Fusion. They are building their full-scale prototype now, I think. Besides, they are funkier.

[mvanwink5]

General Fusion has made progress in all but the critical heart of their machine and that is stable adiabatic compression of their plasma. They are working on that. Tri Alpha has made strides last year that convinces them that they have a path forward to commercial reactor and are building their next machine to demonstrate it. Everything takes time and money and General Fusion and Tri Alpha are in the enviable position of having had time and money.

EMC2 needs money.

[Skipjack]

Helion is making good progress too. They got some venture capital funding and additional funds from ARPA-E that they are using now for the development of a series of ever more powerful prototypes.

[DeltaV]

I would bet on General Fusion. They are building their full-scale prototype now, I think. Besides, they are funkier.

Don't you mean steam-punkier?

[ladajo]

While I applaud things 'Steam Punk', I would not put money on General Fusion. Seems to be a lot of hand waving going on over there. Maybe more so than should be at this point of claimed development. We will see, probably within the year. Analog is not the real thing, and you can only keep doing analogs for so long...

[Skipjack]

Talking about news, anything from LPP and their DPF? Ever since that website hack, I dont dare going to their site to check for updates.
They should have something to report soon, no?

[nferguso]

Hundreds of steam hammers, operated by whole shifts of hundreds of burly, overweight road workers in their smelly, sweat stained undershirts, hawking and spitting and whistling at foxy ladies passing by - sweaty, smelly, hundreds of them - oh, lord I am about to faint dead away.

[mvanwink5]

Like cowboys and spaceships.

[NotAPhysicist]

I backed LPP fusion towards their beryllium electrodes (crazy, over-optimistic, just wanting to do something?) and as such I get some updates from them.
Last I heard they were trying to drum up extra funding from previous (and presumably new?) backers for test shots to the tune of $75 per capacitor per shot. This paying for electricity but also meant to be inclusive of general lab running costs.
I hope for a new update soon..

[ladajo]

At least LPP is not buying Condos in Miami with your money.

They are actually trying to do real science.

[Skipjack]

I backed LPP fusion towards their beryllium electrodes (crazy, over-optimistic, just wanting to do something?) and as such I get some updates from them.
Last I heard they were trying to drum up extra funding from previous (and presumably new?) backers for test shots to the tune of $75 per capacitor per shot. This paying for electricity but also meant to be inclusive of general lab running costs.
I hope for a new update soon..

Thanks for the information. It is a shame that they are so low on funds
As ladajo says, they are doing real science and I applaud their open approach, which is very refreshing. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen, but at least they are really trying to do something.

[NotAPhysicist]

There is a new report out from LPP.

They had previously reported having oxygen contamination problems during test shots. The solution to this was to be 'baking out' the oxygen by subjecting the system to an extended period of heating - this lead to problems with damaging some components that turned out to be less heat resistant than their specs reported. I quite possibly should have mentioned all this previously..

Anyway.

The new report chronicles the teams continued endeavors to resolve the oxygen contamination issue and it sounds like the 'baking out' has now done its job, running at a slightly lower temperature to avoid some heat damage and with other components being replaced where problems have arisen. So all in all positive.

They've also been looking at pre-ionization of the plasma to try and smooth the way for the main shots. This too seems to be yielding useful results.

No mention of funding at all, I'll take that as a further positive.

So, I would hope to see some actual results soon, sounds like all the kit is pretty much there now.