Polywell funding

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Wittgenstein
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Polywell funding

Post by Wittgenstein »

Exactly how much money are we talking about here?

ravingdave
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Re: Polywell funding

Post by ravingdave »

Wittgenstein wrote:Exactly how much money are we talking about here?
The number I recall being bandied about for the next generation of WB.x is 200 million dollars.


David

KitemanSA
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Re: Polywell funding

Post by KitemanSA »

ravingdave wrote:The number I recall being bandied about for the next generation of WB.x is 200 million dollars.
Dr. B mentioned $150M (D-D) to $200M (p11B), the first ~$2M for WB-7 and WB-8.

Seems like neither of Dr. B.'s WB-7 or 8 have been made, so to follow his path, ~$200M in 2005 funds for the REAL WB-7 and WB-8, and then on to what folks have gotten to calling WB-100.

MSimon
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Re: Polywell funding

Post by MSimon »

ravingdave wrote:
Wittgenstein wrote:Exactly how much money are we talking about here?
The number I recall being bandied about for the next generation of WB.x is 200 million dollars.


David
That is the correct number. I think a continuous operation experiment (LN2 cooled Cu magnet coils) could reach .45 T for about $20 million. Most of that going into power supplies. That is a rough estimate: +/- 5 million is probably 1 sigma.

If I was begging that is where I would go next.

Or maybe forget the big power supplies and go for a pulsed small superconducting model. If a lot of neutrons (1E12/sq cm Second) were not generated (or only generated in pulses) MgB would be a good candidate for the coil material.

Heck it might be good just to buy an MRI machine for the coils. An MRI can be had for about $1 million. If you can get just the coils they might only be $200K. A WB machine built like that could be done for probably 5 to 7 million. If it shows good pulsed results pony up for the power supplies.

Blogged the above at:

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... -next.html

So now that will appear when you click the link.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

From the Valencia paper, I got the impression that Dr. B anticipated WB-7 to be a continuous operation "at least tens of milliseconds" square plan-form magnet polywell. Seems to have turned out quite different.

blaisepascal
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Post by blaisepascal »

KitemanSA wrote:From the Valencia paper, I got the impression that Dr. B anticipated WB-7 to be a continuous operation "at least tens of milliseconds" square plan-form magnet polywell. Seems to have turned out quite different.
Don't think of Dr. Nebel's work as Bussard's WB-7, think of it as Bussard's WB-6, the do-over. Bussard said "Make WB-7 bigger and better than WB-6". The Navy told Dr Nebel "make WB-7 the same as WB-6".

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