Polywell vs Monkhurst FRC

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Grant Castillou
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:01 pm

Polywell vs Monkhurst FRC

Post by Grant Castillou »

Hi eveybody. I am not a scientist or engineer, but I have enjoyed reading
about the Polywell development in the last few weeks. I have also read a little about the Monkhurst-Rotorker FRC approach. How would you describe the current state of the art between MRFRC and Polywell? Is it as viable as Polywell re development costs and potential payoff? I've seen the news about TriAlpha raising $40 million for the MR effort. I just don't have the ability to understand how these two approachs compare in all respects.

Thanks for any opinion,
Grant

Zixinus
Posts: 200
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:39 pm

Post by Zixinus »

Welcome to the forum. :)

Can you link details regarding this "Monkhurst-Rotorker FRC" you speak of?

Grant Castillou
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:01 pm

MR link

Post by Grant Castillou »

Here is a link that has a link to their patent, and other info.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... -news.html

Grant

Zixinus
Posts: 200
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:39 pm

Post by Zixinus »

This is "Focus Fusion". http://focusfusion.org/log/index.php

Heard of it before. Had very little scientific literature available on the main site. On their forum, I only saw the "fusion promise" dogma repeated over and over, and criticism responded with "thrust me/him". I might be exaggerating, but I found little of interest and smelled like a con. I'm not convinced it is, but I do not see any new information, heck their site is down now.

As for competition, I'm not that worried. Polywell and Focus Fusion is pretty much in the same pool, and have every reason to help each other. In fact, the two are different ideas for IEC fusion. They have different properties, and I now see that the race is on which one will do breakeven first. I just hope that both advocates can remain civil enough.

But in the end, both may prosper, or Polywell may conquer (I already see that as a future motto). You can scale Focus Fusion so much (couple hundred megawatts), while Gigawatt performance can be gained from Polywell machines.

JoeStrout
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Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
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Focus Fusion <> Monkhurst-Rotorker FRC

Post by JoeStrout »

I don't think Monkhurst-Rotorker FRC is the same thing as Focus Fusion. I agree, Focus Fusion seems to have more hype than substance (in my humble opinion, and with the caveat that I haven't looked into it very deeply).

But this may be how many people perceive Polywell fusion, too. We should consider how to avoid the same snake-oil smell in our own materials (though that'd be a topic for the Awareness forum).

Monkhurst-Rotorker FRC is more plausible, I think. A comparison with polywell fusion would be very welcome, as I too am vague on the similarities and differences. Is anyone who's looked into it willing to post a summary?
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

jlumartinez
Posts: 143
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:29 pm
Location: Spain

Post by jlumartinez »

Monkhurst-Rotorker and Polywell are two different IEC fusion ways to achieve fusion breakeven conditions. According to Rider´s papers about IEC devices both are restricted to not achieve net power fusion.

But both research states that they have overcame those limitations and they are ready to develop net fusion power using the same fusion reaction (p+B11)

I found a paper ("Energy gain calculations in Penning fusion systems using a bounce-averaged Fokker–Planck model", by Miley in Physics of Plasmas,2000) where another IEC fusion technology claim also to be able to overcome those limitations.

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet ... s&gifs=yes

It would be great if all they join efforts to make a general critic to Rider´s limitations

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