But seriously, how many think this is likely if polywell fusion proves to be a success? There has been much discussion about government intervention in the development of fusion reactors here. Hypothetically, suppose the US decides that it wants to get a jump on its biggest competitors, say China, India, etc. Fusion reactors would be a tremendous assest to industry with oil prices being so volatile. Given that much information, technical and otherwise, is presented here, do you feel that government officials may see that free exchange of information as a potential problem? Be patient, I'm not an engineer or physicist. I have no grasp of the techinical scope of information presented here. But I am curious how people may think the government would react, if at all.
Polywell was open source before this board went up.
Didn't know that. Thank you.
But it still doesn't really answer my question. You don't think the government would ever feel inclined to restrict information about polywell fusion in the future? Out of fear or ignorance?
joedead wrote:You don't think the government would ever feel inclined to restrict information about polywell fusion in the future? Out of fear or ignorance?
The powers of the government are somewhat limited in that regard. They can't prevent discussion of information already in the public. If they tried to shut down this forum, I'm sure that the EFF and the ACLU would love to hear about it.
The powers of the government are somewhat limited in that regard. They can't prevent discussion of information already in the public. If they tried to shut down this forum, I'm sure that the EFF and the ACLU would love to hear about it.
True, I was just trying to incite discussion as to how far the government might intrude into something of this magnitude. To be honest, given the current political climate, I wouldn't put this past them.
joedead wrote:True, I was just trying to incite discussion as to how far the government might intrude into something of this magnitude.
If the government attempted to "shut down discussion" on this topic, that would just guarantee that we kept talking, and would end up with a Much larger audience as the publicity would be enormous.
What the government could do, at some point, would be to classify the material. The classification would only pertain to those people acting in an official capacity with the program. So the EMC2 employees would not be permitted to talk in open sources about their involvement or knowledge of polywells. But for the rest of us, not "read in" to the program, unaware that there even was a classification associated with this material, there would be no impact. We could continue to discuss what ever we believed, but there would be no official confirmation nor denial of our discussion... ("I can neither confirm nor deny _______")
If the US government were to desire to stop the discussion for nationalistic purposes, "shutting down" talk@polywell would be the absolute WRONG way to make this happen...
I agree with Mumbles. If things started to get “turned off,” it would raise all sorts of flags. Probably not a good idea if the goal is to remain undercover. Plus, I don’t see any advantage to closing things off at this point. In the global marketplace of ideas, this is already out there. Why not open up trade in ideas related to this? Or, as Milton Friedman might say, “why throw rocks in your own harbor?”
If the government wanted to shut things down, the best way would be to sequester both the emc2 staff and peer review panel, and have a false report put out showing the experiment as a total failure. It would have to be good enough to fool a tokamak researcher at the very least. That would give them at least 3 or 4 years to develop it in secret or just sit on the real results for 10 or 20. Sooner or later some other country would give it a try.
choff wrote:If the government wanted to shut things down, the best way would be to sequester both the emc2 staff and peer review panel, and have a false report put out showing the experiment as a total failure. It would have to be good enough to fool a tokamak researcher at the very least. That would give them at least 3 or 4 years to develop it in secret or just sit on the real results for 10 or 20. Sooner or later some other country would give it a try.
That wouldn't work because that would destroy the personal credibility of the individuals on the review panel.
I think if the Government wanted to hush success, it would have Dr. Nebel lay low for as long it could convince him to. We just wouldn't hear from him or of any results for what seems like an eterni....... Hey! Wait a minute!
choff wrote:If the government wanted to shut things down, the best way would be to sequester both the emc2 staff and peer review panel, and have a false report put out showing the experiment as a total failure. It would have to be good enough to fool a tokamak researcher at the very least. That would give them at least 3 or 4 years to develop it in secret or just sit on the real results for 10 or 20. Sooner or later some other country would give it a try.
First off there are people in the know who are not EMC2.
Second off by treaty all work on fusion is to be shared with the world.
Third - eventually other countries would try experiments. The Japanese for instance.
Fourth - if it goes on a ship that would be the starting gun.
Fifth - cheap energy is a national security issue. The more countries that have it the better the security.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:First off there are people in the know who are not EMC2.
Third - eventually other countries would try experiments. The Japanese for instance.
Fourth - if it goes on a ship that would be the starting gun.
Fifth - cheap energy is a national security issue. The more countries that have it the better the security.
Truth.
MSimon wrote:Second off by treaty all work on fusion is to be shared with the world.
IIRC, quite a bit of Inertial Confinement information is embargoed due to applicability to nuclear weapons. There is always the exception that "proves" the rule.
Polywell was open source before this board went up.
Didn't know that. Thank you.
But it still doesn't really answer my question. You don't think the government would ever feel inclined to restrict information about polywell fusion in the future? Out of fear or ignorance?
Personally, I think the most likely cause of such restrictions would be a desire for power; not electric power, but political.
Polywell was open source before this board went up.
Didn't know that. Thank you.
But it still doesn't really answer my question. You don't think the government would ever feel inclined to restrict information about polywell fusion in the future? Out of fear or ignorance?
Personally, I think the most likely cause of such restrictions would be a desire for power; not electric power, but political.
With all the open source material out there the restrictions would be temporary.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
