Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Giorgio
Posts: 3061
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Giorgio »

A new report is available:
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/e ... on-yields/
While a tenfold reduction in impurities—to about one impurity ion for 500 deuterium ions—is a good start, it is not what Lerner calculated would be needed to preserve the filaments, nor what theory and previous experiments indicate can be achieved. For that, a 50-100 fold reduction in impurities is required, or 5-10 times less impurity than that has been achieved so far.
An alternative source might be a very thin layer of tungsten oxide—too thin to be seen or removed during the electrodes’ cleaning. Tungsten oxide dissociates at 1970 C, far below tungsten’s vaporization point of 5500 C, so an oxide layer will be far more fragile. The oxide layer might well give rise to the tungsten in the plasma as well. If this is the case, repeated firing will burn the oxide layer off and impurities will fall.
Seems a plausible explanation. Eager to see next report now.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:A new report is available:
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/e ... on-yields/
While a tenfold reduction in impurities—to about one impurity ion for 500 deuterium ions—is a good start, it is not what Lerner calculated would be needed to preserve the filaments, nor what theory and previous experiments indicate can be achieved. For that, a 50-100 fold reduction in impurities is required, or 5-10 times less impurity than that has been achieved so far.
An alternative source might be a very thin layer of tungsten oxide—too thin to be seen or removed during the electrodes’ cleaning. Tungsten oxide dissociates at 1970 C, far below tungsten’s vaporization point of 5500 C, so an oxide layer will be far more fragile. The oxide layer might well give rise to the tungsten in the plasma as well. If this is the case, repeated firing will burn the oxide layer off and impurities will fall.
Seems a plausible explanation. Eager to see next report now.
Yeah, lets hope the solution is as simple as they predict it to be... unfortunately things never go as smoothly as predicted. Looking forward to their next report as well!

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Skipjack »

Seems like they have managed to remove the oxides from the electrodes. Lets hope that this is good enough:
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/o ... lectrodes/

videos of that and Lerner's not so mainstream cosmology ideas:
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/n ... cosmology/

Giorgio
Posts: 3061
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Giorgio »

Interesting, I love this type of investigative Engineering.
The next shots should finally give us some valuable data to check if Lerner's theory of scaling holds up. If it does i guess they will not have many problems to get the extra funds they have been looking for.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

crowberry
Posts: 672
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:34 am

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by crowberry »

Yes, hopefully the plasma contamination problem has now been solved. It will be very interesting to see the performance of their device over the coming weeks and months.

Giorgio
Posts: 3061
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Giorgio »

New report is out:
http://lppfusion.com/vacuum-chamber-get ... ests-near/

Nice pictures of the new titanium nitride coating of the vacuum chamber and getting ready for new experimental run before end of December.

Best of luck to Focus Fusion team.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by D Tibbets »

I wondered if Lawrence Plasma Physics had any updates, but when I Googled I could not reach their site. Google had a label that the site may have been hacked and the link delivers only a blank page.

http://lppfusion.com/

Also, the Focus Fusion Society had no link or real information obviously available.

What is the scoop? My conspiracy paranoia is at least mildly tweaked. 8)

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

Maui
Posts: 586
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:10 am
Location: Madison, WI

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Maui »

I almost posted about the site a week or two ago. At that point, I had got the Google warning and then I landed on some spam site. But then I went back to re-read the exact message about the hack and (though I still got the warning) the page ended up loading fine the second time. Don't know why it was able to load fine on retry, but I'm guessing they've now taken down the page while they restore from the hack.

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by D Tibbets »

Well, the site is back. No new news though...

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

Maui
Posts: 586
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:10 am
Location: Madison, WI

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Maui »

Well, finally another update. But they still have yet to start their next experimental run:
http://lppfusion.com/preionization-test ... new-shots/
http://lppfusion.com/bake-out-succeeds- ... g-up-ff-1/

zapkitty
Posts: 267
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 8:13 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by zapkitty »

A note via the IndieGoGo "emPOWERtheWORLD" side of the outreach effort: LPP is firing again.

Two neat items to go with the news...

A table of the crowdfunded shots:
http://lppfusion.com/donor-shots-table/

... and a development overview showing past and future milestones keyed via cumulative shots fired:
http://lppfusion.com/wp-content/uploads ... _table.png

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by ladajo »

Thanks for the update. Hopefully we will see new shot data soon!
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Skipjack »

I am not a big believer in their concept, but I still gave them 75 dollars of my hard earned money to fund their next shot.
I did that because they are still doing valid and open science that deserves support (more than the NIF and the absolutely ridiculous and stupid solar roadways) and to show that I put my money where my mouth is when it comes to supporting nuclear fusion. I hope that it will cause others among my friends to donate a few bucks as well.

quixote
Posts: 130
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 8:44 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by quixote »

I also donated.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: Lawaranceville E-Newsletter

Post by Skipjack »

quixote wrote:I also donated.
We need a beerchug smiley.

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