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MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:37 pm

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http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newen ... sion-team/

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JohnP · Post by **JohnP** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:51 pm

There's a lot of reading here, if you follow the links to the Mars discussion. One of the posters makes much of Dr Nebel's comments about the 100MW machine. Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be any new news.

scareduck · Post by **scareduck** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:34 pm

The linked story is a discussion of the same June 6 CosmicLog piece we've already hashed to death here. Some of it is even circular references to that piece!

Helius · Post by **Helius** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 12:13 am

If such casual remarks get this much visibility and generate this much smoke this far into the future ( 2 Months), then I think we're going to see less casual remarks unless and until political momentum builds from in the venture capital environment, beyond the vagaries of government financing.

We can honor subtle remarks by keeping them subtle.

jmc · Post by **jmc** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:48 am

Not sure I'm a great fan of subtle remarks. Science progresses by addressing specific issues openly and in detail.

I'm not sure the subject of fusion is amenable to patenting and secrecy quite yet. I don't think we've reached the threshold where new little innovations are worth any money. First we need to get fusion working, then we need to worry about patenting better more economic designs.

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:36 pm

Unfortuantely, financial is not the only advantage to be garnered from secrecy regarding Polywell fusion. Strategic advantage is probably a higher consideration at ONR. That's just my opinion, because there are other advantages to be considered. We know about politics. Who derives the most political advantage from control of the information? Actually, this could be a whole thread topic in itsself if we really want to go into the pros and cons of information control re. Polywell.

zbarlici · Post by **zbarlici** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:00 pm

..actually i have heard on more than one occasion that control of energy supply means strategic advantage to the one who is doing the controlling. If anything like that is actually going on today to a point where its holding back the development of new technologies well then i think we should all be shitting in our pants, and on those implementing policies.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 11:04 pm

Aero wrote:Unfortuantely, financial is not the only advantage to be garnered from secrecy regarding Polywell fusion. Strategic advantage is probably a higher consideration at ONR. That's just my opinion, because there are other advantages to be considered. We know about politics. Who derives the most political advantage from control of the information? Actually, this could be a whole thread topic in itsself if we really want to go into the pros and cons of information control re. Polywell.

The consensus here is that there is so much material available open source that once success is announced no country that wants to make one will be more than 5 to 7 years away from a working unit.

Post by **JoeStrout** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:58 am

MSimon wrote:The consensus here is that there is so much material available open source that once success is announced no country that wants to make one will be more than 5 to 7 years away from a working unit.

Agreed. Just knowing, with certainty, that this general approach works, would be enough for China or Japan (or several other countries) to build one in a few years.

Realistically, the only way the original inventors/investors could delay it being ripped off (especially in China, where attitudes about intellectual property tend to differ from ours) would be to license it so cheaply that it's easier and faster for them to pay the license, at least for a while. Trying to keep trade secrets on something this big simply wouldn't work. Now, if the work were classified, that might delay things for a while — but probably not long. I think we here would all notice if Dr. Nebel suddenly disappeared!

Best,
- Joe

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:30 am

Yes, I do agree also. Secrecy can at best give only a short term advantage. Once it's known to work, it can be built from scratch by any number of states/organizations. Secrecy would buy the navy a lot more time than it will buy EEStor, I think though. Consider that if a BFR were built inside an aircraft carrier, well, it simply takes the competition a lot more time to build an aircraft carrier than it does EEStor's competion to build a battery replacement.

Keegan · Post by **Keegan** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:42 am

Msimon wrote:The consensus here is that there is so much material available open source that once success is announced no country that wants to make one will be more than 5 to 7 years away from a working unit.

I think there are going to be a hell of alot of secrets kept when power outputs start approaching anywhere close to net power.

zbarlici wrote:..actually i have heard on more than one occasion that control of energy supply means strategic advantage to the one who is doing the controlling.

Well said.

This planet has beem controlled for centuries.

Polywell can truly set the world free.

The comming years will be very interesting indeed.....

Helius · Post by **Helius** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:04 pm

Keegan wrote: I think there are going to be a hell of alot of secrets kept when power outputs start approaching anywhere close to net power.

The Potential for neutrons will also cause alarm... and secrecy... That may happen long before net power is approached.

Post by **JoeStrout** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:27 pm

Helius wrote:The Potential for neutrons will also cause alarm... and secrecy... That may happen long before net power is approached.

I don't see why. Neutron sources are easy to make, and are even commercially available. Nothing new there.

Best,
- Joe

cuddihy · Post by **cuddihy** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:32 pm

Aero wrote:Yes, I do agree also. Secrecy can at best give only a short term advantage. Once it's known to work, it can be built from scratch by any number of states/organizations. Secrecy would buy the navy a lot more time than it will buy EEStor, I think though. Consider that if a BFR were built inside an aircraft carrier, well, it simply takes the competition a lot more time to build an aircraft carrier than it does EEStor's competion to build a battery replacement.

I don't think secrecy is a problem for EEStor. More like overexposure, overpromising, and underdelivery. Probably all three complicated by undercapitalization...

Robthebob · Post by **Robthebob** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:37 am

I dont know about everyone else, but if a general scheme is developed, the right thing to do is to allow everyone access to the information to build one, perhaps not a very advance model of the polywell, but at least a functioning one.

I arrived at this conclusion, because of two main reasons.

1. We really dont need any centralization of power or anything like that, if the US were to gain this advantage over other countries, while other countries are unable to do the same, it may lead to some very terrible events.

2. The state of free energy belongs to all human beings, if and when we do achieve this, it would really no longer be a luxury, but instead, it should be a right to have free energy.

Now, lets hope no greedy oil companies or other big business decides to do the wrong thing and offers high amount of money to stop what is happening here, that would be really bad.