Talk-Polywell.org

Vague...

windmill wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 02, 2023 6:38 pm

Wouldn't a 20 Tesla field require superconducting coils and cryogenic cooling?

Not for a pulsed system.

That is the sea level Isp. The vacuum Isp is quite a bit higher.

Very excited about those kinds of engines. They could make SSTOs possible. During the X-33 period I explored the SSTO math and it come out that you will need an ISP of around 2000 to make a meaningful and practical SSTO rocket/plane. The detonating engine design has a theoretical efficiency improve...

It is a bit of both ;) I know David Kirtley quite well (I maintain good relationships with people at several startups). He is a super nice but very busy guy. I have been following Helion's progress ever since a former board member, Art Carlson who wrote his thesis on why FRCs can never work visited ...

- Critique: "FRCs have been done before and never worked." First, define "worked"! What was the goal of the experiment and what was the outcome? Second, yes, FRCs have been done before and the members of Helion's founding team were actually involved with several of them. They applied the lessons le...

Very excited about those kinds of engines. They could make SSTOs possible.

Yeah Lockheed does not do anything that the government does not pay for cost+

He is trying to ride on the popularity of the Real Engineering video to get some view, I guess.

"The problems with Helion Energy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUPhsFoniw&ab_channel=ImprobableMatter In case anyone has the time and energy to post a rebuttal there. The top level (pinned) comment smears David Kirtley's honesty. I tried. It got deleted. Go figure. That guy is a complete jerk.

I saw one error in the animation at about 27:00 into the video, which seemed to show the two FRCs being formed with opposite polarity. They actually have to have current in the same direction, so after the collision they can form a single hotter FRC. Actually both polarities will merge into a singl...

two FRC competitors (TAE, General Fusion) Interestingly General Fusion switched from an FRC to a Tokamak. I assume that is because they only ever tested with injecting a single FRC- target that did not merge with another one. This makes things a lot harder because FRCs at low temperatures are rathe...

New video up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1vyMcqiVtA This is very similar to the presentation that David Kirtley gave at Princeton a few weeks ago. It is still great to hear him explain things again without interruptions though. Some things are a little clearer, others might actually be slight...

2022 FPA meeting papers are now online.
There are still a few missing (Zap and TAE). Hope to see them soon!
http://www.firefusionpower.org/fpa_annual_meet.html

Happy New Year everyone!