Talk-Polywell.org

The power density of the sun is pitiful. Microwatts per cc of volume. Solar radius: 6.955E8 m (6.995E10 cm) 4/3 pi r^3 = 1.433678e+33 cc Solar Output = 3.83E26 Watts ************************** 2.67E-7 W/cc Pitiful. It's not that bad... Only the core is a significant fusion source, which is about 1/...

If Polywell's are net Helium consumers, we're in trouble. If they are net producers, let me think: copious helium, vast amounts of heat, fuel is negligible - imagine 100 MPH superdirigibles cruising the stratosphere. p-B11 Polywells are net producers, each mole of boron used as fuel creates 3 moles...

That would require collimating the alphas coming from each cusp and focusing them say with an electrostatic lens. As I understand it, current theory is that the alphas will have too much energy to be seriously steered by the B-Fields. That's why there's another thread going on about how to shape th...

That's not quite what I meant... If you have a 100MW reactor on the grid, the grid will be demanding (say) 90MW during the day and 40MW during the night. How do you manage that variable load? Do you do it by controlling the flow through the ion guns? Adjusting the voltages of the various E-Fields or...

(I'm 80% sure this should be in "design" and not "theory". Let me know if it's in the wrong place). How does one throttle and idle a direct-conversion polywell reactor? Demand for energy will vary, so how do you turn it down without turning it off? Most other power plants use a generator which will ...

Just did a quick look. Assuming a $200 million cost for a 100 MW plant, a staff of 6 handsomely paid ($200k/year) nuclear physicists to run it, fuel costs of $500/day (am I even close?), and maintenance costs of $1 million/year, the break-even cost of power over 20 years would be about $0.03/kwh. T...

I am curious how he came to the 2x the gyro-radius figure, and I'm a bit confused about what he means exactly. Because if the electrons are on an escape trajectory they must be traveling at nearly parallel to the B-field, which means their gyro-radius is basically zero, no matter what the energy or...

Also note that since it is an uncooled pulsed machine (last I heard), if you're sitting there taking data all afternoon you probably aren't running at fusion conditions. There's no reason it is necessary to assume that the "taking data all afternoon" means "continuous operation". My understanding o...

To understand what jmc is talking about visit Wikipedia: Binding energy or do a general web search on "nuclear binding energy". But the more I stare at the graph of binding energies, the less I understand why C12 decays. The binding energy is simply the difference between the mass of the nucleus an...

I have been thinking that a modest 180 Hz modulation of the proper waveform of BFR current output might reduce the necessary size of some of the high voltage components. If I recall correctly, there is a large amount of investment already in engineering and equipment that works at 400Hz, usually us...

Mike: The thing to remember is that without the use of magnetic monopoles you have to have the same number of magnetic field lines going out as coming in, no matter what geometry you use. Putting another shell around the polywell won't eliminate the cusps, but it'll push them around and make them mo...