Talk-Polywell.org

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http://www.ecnmag.com/article.aspx?id=1 ... on=effzone

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And you will get to see what I look like. LOL.

Sweet!

You look much more distinguished than I expected. We should grab a beer (or some green tea) if you're ever driving through Vernon Hills (94 & 60).

MSimon wrote:And you will get to see what I look like. LOL.

My god! This is worse than anything I could have imagined!

Plus the power output [of a full scale power reactor]would be on the order of 20 GW.

About the power output of the Three Gorges Dam. And just 3 or 4 times larger than the largest existing nuclear power sites. If the price were right, the utilities could handle the rest. But where does this number come from? I know it's been tossed out before, but IIRC the actual designs I have seen (whether or not you think they are realistic) have all been well below 2 GW.

Short, sweet, to the point. Obviously written for web access, but still good none the less. Like I mentioned over at Power and Control, you resemble my Uncle Jessie, except for the beard.


Again, you generates some good Publicity for Polywell. I'm not sure anyone has done more to promote this idea than you have, and if and when the history gets written, you deserve a place of prominence among the people who made this happen.

Art Carlson wrote:

MSimon wrote:And you will get to see what I look like. LOL.

My god! This is worse than anything I could have imagined! :shock:

Plus the power output [of a full scale power reactor]would be on the order of 20 GW.

About the power output of the Three Gorges Dam. And just 3 or 4 times larger than the largest existing nuclear power sites. If the price were right, the utilities could handle the rest. But where does this number come from? I know it's been tossed out before, but IIRC the actual designs I have seen (whether or not you think they are realistic) have all been well below 2 GW.

Art,

I believe the 17 GW size is due to economics. Check out what Vincent Page has to say in the pdf at the linked article. You have to follow about 3 links down.

It is not a matter of net power. It is about economical (even remotely) net power. BTW I think the 17 GW is GWe so you have to multiply that by 2X or 3X to get GWf. Which means locating it at a very large dam (or a fast running high volume stream) for cooling. The Rock River is not going to cut it.

Of course high power is no deterrent. It just limits the number of available locations.

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Side note. My ECN editor said he put the article in the highest traffic section.

I knew it! after reading your stuff for so long, I get to see a pic! I have enjoyed your work for years now and I hope I look as good as you when I get to be 40 also!

Saludos
Will

WillKell wrote:I knew it! after reading your stuff for so long, I get to see a pic! I have enjoyed your work for years now and I hope I look as good as you when I get to be 40 also! :lol:

Saludos
Will

Funny you mention my age. I was discoursing with a hospital chaplain Friday and mentioned my age (65). His eyebrows rose to his hairline. I was most gratified.

My mate used to complain all the time that I act like a teenager. She is no longer disconcerted by that.

May you always remain young in spirit and healthy in body.

MSimon wrote:*

http://www.ecnmag.com/article.aspx?id=1 ... on=effzone

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And you will get to see what I look like. LOL.

Great, now the air of mystery is gone!

Kind of remind me of Larry Niven, but of course at that age you all look alike.

MSimon wrote: Of course high power is no deterrent. It just limits the number of available locations.

I do not quite understand why. Such a statement is based on current technology. You can be sure that if a 20GW source were to spring up, we'd figure a new way to distribute it. HVDC transmission springs to mind. There are several advantages to HVDC, particularly the vast distances well further and beyond anything AC lines could hope for. Some current plans are being drawn up, as we write, to use HVDC to pipe solar energy from Africa into Europe.

Again, it's a question of cost. The farther you have to push it, the more it will cost, and the more likely competing sources of electricity will be cheaper. At some point the economics of the reactor size and the economics of the distribution system come into conflict.

If we found a free 20GW souce of energy, sure, it would be a no-brainer.

HVDC would probably be the best choice, but it has some disadvantages in terms of reliability and availability.

A 20GW plant is a little scary anyway. These giant engineering projects like LHC have so many potential failure points.

My mate used to complain all the time that I act like a teenager. She is no longer disconcerted by that.

I get the same criticism, but I have the excuse of being 30 years younger.

I think Pauling was right about Vitamin C. I am also told now and then that I look like a teenager.

MSimon wrote:I believe the 17 GW size is due to economics. Check out what Vincent Page has to say in the pdf at the linked article. You have to follow about 3 links down.

It is not a matter of net power. It is about economical (even remotely) net power. BTW I think the 17 GW is GWe so you have to multiply that by 2X or 3X to get GWf. Which means locating it at a very large dam (or a fast running high volume stream) for cooling. The Rock River is not going to cut it.

Of course high power is no deterrent. It just limits the number of available locations.

I wasn't able to find any such power numbers in Page's talk.

The party line ( http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/3_4_demo_en.htm ) is more like this:

Whereas ITER's main goal is to produce 500 million watts of fusion power for at least 500 seconds, the goal of DEMO will be to produce at least four times that much fusion power on a continual basis. This level of power production (2 gigawatts) is on the scale of a modern electric power plant.

N.B That is 2 GWf, so something like 0.8 GWe.

Since ITER is already at the limits of magnet technology, a full-scale (tokamak) reactor will not be able to raise the power density much. Even if costs only scale with R^2, the push to larger sizes for economic reasons is not that strong. Working against you are large unit cost, large unit power, and power handling limits. I don't see how a 20 GWe tokamak reactor could ever be more economical than something in the 1-2 GWe range. The "natural size" of a tokamak reactor is determined simply by the size at which n*t*tau is high enough to allow you a Q of 10 to 20, which is not much bigger than ITER.

Art,

Thanks for that. I don't recall where I got the 17 GW number. It may have been from the Bussard Google video.

If you would like to leave a comment at ECN making that correction I wouldn't mind at all.

I used 20 GW in "El Dorado" but that supposed a spacecraft powerplants derived from one of Doc's QED designs, with two reactors each capable of redlining at 10 GW. He mentioned that value to me but indicated he would never consider pushing them past 60% of that figure.

In my plot the reactors were redlined in a last-ditch suicidal effort to save humanity.

Generally, Dr. Bussard seemed to suppose 2 GW was a nice goal for powerplants, with larger capacities reserved for space propulsion.

We would all be delighted right now with news that a Polywell had sustained a watt of DD fusion, presuming they were not running unshielded in a suburban Santa Fe industrial park.

Tom Ligon wrote:I used 20 GW in "El Dorado" but that supposed a spacecraft powerplants derived from one of Doc's QED designs, with two reactors each capable of redlining at 10 GW. He mentioned that value to me but indicated he would never consider pushing them past 60% of that figure.

In my plot the reactors were redlined in a last-ditch suicidal effort to save humanity.

Is there anyplace (other than back issues of Analog) where "El Dorado" is available?