Polywell fusion update, "Houston, we are going for full power"

Heres the spoiler, WB-7 has been cranked up to "high power". Now they are building Instrumentation to measure, track, everything, in preparation for full peer review of the results.

But for those who don't know the story, let me give a brief recap:

This is the core of WB-6, 30cm across each ring. In Oct. 2005 it made fusion 5 times, the 5th time it had a bad short. Since the contract paying for the research was running out everything got packed up and they vacated the building. It wasn't until early 2006 that anyone got to look at the data.

The data said they had neutrons at the first run, the low power run, 4 to 5 times that on the high power runs. Their fusion was supposed to make neutrons.

WB-6 was the baby of a Dr Bussard, former Assistant director of the US Atomic Energy. After the 1968 Soviet fusion announcement using a donut shaped device, the Tokamak. Robert Hirsh and Dr Bussard Lobbied Congress for funds to explore what the Russians had done. I believe Dr Bussard stopped believing the Tokamak would ever work to generate electricity about 15 yrs ago. At about the same time Bussard got some DARPA funding and started playing with the idea of spherical fusion, after that Navy funding kept his dream of a fusion powered ship to Mars going. Recently Dr Bussard passed away.

With 1.8 million in funding Dr Nebel from Livermore came over to run the show. Bussards company emc2fusion.org has a great picture of the new vacume chamber on the front page.

My First Fusion Dairy on the step father to the Polywell, IEC fusion.

I reported on Christmas Eve 2007 that new funding had been announced.

January 2008, First Plasma.

•  Video tips

  Heres a simple 2 minute vid

  by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:07:28 PM PDT

  •  Is that the theme from Stargate?

    by psilocynic on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:09:15 PM PDT

    •  Um yes...

      by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:12:52 PM PDT

      •  Nice.

        Free energy and good scifi.

        by psilocynic on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:37:45 PM PDT

•  The comments are very interesting at the site

  thanks...it sounds as if there is a long way to go, but I am still glad to hear about it.

  by cfk on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:12:02 PM PDT

  •  Enf of summer for any kind of results

    Concrete results. If its worth following up on, word is it will get line item funding in congress, Mahattenized I believe was the phrase used.

    I'm guessing at least 1 device about the same size to test different magnet configurations, WB-7 is a Truncated cube, a truncated dodecahedron might be a bit better"

    

    Then you build one twice the size, not 30 cm magnets, 60 cm magnets, that should see a 128x increase in fusion, according to Bussards scaling laws.

    by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:21:32 PM PDT

    •  128 X, so that means

      instead of 3 neutrons per test, they'll get 384 per test when burning deuterium - correct?  That's a high enough flux to pull the figures out of the noise region, but it's a long ways away from net power from p–¹¹B low neutron fusion.

      by wondering if on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:43:19 PM PDT

      •  Pulsed operation is the tune of the day

        Theres some push for a LN2 cooled version. Capable of 10 minute runs. With its own special electrical service. Perfect the carburetor, then clean out the D-D fuel and try the PB-11, there is a  p-B11 resonance peak at 50-55 KV acceleration, that a device of this type can reach.

        I think we could see PB-11 fusion in as little as 2-3 years. But scaling it up to 3 meters for 500 mw net power is going to be the real heavy lifting.

        by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 08:06:12 PM PDT

      •  Dont forget the 3 counts are a sample.

        Tom Ligon estimated WB-6 was 3 orders of magnitude short of break even.

        by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 08:09:06 PM PDT

        •  Problem is that three is in the noise

          we got that with a pulsed hard X-ray source, not trying to do fusion but tracking induced radioactivity.  Just tossing around hot electrons that slam into stuff can spitz out some neutrons.

          JFK was still alive the first time I read of the rosy fusion future, 10 or 20 years away.  Several of my teachers in college had or were working on fusion projects  I'm a little skeptical of a hand's worth of neutrons from sub-millisecond bursts meaning I'll see a working fusion reactor in my lifetime.  They get hundreds of events per pulse, I'll listen a little more intently, as will their stretching the pulses out to many milliseconds.  Plus there are several analysis that show that Bremsstrahlung losses may be too high, especially for the p–¹¹B reaction.

          by wondering if on Wed May 07, 2008 at 01:00:22 AM PDT

          •  Brem losses are moot

            2 analysis, not several. Rider and Nevens are the sources of those objections. Bussard published their answers ...13 yrs ago, Brem was 1/32nd in a closed box machine funded under DARPA.

            Secondly neither author seems to have followed up after 15 yrs, while Japan, MIT, Livermore continue their interest in IEC schemes providing lots of unanswered new research.

            Brem occurs when you have high energy electrons in high density, which doesn't happen in an IEC or Polywell device.

            Riders thesis says these devices can't even work, not just that Brem is too high, lets be fair here, these devices do create fusion, so Rider can come back and give us all an update as soon as he wants to.

            Noise.

            Now this is a good point. The next question should be what was done to shield the detectors ? Right ?

            Because an electric arc will cause false counts. Tom Ligon put the detectors on WB-6, he said he....

            .....spent considerable time figuring out how to shield the counters and filter their power so they would not count even massive electric discharges.

            Tom talked to the team at Santa Fe, asked if they :

            use backup methods such as fast-neutron specific dosimeters

            Honestly I don't see Brem loses or neutron counts to be an issue, the Navy was quite satisfied with the counts from WB-6, to the point they are paying 1.8 million for WB-7. Making the carburetor, and proof of scaling laws, are where its at. With a minor stop at a truncated dodec.

            1. A 30cm LN2 cooled device could run for tens of minutes, the perfect machine to tune the carb.

            2)Then you build a 60 cm pulsed mode machine to test scaling.

            Only then does one think of building anything bigger.

            PS, WB-7 will be peer reviewed up the ying yang. They have been running it for months, only now is it getting the detectors and other documentary schemes.

            by Roger Fox on Fri May 09, 2008 at 12:51:35 PM PDT

•  hot coupling better than cold fusion

  especially for those chilly nights.

  by seesdifferent on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:12:56 PM PDT

  •  its not cold.

    by Roger Fox on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:22:15 PM PDT

•  Here's hoping.

  Keep working, publishing, testing.

  by khereva on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:14:58 PM PDT

•  Please let it be so

  Mother Jones has hard numbers on energy this month, and they so don't look good. (Pimping the issue, worth buying for a serious look at all energy sources today.) Too bad Bussard didn't last a few more years to see the growing interest in his invention.

  by CJnyc on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:43:22 PM PDT

•  Wonderful - thanks for the GREAT news! n/t

  by 1BQ on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:52:56 PM PDT