The Nation had this to say about Polywell Fusion:
A major breakthrough in fusion technology was last week confirmed by a Freedom of Information Act request made by the emerging technologies website nextbigfuture.com. Previously confidential US Navy technical review reports of the progress of the US-based company EMC2 in 2012 and 2013, now publicly available, indicate one of the most significant advances made in plasma physics and magnetic fusion. The reports released confirm public claims made by the company in 2014 and 2015 that it may be able to construct a net energy gain prototype reactor by the end of 2019. EMC2 is presently seeking US$30 million in commercial funding and is understood to be in negotiations with institutions in one or more Asean countries.
Maybe the project will get funded because the place where we are spending all our money ITER Fusion is falling out of favor.
In a tense exchange with Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R–CA), Bigot acknowledged that by the time ITER starts running late next decade its total cost will likely exceed $20 billion. That’s a big jump over the roughly $12 billion ITER was estimated to cost in 2006, when China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States agreed to build the machine. The original plan also called for ITER to start running this year. More might have been done with the money slated for ITER if it had been spent instead on research involving more conventional nuclear energy, Rohrabacher said. “I still think that if we had put $20 billion into fission we would have done a lot more for humanity,” he said.
So haw about we take 2.5% of that $20 billion and put it into a Polywell Project. That would be $500 million. That is about double what I expect it would take to allow for huge mistakes and the usual cost overruns that happen in an R&D project.
I have a group of experienced developers that wants to get Polywell going. You can find them at Proton Boron.
Comments
9 responses to “The Nation Magazine Looks At Polywell Fusion”
You’d think Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk would be interested in funding polywell, especially if the EM drive really works.
Unlike tokamaks which don’t work. For fusion, anyway, they’re great for wasting money. I really don’t get why laser confinement is ever expected to work considering how inefficient the lasers are, it has to overcome something like a 95% energy loss in the lasers before even beginning to break even.
I wonder if the EM drive is just leaking more microwave energy out of one end than the other. That would produce a very tiny amount of force. Just beaming microwaves out the back of a spaceship will produce some thrust, same as beaming light would.
I did a BOE calculation on a Polywell rocket with H2O as reaction mass.
Mars in 2 weeks.
Asteroid mining.
The EM drive is a known scam. NASA has a large collection of charlatans running all sorts of scams: faster than light warp drives, arsenical DNA, temperature records … the beat goes on.
As to Polywell, it is a suspected scam until proven otherwise. All cold fusion projects are proven scams.
Bob,
Polywell falls into the category of “Research Not Completed”. We know it works at small scale – the reports have been noted in the Nation.
What we do not know is – can it be scaled up to a net energy producer? That scaling can be done for $500 million tops.
If it works it can make space travel (as opposed to “just visiting”) a going proposition.
Another BOE:
Burning 1 gallon of jet fuel in 1 second approximates 100 MW electrical energy.
Beaming the output of a 100 MW magnetron or free electron laser out the back of a spaceship should yield roughly the same acceleration as a rocket engine burning a gallon of kerosene with liquid O2. No mass needed, and it can run continuously. Scale as needed.
MMM,
The nice thing about ejecting mass is that it takes the losses with it. Cooling is difficult in space.
And then there is the Multi GWs needed to get off the earth.
Probably still need chemical or ejected mass to get to LEO. But, LEO is halfway to anywhere. A small but continuous thrust is what’s needed to get beyond. Huge advantage to not needing to carry reaction mass, and just aim the waste heat out the back, hotter it gets the faster it goes.
the back, hotter it gets the faster it goes.
Until it melts. Then it stops going.