Polywell Fusion at Microsoft
Hello All,
It's been a little while since I posted here. I have a new blog post. .
The Post: "An Industry Emerges" is a analysis of 16 companies working towards fusion power. I estimate that there is about 330 people engaged in these organizations, with a total funding of 430 million. By comparison, the KSTAR tokamak has 2X that amount invested.
I feel like these little companies (Trying everything from Polywells, Fusors, Focus Fusion, Magnetized Target Fusion, Lockheed's machine and beam fusion) are innovating much faster and are far closer to fusion than monsters like ITER.
Things have been happening fast in the polywell fusion world. Here is a short update:
In July, both Science and Nature reported on alternative fusion [31, 32]. This was a major milestone. It energized researchers who had been laboring away in obscurity. Natures’ article was more critical - covering Tri Alpha, Helion and General Fusion. The Science article was longer and more upbeat. It detailed General Fusion, focus fusion, Tri Alpha and the polywell. The author Daniel Clery has just published a new book on fusion [38].
In August, Phoenix Nuclear Labs announced it could churn out 100 billion neutrons a second, for an entire day [34, 35]. Wow. That is 24 hours of constant fusion. This shows a hint of what is possible when you use an electric field to heat ions to fusion conditions. Also in August, the government finally moved into alternative fusion. ARPA-E started a program named alpha. The budget of 30 million should fund about ten projects [13]. They see only two paths to fusion power. Laser fusion makes a high density plasma, while tokomaks makes a low density plasma. They want a third, middle range, high repetition option. By middle densities, they mean 1E18 to 1E23 ions per cubic centimeter [14]. Dr. Bussards’ polywell got there (1E19) but Dr. Park’s did not (1E16) [18, 3]. This request tells us much about the governments’ antiquated thinking. First, these new devices do not all pulse. Fusors can run continuously. Secondly, many schemes have no need for ‘drivers’ and ‘targets’. General Fusion and Tri Alpha are notable exceptions [19,20]. But, the polywell, the dynomak and Lockheeds’ designs do not work this way [21, 1, 27, 28].
In September the fifth paper was published by the University of Sydney [29]. Their old papers are explained on this blog [39 - 45]. Their new polywell has better electron injectors and is ten times stronger. The team also built a new capacitance probe and validating it was difficult. The probe was used to measure the voltage in the polywell, under different conditions. The coil made electrons that were attracted to the positive rings. As they approached the magnetic field overpowered, drawing the electros into the trap. The probe measured the amount trapped. The team found that trapping increased when more electrons were emitted. It also got stronger as the magnetic field rose. This is not surprising. Of the two variables, emission was more powerful. Trapping was connected to these variables with some rough math. You should read the paper yourself [39].
In October, Lockheed Martin revealed its fusion technology. This got international press [46 - 52]. Lockheed failed to give any data. They opted for a dreamy video and three patents [27, 28, 52]. This is unacceptable. We are building the case for fusion power. This is a long term effort. It can only be sustained by a community. A community of teachers, engineers, investors, policy makers, academics and businessmen. Everyone has a role here. The community needs to hear the newest data, presented in a clear manner. When this system breaks down – bad things happen. Lockheed should have done a paper before issuing a press release. Finally, the 16th IEC conference was held at University of Wisconsin Madison. The polywell had a bigger impact this year. Dr. Park gave a polywell keynote and Dr. Santarius discussed his modeling efforts [53]. Devlin Baker premiered his excellent modeling code and George Miley discussed the IEC family of technologies. Dr. Hirsch predicted that ITER funding would fall and IEC research could rise in its’ place [53]. It was a good conference.
This month the polywell was presented at MICROSOFT.
research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=238715&r=1
Sincerely,
The Polywell Guy
http://thepolywellblog.blogspot.com/
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