Electromagnet Grid

This forum is for other possible methods for fusion such as Sonolumenescense, Cold Fusion, CANR/LENR or accelerator fusion. It should contain all theory, discussions and even construction and URLs related to "other than fusor, fusion".
Post Reply
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14992
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by Richard Hull »

Interesting design, but just chocked full o' design phases and goals, any one of which might fall on its face, in spite of fine modeling and effort on behalf of a dedicated group. We will keep our eye on this one if we should live so long.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
prestonbarrows
Posts: 211
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:27 am
Real name:

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by prestonbarrows »

ITER, as a thermalized device, will never be an apples to apples comparison to a polywell (pseudo-beam-type) device, whether it ultimately produces net energy or not.

~95% of the standard theoretical framework generally applied to tokamaks typically assumes a thermalized isotrotropic motion and cylindrical or helical symmetry which can not be directly applied to a polywell.

Truth is that there is some theoretical promise that a polywell device could possibly outperform a traditional fusor or tokamak but no one has definitively dis/proven this in any experiment to date that I am aware of.
User avatar
Chris Bradley
Posts: 2930
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 7:05 am
Real name:

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by Chris Bradley »

prestonbarrows wrote:Truth is that there is some theoretical promise that a polywell device could possibly outperform a traditional fusor or tokamak but no one has definitively dis/proven this in any experiment to date that I am aware of.
That's a bit of a flimsy straw man. There are any number of crack-pot ideas that have not yet been 'disproved', but that hardly amounts to a 'truth' of a possibility.

This, IMHO, is a 'failure' of current scientific education that people actually look at science in this way: You can create a theory to explain an extant observation, or you can use extant theories to predict a new, testable hypothesis. It is not 'scientific' to imagine a possible outcome and then adapt theories to explain why it might be possible. There can be no logical suggestion that an unproven hypothesis derived solely for the purpose of trying to explain a phenomena not yet observed needs to be 'disproved' in any way. An unproven hypothesis remains an unproven hypothesis and no investment of any effort whatsoever is required by anyone who chooses to dismiss it as an irrelevance. It is for the proponent to prove - a point often misunderstood by newbs here with 'new theories' that the rest of us are [as we're told] too 'close-minded' to understand.

I also disagree with the supposition. In the first approximation, the idea of rounding up electrons that can then electrostatically capture heavier ions seems to have been show to be a flawed theory by the failure of the ETW device to act as predicted. There is no question that you can multipact electrons in to a space, but they don't appear to act as an 'electrode' to heavy ion acceleration.

You might also note that Bussard's original complaint against tokamak was that it had absorbed $millions and produced no fusion after decades. That is now true for his creation also, and his complaint now applies to his own invention too.

Being able to bunch up a gang'o'electrons is no demonstration of fusion. It is back to the Hirsch observation; very interesting physics, maybe, but where's the fusion?
prestonbarrows
Posts: 211
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:27 am
Real name:

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by prestonbarrows »

Chris Bradley wrote:very interesting physics, maybe, but where's the fusion?
That is all I was trying to say. It is an interesting idea that has not been looked into very much either in theory or experiment.

Recently, there have been a few solid papers from the University of Sydney with very low energy devices that show potential well formation and promising scaling. However, this was all electron-only I believe and far from anything capable of fusion. There has also been some recent simulation work published here at the University of Wisconsin. But, of course, extrapolating from small devices and simulation typically does not work well in fusion experiments.

Basically all of Bussard's public experimental results are bordering on unscientific garbage. But, to my knowledge, they are the only (non peer-reviewed) "published" examples of full devices actually being run with D.
User avatar
Chris Bradley
Posts: 2930
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 7:05 am
Real name:

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by Chris Bradley »

prestonbarrows wrote: It is an interesting idea that has not been looked into very much either in theory or experiment.
It's had at least 30 years and at least $30 million. How much time and money do you need to put into a project before you can conclude it is not viable?
prestonbarrows
Posts: 211
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2012 1:27 am
Real name:

Re: Electromagnet Grid

Post by prestonbarrows »

I believe the private companies started by Bussard have gotten repeated government funding up to the present day. But as far as I know, none of the recent results have been made public and are in the realm of classified/NDA information. Is this what you are referring to?

Are any of these recent results available publicly? What makes you claim they are 'not viable'? Presumably, their repeated renewal of funding shows at least someone thinks it is a promising idea (or they have an outstanding team of lobbyists).

Are there any examples of peer reviewed devices running with deuterium?

My quick search through the literature turns up basically nothing except the University of Sydney group over the past few years with a small, low power, electron only, device.

Don't take this as me being antagonistic or trying to champion one approach over another. I am just genuinely curious about the idea.
Post Reply

Return to “Other Forms of Fusion - Theory, Construction, Discussion, URLs”