Moribund activity prevails from time to time

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Richard Hull
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Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

I have noted a lack of activity of late in these forums. We have seen this before. However, the world seems in free fall due to a vast number of causative agents and events. I would imagine folks are "drawing down" for the winter so far as time and expenditures are concerned. Inflation and winter heating will consume many as they just try and stay employed in a decent job that pays the bills with a bit of wavering optimism needed to do fusor stuff.

Many Americans have dug themselves into an economic quagmire by "living large", often far beyond their means, accumulating a debt burden that seems to be coming home to roost! Restaurants are begging for workers. At the post office today I saw a huge sign that I have never seen. It noted that the USPS needs postal workers for immediate hire! Jobs are out there! Where are the workers? Forget a great recession we are in a great contraction fed by personal debt and inflation. Some seem to have just given up.

It seems fusors are a very non-essential item as folks draw down and get serious about issues about quality of living they have grown used to.
Minimal bread and damned little circus remains.

I am curious. What say others about my gloomy assessment?

Note: we don't talk politics here....Period! We can muse about the future not only around fusion and energy, but future national commitment to power ready fusion. Will nations continue to support this mission with money they don't have?! Fission is ready to go! We can do it in small portable reactors or medium sized or the current gigawatt edifices. Fission is clean and green. Yet no new starts.

With the rush to E cars will this green onslaught collapse an already struggling grid? What say we just wait and see.

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
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Bob Reite
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Bob Reite »

As far as forum activity I don't have that much to report on my fusor because I have not had time to run it. A lot of the old grey haired engineers that understand that "AM array in the swap" have retired, and I'm getting much of that business. I do need the extra money given the price of #2 heat. Although I do have a wood burner I have to be at home to load it.

But maybe when it's too cold and icy for anything but emergency antenna work I'll get to work on the fusor some more. Fusors do seem to like it cold for best operation.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

Bob, you are fortunate in having a skill set that will allow for rather continuous "contract work". Many of us retirees get small project offers or consultation opportunities. For my part, I run my fusor on request or to perfect personal activation efforts. My reports and replies on fusor.net are either to show off some new project that is nuclear related or to answer questions to the best of my abilities.

I know what you mean about heating oil. We usually burn off 3 visits from the oil man per season. The first one just delivered for $560. Up from last year by $220 more. We got to where about $1100 would heat an entire season, Now it might be as much as $2000 to stay warm with the thermostat set at 70 degrees F. Note: I have tried for 2 years to keep the thermostat set to 68 deg., but the wife immediately reset it to 72 deg.
We have agreed to 70 deg. now, and to dress appropriately if she feels it is too cold for her.

I feel for our European pals. However their wake up call is more severe. Germany is already re-cranking closed coal plants and are not shutting down a fission plant scheduled to be shut down. They may even have to restart what fission they have already shut down after some inspection period.

There is still the issue all over Europe of inflation far worse than ours, at least for the moment. Lets hope that desperation and bad decisions do not trigger WWIII.

Europe has been the flashpoint in the last two global wars with the Asia power of Japan seeing a busy rest of the world at war to take what they could while others were so engaged. It is to be remembered Germany first took back the Saar, then the Danzig corridor and finally the Sudeten land plus annexed Austria under the guise of their Germanic majority populations. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

We are mere observers in all of this, and as always, will bear the yoke of all that unfolds. The covid crisis and pandemic seems gone for the most part, and just as the pieces are being picked up, we need a new boogie man or the other, or rather, the next shoe to drop.

Real working fusion in 30-50 years, as is predicted, is looking like a tough sell with vast reserves of coal, oil and gas on hand which we are afraid to burn and fission that frightens many, yet per unit power in mass and volume, is as green as it gets.

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
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Frank Sanns »

For some of us Fusor work is seasonal. In the nice months here in the norther climes, we try to get our outdoor work done before the long gray, short day seasons. I have added tending to some land that I have been neglecting so outdoors it has been busy. I also have been working on a couple of chemistry projects for clients so my time has been thin. I am even behind on the backend of tending to this site as Paul and I have been working though on my part again. All good.

I have a new sapphire leak valve and turbo pump sitting here along with a borrowed helium leak detector. I just need to get to it and the little boy Fusor that has still not seen first light.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

My original post was not meant to be critical of non-activity but informational to the newbies and old boys. The thrust of this thread is to get all to accept these moribund periods which have been seen before. Added to this was the understanding that events about us often conspire to set aside hobby craft for any number of reasons.

In addition, world events and personal and family issues due to those events are always on the front burner for responsible people. Where fusor work fits in anew around these issues is a personal choice and this must be respected.

In a world scrambling to be as green, the movement seems to drive governments and even individuals to shoot themselves in the foot so far as future energy is concerned. The ultimate object seems to be renewables to the exclusion of all others. This has taken on an effort with e-cars that could impact the grid in a disastrous manner. Nations of the free world seem to really embrace renewables. Developing nations add coal plants with total abandon. Their populations are starting to own their first gasoline powered car. Yet, think about it.... with coal, oil and gas producing their energy at a prodigious rate, they may be the first nations to become total E-car nations. Also, many of these developing nations are assembling nuclear plants in hope of, in a more distant future, getting off fossil fuels.

The free world's developed nations seem to be ignoring the energy logic that works in following some idealistic green future that must remain set aside while long term tera-watt solutions which may include renewables is brought into being at a rate that society can withstand in a fully developed nation. To remain a developed nation and grow we must have more than enough energy on the grid to advance. We must not deliberately cut energy production to follow a dream.

Fusion is and has always been a dream...An ever distant one that is being chased with a funds-limited effort. Philo's "distant vision" of fusion energy grows ever more distant as has always been the case. Meanwhile, we cut off our energy while at the same time boost the idea of massive electrical vehicle development and sales with the idea of proving just how green we can be with bullet holes in our feet. The more developed any nation gets, the more energy will be needed from all sources to grow and in some cases just to maintain the status quo.

As more things mechanical become electrically driven in nature, massive energy outputs will be demanded.

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
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Bob Reite
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Bob Reite »

Maybe a bit off topic, but oil is a dead end. All the easy finds have been taken. It will only get more and more expensive to extract what is left. Best thing to do is develop thorium cycle reactors, as thorium is more plentiful than U-235, and the waste remains dangerous for a much shorter period of time.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

I am a booster of the Thorium cycle. The Chi-Coms are working on one now. Breeders have a bad history. This is mostly due to the 1957 technology that showed them tricky. We can work in the 21st century with the thorium cycle in a breeder, but U235 is here now and it is working. Go with what you know. Experiment at leisure.

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
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

I dunno...

Ya tell people 'fusion is twenty years in the future and always will be' for.... well, it's been twenty years now...

... and it's not surprising people go back to the Legos or Netflix.

Just sayin' (as they say).

--P
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

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At any point in time fusion success is already 20 years in the past and 20 years in the future.

Fusion was promised 20 years ago to be fully functional on 11/9/2002 prior to that it was to be working on 11/9/1982 and it is yet promised once again, today, for 11/9/2042 and I'll bet they will push it out yet another 20 years to 11/9/2062.

Give up on fusion and dump that money into modern fission plant construction, while looking into small fission portable reactors or the Thorium fission breeder cycle.

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
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

Richard Hull wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 12:36 pm Give up on fusion and dump that money into modern fission plant construction, while looking into small fission portable reactors or the Thorium fission breeder cycle.
You could carve that on a tombstone for this website (and declare that the last post).

Sorry, I'm just in a grim mood lately.

--P
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

Yes, The dream that this site was created for in Songs and now fusor.net has failed to yield the obvious fruit. That fruit was to be an advance on Farnsworth's dream of power ready fusion. Unfortunately, it was a dream based on hope that if enough people got together, they could work towards the goal of beating mother nature's rules against fusion.

Such dreams were born of a lack of full knowledge of the physics and science involved. This site has taught innumerable people who came here and did the "doing" as well as many lurkers and valued posters who never turned a bolt, the physics and theory of fusion. There it was! The brick wall fully explained and now, fully understood.

My personal criticism was always followed by logical scientific reasoning and the reality seen by all who were now learned, thanks to this site. The brick wall facing man and separating us from controlled power fusion is not due to a single nearly unattainable factor, but many factors not even dreamed of.

Even at full and complete success, will the power company bean counters go for it? If the bean counters nix it, the power companies will not accept it! Once we beat the physics, can we beat the economics of supplying power at a price that can be swallowed by the consumers?

Why, when controlled fusion is at hand, would this be the case??? The companies and their bean counters based on many inputs from engineers and hard nosed scientists are forced to figure two things.

1. How much will it cost to build and operate a fully, far over unity, fusion power plant of X gigawatt output. That results in an initial estimate of first cost in dollars/KWH. Is this figure far beyond the time amortization based on projected sustained cost of operation over a fixed period of useful years of the power plant?

2. Will the final sell price per KWH, based on number 1, above, be accepted as the new rate for consumers or is it so great that it kills fusion energy for the public.

The upshot is, in the end, even with a total win, will fusion energy be acceptable to the power companies?
How many more 20 year cycles will be needed for a win and distributed fusion energy to the common Joe's home?

This site teaches and inspires tomorrow's scientists and engineers to "do" and think critically about fusion based on acquired knowledge of the physics of fusion.

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
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sergio moragrega
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by sergio moragrega »

I have been in the forums since the beginning of the 90s, especially in one called Cientificos Aficionados.

Forums in general have plummeted from 2013 onwards, the new social networks and their intrinsic ease for sharing multimedia files together with the generational change have caused these media to plummet.

However, I still consider forums as the ideal means to be able to host information in an indexed manner and as a virtual center of interrelation between people with similar hobbies.
First you have to understand nature and then imitate it.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

What you say is very true. So many people have "friends" they have never met and will never see during their lifetimes via direct interaction over smart phones. Instant communication, world wide. It all depends on what a person terms as a "friend". Many are self-deluded that they have a lot of "friends" when they truly do not.

I must say that for me I have no friends who I have never met and a huge fraction of all the people I have met, in person, are not my friends. At the very best, If I do not class a person as a friend who I have met, they are considered acquaintances. I have no enemies as that is a useless endeavor as I just ignore those who are repellant to me.

I find the very concept of unfriending someone as an aberration and fault of character that tells me, personally, that someone is intrinsically worthless as a living entity. They have no concept of true friendship and no moral compass.

I would rather have 6 close, intimate, true friends than a hundred close acquaintances and a thousand people who are merely acquaintances. All of these would be people I have met and had interaction with at the personal level.

Bacon, in his essays, said it best....A person is to be wary of many friends for as his train grows longer so his wings become shorter.

What Sergio notes is certainly true, but he also recognizes that forums like this, certainly one that survives as this one has, is a focal point not only for supposed "friends", but more importantly a focal point for a sharing of knowledge, techniques and discussion related to fusion at all levels. We attempt to exclude no one out of hand and that is a true justice within any group of acolytes.

Whether you are a "lone wolf" or a classic "Alpha personality, glad hand" There is a place here for you if you are truly interested in the physics and the doing of fusion.

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
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sergio moragrega
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by sergio moragrega »

Indeed considers me a lone wolf when it comes to my disruptive experiments.

It can be said that I am a person who, based on the experiences lived in the first person, bets his two cents on lost causes.

The purpose of my experiments is to create the key that can open the lock of controlled fusion energy, marking a before and after in terms of global energy slavery.

I know that it is an apparently impossible premise for a human being with very limited resources, but if I succeed, not only will I win, but rather all of humanity.
First you have to understand nature and then imitate it.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Moribund activity prevails from time to time

Post by Richard Hull »

Keep up your effort and, as always, all the best of luck in changing the world for the better.

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
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