Clearing Up Misconceptions

Rick Nebel who is in charge of the Polywell Experiments at EMC2 comments on Alan Boyle's article on progress in Fusion Power on MSNBC's Cosmic Log.

As usual, I seem to have created some misconceptions by my comments. First of all, what we said on our website is that the work on the WB-7 has been completed. We did not discuss the results. If you would like to conjecture what those results are, let me suggest that you notice the fact that we are working on the WB-8 device. The WB-8 was not a part of Dr. Bussard’s original development plan. This device came about as a result of the peer review process which suggested that there were issues that needed to be resolved at a smaller scale before proceeding to a demo. This was a conclusion that EMC2 heartily concurred with. I don’t want to leave people with the impression that everything on the WB-7 is identical to the WB-6.

Secondly, in our contract with the DOD, EMC2 owns the commercialization rights for the Polywell. However, commercialization is not something that we can do with our DOD funding. That is what we would like to look at with any contributions from the website. This will enable us to:

1. Design an attractive commercial reactor package.
2. Identify the high leverage physics items that most impact the design (i.e. how good is good enough).
3. Give us a base design when we are ready to proceed to the next step.

rnebel (Sent Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:12 PM)

I think it is evident that the Polywell people are making progress. Will it actually lead to a viable fusion power machine? There is no way to know for sure until the experiments are done. I am hopeful. It seems like Rick is hopeful as well and with better reason. He has the data.

Some of my more recent articles on the subject:

Rick Nebel has a few things to say:
Polywell - No BS - No Excuses

Pictures of past and future Polywell efforts:
WB-D

Where the money for commercialization will come from:
Venture Capital Likes Fusion

H/T DeltaV at Talk Polywell

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Watching The Fundamentals

I was reading Seeking Alpha today to see where stock traders think the economy is going and I got this wonderful piece of advice in the comments for judging market fundamentals.

You may be right about the sentiment on this board, but this board isn't the place to look for sentiment. On average the people here are moved less by emotion and more by data points.

You want to measure sentiment in the masses. For example, in 1999 at the top of the market I got a stock tip from a stripper who was taking out a second loan on her home to buy more Iomega. That is a sell sign.

Wait 'til I tell my mate "Honey I have to go to the nudie bar to judge market sentiment". It could make investing in the market a LOT more popular. Or at least doing the research on the fundamentals.

Energy Futures

The Energy Blog reports that Google is investing in people and companies who have good ideas for making solar energy cheaper than coal.

Esolar_array_2Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, known as RE<C, will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other potential breakthrough technologies.

In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns.

The difficulty here is that the odds of a real break through in this area that can be capitalized on is vanishingly small. The reason? Google is not the only pool of money looking for investments in this area.

The solar problem like fusion problem is tough. In fact the two problems are similar. Fusion is easy. Collecting solar energy is easy. The hard part with fusion is getting the energy output up to commercial usefulness. And by commercial usefulness I mean selling the electricity for a price people are willing to pay. Solar has the same problem.

With solar the odds of a breakthrough are small because so many people have picked over the pieces. In my opinion the odds of a fusion break through are better. Why? The science involved is not as well understood. Any place you have a knowledge hole the opportunities for a breakthrough are better. However, the risks are also higher. Advances in knowledge may prove that what you thought possible is not.