Polywell - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A polywell device is a type of fusion reactor that was originated by Robert Bussard under a U.S. Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

research contract. It traps electrons in a magnetic confinement inside its hollow center. The negatively charged electrons then accelerate positively charged ions for the purpose of achieving inertial electrostatic confinement

Inertial electrostatic confinement

Inertial electrostatic confinement is a concept for retaining a plasma using an electrostatic field. The field accelerates charged particles radially inward, usually in a spherical but sometimes in a cylindrical geometry. Ions can be confined with IEC in order to achieve controlled nuclear fusion...

fusion. The polywell device can trace its development to the ideas behind the Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor. Bussard theorized that this device could potentially generate net energy production and thus become a source for electric power

Electric power

Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt.-Circuits:Electric power, like mechanical power, is represented by the letter P in electrical equations...

.

The polywell consists of several positively charged electromagnet

Electromagnet

An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off...

coils that are arranged in a polyhedron

Polyhedron

In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...

. This charged magnetic polyhedron is called a MaGrid. Electrons are introduced from outside and are accelerated into the MaGrid due to the electric field. Within the MaGrid, magnetic fields confine most of the electrons and those that escape are retained by the electric field. This configuration traps the electrons in the middle of the device focusing them near the center which produces a virtual cathode (negative electric potential

Electric potential

In classical electromagnetism, the electric potential at a point within a defined space is equal to the electric potential energy at that location divided by the charge there...

). Ions are introduced and the virtual cathode is used to accelerate and confine them so they will fuse, creating fusion power. Robert Bussard developed it as an improvement of the Elmore-Tuck-Watson fusor which was based on the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor.

The name polywell is a portmanteau of "polyhedron

Polyhedron

In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...

" and "potential well

Potential well

A potential well is the region surrounding a local minimum of potential energy. Energy captured in a potential well is unable to convert to another type of energy because it is captured in the local minimum of a potential well...

Problems with Farnsworth-Hirsch fusors

A traditional Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor

Fusor

The Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor, or simply fusor, is an apparatus designed by Philo T. Farnsworth to create nuclear fusion. It has also been developed in various incarnations by researchers including Elmore, Tuck, and Watson, and more recently by George H. Miley and Robert W. Bussard...

consists of a vacuum

Vacuum

In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...

chamber containing a positively charged outer grid and a negatively charged inner grid; essentially a large vacuum tube

Vacuum tube

In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...

with spherical grids. Fusible atomic nuclei

Atomic nucleus

The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The...

are injected as ion

Ion

An ion is an atom or molecule in which the total number of electrons is not equal to the total number of protons, giving it a net positive or negative electrical charge. The name was given by physicist Michael Faraday for the substances that allow a current to pass between electrodes in a...

s into the system and accelerated toward the inner grid. Most of the time, the ions pass through the grid and enter the core where they either impact or miss other ions. On a miss (or non-fusing impact), the nuclei move outwards and pass through the inner grid which decelerates them and then reaccelerates them inward wherein they return through the core. Occasionally, given long enough, nuclei strike either the grid or another high-energy nucleus. Most strikes with other nuclei do not result in fusion, but occasionally fusion results.

A benefit with the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor is that without the motion of electrons and magnetic fields, there are no synchrotron losses

Synchrotron radiation

The electromagnetic radiation emitted when charged particles are accelerated radially is called synchrotron radiation. It is produced in synchrotrons using bending magnets, undulators and/or wigglers...

and (if the grid is kept cool to reduce thermionic emission

Thermionic emission

Thermionic emission is the heat-induced flow of charge carriers from a surface or over a potential-energy barrier. This occurs because the thermal energy given to the carrier overcomes the binding potential, also known as work function of the metal. The charge carriers can be electrons or ions, and...

) low levels of bremsstrahlung

Bremsstrahlung

Bremsstrahlung is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typically an electron by an atomic nucleus. The moving particle loses kinetic energy, which is converted into a photon because energy is conserved. The term is...

.

The fundamental problem with this traditional system is with the grid itself. Far too often, nuclei strike the grid. This wastes the energy that went into ionizing and accelerating the particle thus cooling the plasma, and most critically, heats and damages the grid. Even if the cooling problem was not critical, in a reactor emitting enough power to use in a power plant, a fine mesh grid would almost certainly be rapidly vaporized.

Problems with Elmore-Tuck-Watson fusors

An Elmore-Tuck-Watson fusor

Fusor

inverts the charges on the grids. It consists of a vacuum

Vacuum

chamber containing a negatively charged outer grid (which may be the chamber) and a positively charged inner grid. Electrons are injected into the system and accelerated toward the inner grid. Most of the time, the electrons pass through the grid, through the core, and through the inner grid again, which then decelerates them and reaccelerates them inward wherein they return through the core. As they pass repeatedly through the core, they generate a negatively charged zone, a potential well, which is called a virtual cathode. Fusible atomic nuclei

Atomic nucleus

are then introduced inside the positive grid where they are ionized. The virtual cathode accelerates the ions toward the center where they oscillate within the potential well. Since the ions never (in theory) reach the grid, they never lose their energy to such impacts and continue to oscillate through the core. Given enough oscillations, the ions strike other high-energy ions and fuse.
The fundamental problem with this variation system is still the grid itself. Far too often the electrons strike the grid. Thus the Elmore-Tuck-Watson fusor has the same basic problems as the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor.

The Polywell approach

Like the Elmore-Tuck-Watson (ETW) fusor, the polywell confines positive ions through their attraction to the negative potential well which is created by the electrons that are held inside a positively charged grid. However, to avoid the losses related to the electrons striking the grid, the Polywell uses magnetic fields to shield the grid. The magnetic fields are configured in a way that adds to the confinement of the electrons so that there are many more electrons inside the core than outside.

The reactor volume is defined by the coils producing the magnetic field. The coils are held at a positive potential relative to the surrounding outer grid which may or may not be the walls of the vacuum chamber. This provides the same function as the positive and negative grids in the ETW fusor which is to restrain and return any electrons that escape the core. The charged coils are known as MaGrids, from "Magnetic Grids".

Ions are added at a density nearly equal to that of the electrons to produce a quasi-neutral plasma

Plasma (physics)

In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...

, but a slight excess of electrons maintains the negative potential well.
While this concept differs from the original ETW fusor in that it uses magnetic fields, it also differs from traditional magnetic confinement because the fields do not need to confine ions—only electrons, which is much easier.

In most experiments to date, the MaGrid arrangement has been approximated by a symmetrical arrangement of discrete, circular coils, all pointing toward (or all away from) the center. The magnetic field vanishes at the center by symmetry, and the magnetic flux that enters the volume through the coils leaves it again through the spaces between the coils. This configuration confines electrons to the central volume by a magnetic mirror

Magnetic mirror

A magnetic mirror is a magnetic field configuration where the field strength changes when moving along a field line. The mirror effect results in a tendency for charged particles to bounce back from the high field region....

with a large field ratio or, under some conditions, a magnetic cusp

Cusp

Cusp may refer to:*Beach cusps, a pointed and regular arc pattern of the shoreline at the beach*Behavioral cusp an important behavior change with far reaching consequences*Cusp catastrophe...

. Bussard claimed
that the MaGrid arrangement of the magnetic field has only point cusps but acknowledged that the circular coils produce line-like cusps at the closest approaches of the coils.

The basic concepts and principles of Polywell operation have been visualized in a web-based 3D simulator by John Coady (requires a web browser supporting WebGL) .

Polywell results

Despite initial difficulties in spherical electron confinement, at the time of the 2005 research project's termination, Bussard reported a fusion rate of 10⁹ per second running D-D fusion reactions at only 12.5 kV (based on detecting

Neutron detection

Neutron detection is the effective detection of neutrons entering a well-positioned detector. There are two key aspects to effective neutron detection: hardware and software. Detection hardware refers to the kind of neutron detector used and to the electronics used in the detection setup...

a total of nine neutrons in five tests, giving a wide confidence interval

Confidence interval

In statistics, a confidence interval is a particular kind of interval estimate of a population parameter and is used to indicate the reliability of an estimate. It is an observed interval , in principle different from sample to sample, that frequently includes the parameter of interest, if the...

). He stated, that the fusion rate achieved by WB-6 is roughly 100,000 times greater than that Farnsworth managed to achieve at similar well depth and drive conditions. By comparison, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

reported a neutron rate of up to 5×10⁹ per second at voltages of 120 kV with an electrostatic fusor without magnetic fields.

Bussard asserted, by using superconductor coils, the only significant energy loss channel is through electron losses proportional to the surface area. He also stated that the density would scale with the square of the field (constant beta

Beta (plasma physics)

The beta of a plasma, symbolized by β, is the ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure...

conditions), and the maximum attainable magnetic field would scale with the radius (technological constraints). Under those conditions, the fusion power produced would scale with the seventh power of

Power law

A power law is a special kind of mathematical relationship between two quantities. When the frequency of an event varies as a power of some attribute of that event , the frequency is said to follow a power law. For instance, the number of cities having a certain population size is found to vary...

the radius, and the energy gain would scale with the fifth power. While Bussard did not publicly document the physical reasoning underlying this estimate, if true, it would enable a model only ten times larger to be useful as a fusion power plant.

Comparison to conventional confinement concepts

The polywell is related to various other plasma confinement concepts, but differs markedly from all of them. It is most closely related to the fusor

Fusor

, which, like the polywell, confines ions by an inwardly directed electric field and requires a grid of solid-state electrodes within the plasma vessel. Both concepts intend to operate with a highly non-thermal, ideally mono-energetic, distribution of ion energies. If the ion energies can be held near the optimum value, the fusion rate for a given plasma pressure can be a few times higher than the maximum rate possible for ions with a thermal distribution. On the other hand, collisions and collective instabilities have a tendency to restore a thermal distribution, so that it generally costs power to maintain a mono-energetic distribution.

The polywell differs from the fusor in that the electrons are magnetically confined, so that it is also related to magnetic confinement fusion

Magnetic confinement fusion

Magnetic confinement fusion is an approach to generating fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine the hot fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of fusion energy research, the other being inertial confinement fusion. The magnetic approach is...

, most closely to magnetic mirrors. In common with magnetic mirrors is the field minimum in the central region, the confinement (in part) by the mirror effect

Magnetic mirror

, and (at least to some extent) a non-thermal distribution of the electron energies. In some mirror configurations, the field in the center is a minimum in every direction, as it is in the central region of a polywell. The magnetic field in such a case is said to have "good curvature" because a certain class of fluctuations are stable in a plasma contained by such a field. In contrast to mirror machines, the polywell does not just have a minimum in the field strength in the center, the field vanishes entirely there. Also the polywell does not have a magnetic axis, but rather a polyhedral symmetry.

The most actively developed plasma confinement concept at this time is the tokamak

Tokamak

A tokamak is a device using a magnetic field to confine a plasma in the shape of a torus . Achieving a stable plasma equilibrium requires magnetic field lines that move around the torus in a helical shape...

, the concept behind ITER

ITER

ITER is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project, which is currently building the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at Cadarache in the south of France...

. A net power fusion reactor based on the tokamak concept, if possible, would certainly be a large and complex machine. Bussard predicted, in contrast, that a net power fusion reactor of similar power based on the polywell concept, would be a much smaller, simpler, and cost effective machine. The tokamak has a toroidal geometry with nested flux surfaces, so that both ions and electrons can only be lost by transport across magnetic field lines (primarily as a result of instabilities with very short wavelengths). The confinement of particles in a polywell is more complex, involving both magnetic and electric fields, transport of particles both across and along magnetic field lines, and different processes for the ions than for the electrons.

Possibility of net power

All of Bussard's Polywell experiments were based on deuterium-deuterium (²H+²H ) reactions. This was because it has a high reaction cross section at a low temperature relative to other fuels. Deuterium-tritium (²H+³H ) reactions have a higher cross section at a lower temperature, but since tritium is only naturally occurring in trace amounts on Earth it would have been too costly to use for polywell experiments. However, tritium is produced in ²H+²H reactions and could be fed back into the polywell as fuel, giving the highest possibility of net power. Bussard calculated that a Polywell reactor with a radius of 1.5 meters would produce economically viable net power using (²H+²H ) reactions.

The downside to both ²H+²H and ²H+³H reactions is that they produce fast neutron radiation, which did not meet Bussard's goal for radiation free fusion power. Therefore, Bussard proposed fueling the reactor with boron-11 and proton fuel

Aneutronic fusion

Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power where neutrons carry no more than 1% of the total released energy. The most-studied fusion reactions release up to 80% of their energy in neutrons...

. However, there is some controversy about the viability of p-¹¹B reactors. In his thesis, MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

doctoral student Todd Rider had calculated that bremsstrahlung

Bremsstrahlung

losses with this fuel will exceed fusion power production by at least 20%. In contrast, Bussard's calculations indicate that the bremsstrahlung losses would be as little as one twelfth of the fusion power production. According to Bussard the high speed and therefore low cross section for Coulomb collision

Coulomb collision

A Coulomb collision is a binary elastic collision between two charged particles interacting through their own Electric Field. As with any inverse-square law, the resulting trajectories of the colliding particles is a hyperbolic Keplerian orbit...

s of the ions in the core makes thermalizing collisions very unlikely, while the low speed at the rim means that thermalization there has almost no impact on ion velocity in the core.

History

In the late 1960s there were several investigations of polyhedral magnetic fields as a possibility to confine a fusion plasma. The first proposal to combine this magnetic configuration with an electrostatic potential well in order to improve electron confinement was made by Lavrentiev in 1975.

The idea was picked up by Robert Bussard in 1983, a link acknowledged in the references cited by his 1989 patent application, though in 2006 he appears to claim to have re-discovered the idea independently. Research was funded by the Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

beginning in 1987, and the United States Navy

United States Navy

began providing low-level funding to the project in 1992. Bussard, who had formerly been an advocate for Tokamak

Tokamak

research, became the premiere advocate for and researcher on the concept, so that the idea is now indelibly associated with his name. In 1995 he sent a letter to the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

stating that he had only supported Tokamaks in order to get fusion research sponsored by the government, but he now believed that there are better alternatives to Tokamaks.

Polywell models were produced through an iterative process, ranging from WB-1 through WB-6 (with WB-7 and 8 planned, but not constructed by Bussard's team; see FY2008-9 sections below for details on current WB-7 and WB-8 models). Early designs consisted of tightly welded stainless steel cubes of electromagnets, wound on square-cross section spools. These designs suffered from "funny cusp" losses at the joints between magnets, and from the magnetic field clipping the corners of the spools. The losses into the metal severely hurt their performance, leading to lower electron trapping performance than predicted. Later designs (starting with WB-6) began spacing electromagnets apart instead of touching, and changed to circular cross sections instead of square, reducing the metal surface area unprotected by magnetic fields. These changes dramatically improved system performance, leading to a great deal of electron recirculation and the confinement of electrons into a progressively tighter core. Until 2005 all of the reactors have been 6-magnet designs built as a cube (or more specifically as a truncated cube

Truncated cube

In geometry, the truncated cube, or truncated hexahedron, is an Archimedean solid. It has 14 regular faces , 36 edges, and 24 vertices....

). Bussard's WB-8 was planned to be a higher-order polyhedron, with 12 electromagnets (this design was not used in the actual WB-8 machine).

Funding became tighter and tighter. According to Bussard, "The funds were clearly needed for the more important War in Iraq

2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

." An extra $900k of Office of Naval Research

Office of Naval Research

The Office of Naval Research , headquartered in Arlington, Virginia , is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S...

funding allowed the program to continue long enough to reach WB-6 testing in November 2005. The last-produced model, WB-6, produced a fusion rate of 10⁹ per second. Drive voltage on the WB-6 tests was about 12.5 kV, with a resulting potential well depth of about 10 kV, thus deuterons arriving in the center of the machine will have a kinetic energy of 10 keV. By comparison, a Fusor running deuterium fusion at 10 kV would produce a fusion rate difficult to detect at all. Hirsch reported a fusion rate this high only by driving his machine to 150 kV and by using deuterium-tritium fusion (a much easier reaction). While the pulses of operation in WB-6 were sub-milliseconds, Bussard felt the conditions should represent steady state as far as the physics are concerned. Most critically, the models of the system indicate that a full-sized model, costing approximately $150–200M (depending on the fuel), should be an effective power plant, producing notably more energy than it consumes. A last-minute test of WB-6 ended prematurely when the insulation on one of the hand-wound electromagnet

Electromagnet

An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off...

s burned through, destroying the device. With no more funding during 2006 and partly 2007, the project's military-owned equipment was transferred across town to SpaceDev

SpaceDev

SpaceDev, a part of the "Space Systems Business" of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is prominent for its spaceflight and microsatellite work. It designed and built the hybrid rocket motors for Paul Allen's Tier One suborbital SpaceShipOne space program operated by Scaled Composites...

, which also hired three of the team's researchers.

After the transfer, Bussard tried to attract new investors, giving talks trying to raise interest in his design. A talk at Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

headquarters had the title, "Should Google Go Nuclear?" An informal overview of the last decade of work was presented at the 57th International Astronautical Congress in October 2006.

Dr. Bussard formed EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation, http://www.emc2fusion.org a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

, to seek funding for continuation of the project.

Recent US Navy funded work

With the success of WB-6, Bussard believed that the system had demonstrated itself to the degree that no intermediate-scale models would be needed, and noted, "We are probably the only people on the planet who know how to make a real net power clean fusion system" He proposed to rebuild WB-6 more robustly to verify its performance. After conducting and publishing the results of dozens of repeatable tests, he planned to convene a conference of experts in the field in an attempt to get them behind his design. Assuming his design had been backed, the project would have immediately moved toward a full-scale demo plant. The first step in that plan was to design and build two more small scale designs (WB-7 and WB-8) to determine which full scale polyhedral potential well would be best. He wrote “The only small scale machine work remaining, which can yet give further improvements in performance, is test of one or two WB-6-scale devices but with “square“ or polygonal coils aligned approximately (but slightly offset on the main faces) along the edges of the vertices of the polyhedron. If this is built around a truncated dodecahedron

Truncated dodecahedron

In geometry, the truncated dodecahedron is an Archimedean solid. It has 12 regular decagonal faces, 20 regular triangular faces, 60 vertices and 90 edges.- Geometric relations :...

, near-optimum performance is expected; about 3-5 times better than WB-6.”

Bussard noted that, "Thus, we have the ability to do away with oil (and other fossil fuels) but it will take 4-6 years and ca.

Circa

Circa , usually abbreviated c. or ca. , means "approximately" in the English language, usually referring to a date...

$100-200M to build the full-scale plant and demonstrate it."

Bussard said "Somebody will build it; and when it's built, it will work; and when it works people will begin to use it, and it will begin to displace all other forms of energy."

Fiscal year (FY) 2008 work

In August 2007, EMC2 received a $1.8M U.S. Navy research contract to continue the reactor development. Before Bussard's death in October, 2007, Dolly Gray, who co-founded EMC2 with Bussard in 1985, and served as its president and CEO, helped assemble the small team of scientists in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

to carry on his work. The group is led by Richard (Rick) Nebel and includes Jaeyoung Park; (both Nebel and Park are physicists on leave from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)); Mike Wray, the physicist who ran the key 2005 tests; and Kevin Wray, who is the computer specialist for the operation.

What is now called WB-7, the more robust version of the WB-6 fusion device, was constructed at a machine shop in San Diego and shipped to Santa Fe to the EMC2 testing facility. The device, like prior ones, was designed by engineer Mike Skillicorn. This WB-7 however was not the “square” coil suggested by Dr. Bussard.

WB-7, achieved "1st plasma" in early January, 2008.

No specific information has been published as of 2010, due to a publishing embargo on research data maintained by US Navy. The prior project, led by the late Dr. Bussard, had been under an embargo for 11 years between 1994 and 2005 when that series of contracts with the US Navy ended.

In August 2008, the team finished the first phase of their experiment and were waiting for the peer review of their results and a verdict from their federal funders on whether the experiment should proceed to the next phase. Dr. Nebel has said "we have had some success", referring to the team's effort to reproduce the promising results obtained by Dr. Bussard. "It's kind of a mix", Dr. Nebel reported. But he stated that the team has "a plan to go forward." "We're generally happy with what we've been getting out of it, and we've learned a tremendous amount" he also said.

FY 2009 work

In September 2008 the Naval Air Warfare Center

Naval Air Warfare Center

Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster was a U.S. Navy military installation located in Warminster, Pennsylvania and Ivyland, Pennsylvania. For most of its existence, the base was known as the Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, NADC, or simply, Johnsville.The U.S...

, Weapons Division, China Lake, CA

Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake

- About : is part of under Commander, Navy Installation Command and is located in the Western Mojave Desert region of California, approximately north of Los Angeles. Occupying three counties – Kern, San Bernardino and Inyo – the installation’s closest neighbors are the cities of Ridgecrest,...

publicly pre-solicited a contract for research on an Electrostatic "Wiffle Ball" Fusion Device. the pre-solicitation was targeted toward EMC2 as preferred supplier.

In October 2008 the US Navy publicly pre-solicited two more contracts also targeted toward EMC2 as preferred supplier. These two tasks were to develop better instrumentation and to develop an ion injection gun. Rick Nebel commented "This isn't a big deal. This is small, interim funding. It's called staying alive until they make a decision." Other than Dr. Nebel's comments, there is no direct evidence that these pre-solicitations ever went to award.

In December 2008, following many months of review by the expert review panel of the submission of the final WB-7 results, Dr Richard Nebel commented that "There's nothing in there [the research] that suggests this will not work," but that "That's a very different statement from saying that it will work."

Stephen Chu, Nobel laureate

Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...

and United States Secretary of Energy

United States Secretary of Energy

The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was formed on October 1, 1977 with the creation of the Department of Energy when President Jimmy...

, answered a question about Polywell at a talk at Google

Google

in 2007, saying "So far, there's not enough information so [that] I can give an evaluation of the probability that it might work or not...But I'm trying to get more information."

In January 2009 the Naval Air Warfare Center pre-solicited another contract for "modification and testing of plasma wiffleball 7" which appears to be funding to install the instrumentation developed in a prior contract, install a new design for the connector (joint) between coils, and operate the WB-7 with the modifications. The modified unit is now called WB-7.1. This pre-solicitation started as a $200k contract but the final award was for $300k, which suggests that the earlier pre-solicitations were included in this one.

In April 2009, the DoD published a plan to provide Polywell a further $2 million in funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...

. The citation in the legislation was labelled as Plasma Fusion (Polywell) - Demonstrate fusion plasma confinement system for shore and shipboard applications; Joint OSD
Office of the Secretary of Defense
The Office of the Secretary of Defense is a headquarters-level staff of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It is the principal civilian staff element of the Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out authority, direction and control of the Department...

/USN project. The citation occurs 166 pages into the document, and suggests development of the device for 'Domestic Energy Supply / Distribution'.

In May 2009, Richard Nebel was interviewed in a popular science/futurism blog. He stated: "We are hoping to have a net energy production product within six years. It could take longer, but this definitely won't be a 50 year development project. [...] So if the concept works we could have a commercial plant operating as early as 2020."

In September 2009, the FBO (Federal Business Opportunities web site) confirmed the award of Recovery Act funding under Navy contract in the amount of $7.86M to construct and test a WB-8, the next Polywell prototype. This device will have an eightfold increase in magnetic field strength compared to prior WB series devices, with the expectation of higher performance. Of particular importance within the Navy contract is the option for an additional $4.46M for "...based on the results of WB8 testing, and the availability of government funds the contractor shall develop a WB machine (WB8.1) which incorporates the knowledge and improvements gained in WB8. It is expected that higher ion drive capabilities will be added, and that a “PB11” reaction will be demonstrated".

In September 2009, the US Department of Defense announced this award as required by law. The announcement stated that the funding was provided for "research, analysis, development, and testing in support of the Plan Plasma Fusion (Polywell) Project. Efforts under this Recovery Act award will validate the basic physics of the Plasma Fusion (Polywell) concept, as well as provide the Navy with data for potential applications of polywell fusion." The basic contract for WB-8 is expected to be completed by April 2011. The optional contract for WB-8.1 has a completion date of 31-Oct-2012.

FY 2010 work

Other than the Recovery Act Tracking site, there has been no indication to date of the progress being made on this contract.

The contract has these delivery dates for the Contract Line Item Numbers (CLINs).

CLIN 0001 - 30 Apr 2010 (= plasma wiffleball 8) - Completion of device build.
CLIN 0002 - 30 Apr 2011 (= Data) - Completion of WB8 testing
CLIN 0003 - 31 Oct 2011 (= Optional WB 8.1) - Completion of optional device build
CLIN 0004 - 31 Oct 2012 (= Optional Data) - Completion of optional device testing

The first quarterly report on the Recovery Act site stated:
The main focus of this quarter was the design, procurement and construction of equipment for the new WB-8 Polywell device. Theoretical work was also initiated to build the computational tools required to analyze and understand the data from WB-8.

The second quarterly report on the Recovery Act site stated:
on budget, on schedule for new lab test facility. Primary focus has been construction, procurement and relocation of personnel and chamber. (Slightly different format to award number so on a different page)

As of 1 Nov 2010 a third quarterly report on the Recovery Act site has not been published.

The fourth quarterly report on the Recovery Act site stated:
WB8 is fully under construction, progress made on Theoretical modeling of the Polywell.
2 full-time physicists hired. (On the original page). The location of work was also updated to San Diego. Confirmation of a lab move to San Diego was provided by an on-site visit.

FY 2011 Work and out

The 1Q FY11 report states: "WB-8 device construction is completed. The first plasma was generated successfully on Nov. 1, 2010." Also noted is that Dr. Nebel's name no longer appears as the Company Officer, the report now lists Dr. Jaeyoung Park.

The 2Q FY11 report states: "As of 1Q/2011, the WB-8 device operates as designed and it is generating positive results. EMC2 is planning to conduct comprehensive experiments on WB-8 in the next 9-12 months based on the current contract funding schedule." (Please note that the REPORT uses calendar year)

Dr. Rick Nebel's LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...

profile states he is now an "Independent Research Professional" in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dr. Jaeyoung Park's LinkedIn

profile now lists him as the acting CEO/President of Energy/Matter Conversion Corp. (EMC2).

In an interview in May, when referring to WB-8, Dr. Park commented that "This machine should be able to generate 1,000 times more nuclear activity than WB-7, with about eight times more magnetic field.... We'll call that a good success. That means we're on track with the scaling law." Dr. Park also made reference to the Navy's position on the possible future usage of successful polywell technology, saying that "currently all our funding comes from the Navy... that's our customer. Our customer desired that we keep most of our progress confidential. ... They're somewhat concerned about making too much hype without delivering an actual product.... Our understanding is they want us to be successful.... They want us to provide something for our sponsors. They also want us to do well commercially as well, as long as we remain US-owned and control the technology."

The 3Q FY11 report states: "As of 2Q/2011, the WB-8 device has demonstrated excellent plasma confinement properties. EMC2 is conducting high power pulsed experiments on WB-8 to test the Wiffle-Ball plasma scaling law on plasma energy and confinement." This report is shown as the "Final Report" suggesting either that the task is complete or a different funding source has been found.

As of 3Q/2011, the WB-8 device has generated over 500 high power plasma shots. EMC2 is conducting tests on Wiffle-Ball plasma scaling law on plasma heating and confinement.

University of Sydney

Students at the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

in Australia have been conducting studies and experiments with Polywell devices.

The Iranian Connection

A research report has been published discussing Polywell study progress in Iran at the Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, AEOI, Tehran, Iran. The report states that OOPIC simulations as well as physical testing has been conducted. The study suggests that well depths and ion focus control can be achieved by variations of field strength. The report further references other research with physical test articles, where in Iran specifically, a IECF machine has run in continuous mode at -140KV with 70mA of current, with D-D fuel, producing 2x10^7 neutrons per second. It is noted that the specified machine has not been identified as a Polywell configuration. Other referenced studies indicate 10 fold improvements in fusion yields using ion sources.

External links

Should Google Go Nuclear? Video of Dr. Bussard's presentation to Google.
Should Google Go Nuclear?(transcript) Illustrated transcript of Bussard's Google presentation.
EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation Official website of Dr. Bussard's non-profit with links to papers.
Presentation at International Space Development Conference (ISDC). Dallas, May 2007.
Links Compendium of informative links related to polywell fusion.
List of technical papers and references.
IEC Fusion for Dummies Youtube video with a graphical explanation of a polywell.
Talk-Polywell.org BBS for discussing polywell.
University of Wisconsin–Madison Introduction to IEC
Inertial electrostatic confinement
Inertial electrostatic confinement is a concept for retaining a plasma using an electrostatic field. The field accelerates charged particles radially inward, usually in a spherical but sometimes in a cylindrical geometry. Ions can be confined with IEC in order to achieve controlled nuclear fusion...

including the polywell.
Obituary for Dr. Bussard.
Latest Fusion developments (WB-7 - June 2008) based on the work of Dr. Robert Bussard
Film about the Polywell with Thomas Ligon
Prometheus Fusion - A blog describing amateur experiments aimed at creating a polywell.
Simulation videos of a Polywell reactor by happyjack27

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Problems with Farnsworth-Hirsch fusors

Problems with Elmore-Tuck-Watson fusors

The Polywell approach

Polywell results

Comparison to conventional confinement concepts

Possibility of net power

History

Recent US Navy funded work

Fiscal year (FY) 2008 work

FY 2009 work

FY 2010 work

FY 2011 Work and out

University of Sydney

The Iranian Connection

See also

External links