Standardizing Fusion Test Reactors
In my recent post Starting A Fusion Program In Your Home Town I talked about expanding the fusion design and testing environment to increase the rate of progress in the development of a power producing reactor.
The lead Bussard Fusion Reactor (BFR) experimenter, rnebel, has read that article and has chimed in here with his thoughts.
One of the things we have been considering is selling a "turnkey" version of the WB-7. In this case we would design, build, license and deliver an operating Polywell, probably on the scale of the present machine. Operator training and tech support would also be part of the deal. The model is to use a plug and play concept where the user could substitute their own parts (electron sources, for instance) in an open architecture system. This is similar to what IBM did with the PC in the early 80s. It would give people who are interested in Polywells a chance to develop their own new patentable concepts and new companies without having to go through the entire learning curve that we have been on for the past several years. This struck us as a way to jumpstart the industry and get a lot of new ideas and people involved in Polywells. These devices could be funded through government grants (we have found a mechanism) or privately. I think we could do a turnkey machine for a ~ $500k-$1000k depending on how many people are interested. The idea would be for the government to make grants to institutions and then we would be able to competitively bid on providing the hardware. Ideally, I would like to see at least one Polywell in every Congressional district in the US. Since the cost is cheap, this is a tractable. Is this something you might be interested in?My reply went as follows:
Sign me up.Any venture capital people who would like to start something - contact me.
I think it might also be useful to do a $10K to $100K fusor type device for those on a more limited budget. Jr. Colleges etc. There is a lot that can be learned from such a device that would help with more efficient (Pollywell) devices.
BTW in other places (fusor forum) I have made the evolution of the computer hobby argument.
Great minds etc.
Also a range of devices and power supplies. i.e. 25KV, 50KV and 100KV pulsed supplies. Then the same range of continuous operation supplies. Same for the reactors. Pulsed and continuous operation. The equipment should be standardized as much as possible - at least for the starter kits so we could get the efficiencies of mass production. Also standardized test equipment. Standardized control.
If we had 435 tests going on at once in each district that would cause the Congress critters to all get behind the fusion push. Very astute. That was sort of my idea.
Again - contact me and tell me how I can help. I'm rarin' to go.
Simon
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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5 comments:
Why all the focus on government and academia?
Why not do a "Linux distro" approach and let a bunch of commercial startups grab the tech, have some sort of standard commercialization deal that comes with the kit, and let investors hire teams and let them have a go at it?
I suppose you're wanting some sort of open-source networking effect, but this rarely works with nonstandard, cutting-edge technologies, especially if they require significant capital investment - which this will. And if there's a group of startups working on Polywell, a group of people will end up moving between them, developing organizational memory.
Why all the focus on government and academia?
Because of the size of the budgets required.
Why not do a "Linux distro" approach and let a bunch of commercial startups grab the tech, have some sort of standard commercialization deal that comes with the kit, and let investors hire teams and let them have a go at it?
That is my idea for the lower cost range products $10K - $100K.
You can call me Torvald.
I suppose you're wanting some sort of open-source networking effect, but this rarely works with nonstandard, cutting-edge technologies, especially if they require significant capital investment - which this will.
I was in on the early days of computing. Significant $$$ (in todays dollarettes about $10K) was required to make contributions within about 2 or 3 years of the great inflation (Jan 1975).
And if there's a group of startups working on Polywell, a group of people will end up moving between them, developing organizational memory.
Yep.
I want to jump start the whole thing. Dr. Nebel is thinking the same way.
Dr K Hooper thinks the same: use available funding from Grant pools, to set up 4-500 plug-n-play Polywell Units; amass, analyze, correlate and collate data; JUMP START the next round, which could well be:
"Power to the People!"
I'm not sure I get it; the budgets involved are fairly small for commercial startups, although rather big for academic research. $100K is trivial for a Silicon Valley startup; it's less than a single decently-paid engineer of any kind.
If anything, the biggest problem with this sort of research is you want to have "patient money" funding it, which would be satisfied with a monetization event several years down the road. This sort of thing probably wouldn't be accelerated much by lots of funding thrown at a single team.
The biggest problem with attempting to appeal to tinkerers of the Homebrew Computer Club variety is that a computer (or car, etc) does interesting things by itself, while this thing either works or it doesn't, and isn't interesting in a practical way until it does work. Sure, if you're into physics and such, a homebrew Polywell is probably infinitely fascinating, but it won't play games or go fast the way computers or cars could.
I'm not trying to be difficult; I've on my fourth Silicon Valley startups (none a homerun, but a couple of base hits so far) and devil's advocates are very useful early on.
A little difficulty is a sweet thing if offered constructively.
There are a few things that need to be accomplished.
1. Get people used to fusion
2. Put more minds and hands to work on the project. The amount of work ahead is daunting even in the case of success of a power production machine and we are not there yet. Especially if p-B11 fusion is contemplated.
3. Have trained cadre in case of success in power generation
4. Provide an income stream between government contracts.
The start up money would be for design of a production test reactor and inventory.
At this point my function would be as a go between to grease the ways. I have no financial interest in any of this. That could change.
There is already a home brew fusion club.
Fusor.Net
I was in on the early days of computing (Jan '75) and all those machines would do was blink the front panel lights if you could figure out how to program them and enter the program from the front panel switches. People did it because they loved it.
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