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January 30, 2009
What Next For Polywell Fusion?
Dr. Bussard thought that a full scale net energy Polywell Fusion program could be done for $200 million. What could be done to advance the knowledge base that wouldn't require that kind of commitment? I have been giving some thought to what the next step in the Polywell Fusion experiments might be. Here is what I have so far: I think a continuous operation experiment (liquid nitrogen cooled copper magnet coils described at WB-7x Design) could reach .45 Tesla magnetic field strength for about $20 million. Most of that going into power supplies. That is a rough estimate: +/- $5 million is probably 1 sigma. If I was begging that is one place to start. Or maybe forget the big power supplies and go for a pulsed small superconducting model. If a lot of neutrons (1E12/sq cm Second) were not generated (or only generated in pulses) MgB would be a good candidate for the coil material if the coils were totally custom. Heck it might be good just to buy an MRI machine for the coils. An MRI can be had for about $1 million. If you can get just the coils they might only be $200K. A WB machine built like that could be done for probably $5 to $7 million. If it shows good pulsed results pony up for the power supplies. And start thinking about a 100 MW machine. Why hasn't Polywell Fusion been funded by the Obama administration? IEC Fusion Technology Explained Cross Posted at Power and Control Thanks to Instapundit for the link. I have written a few other Polywell Fusion articles in the last two days: Polywell Fusion - Keeping It Alive and Polywell Fusion and Obama. posted by Simon on 01.30.09 at 11:30 AM
Comments
Sean, In general you are correct. But in this case the costs are better constrained. Almost everything is off the shelf or easily fabricated. This is a combination of things that have never been done before. However there is a lot of experience with the individual pieces. And we don't have to (nor should we) spend all the money at once. A small scale continuous operation device needs to be tested and a near full scale Super Conducting Magnet pulsed HV power supply device. I see the continuous operation device running $5 to $7 million and the full scale superconducting device at around $20 million - most of that for engineering and test time. Simon M. Simon · January 30, 2009 07:04 PM Post a comment
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If they estimate 200 million then that means it would take ten times that in reality. Not criticizing the technology just estimates of the cost of new tech and first generations in general.