polywell

For those not familiar with the Polywell design, it's a refinement of the slightly more well-known Farnsworth Fusor.

It's focused on the polywell but they seem to at least try to fairly evaluate all contenders.

If that (and/or Polywell et al) will really work out is a bit early to say.

EMC2's Polywell (my favorite underdog) project had Navy funding for quite some time, since it would fit handily onto a submarine.

This, of course, is assuming the larger scale Polywell designs will break even with WB8.

EMC2, the polywell company, is looking for investors now that Navy funding has ended.

Unlike the fusor, there don't seem to thus far be any significant theoretical barriers to net energy gain from the polywell design.

A Polywell fusion reactor uses electromagnets to generate a magnetic field that traps electrons, creating a negative voltage, which then attract positive ions.

There you have Polywell Fusion, Tri-Alpha Energy, and Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (Who are supposed to be running tests on their device this month).

I'm not at all dismissing Polywell fusion; but this article isn't written by people who can credibly exposit it.

And Bussard claimed that the polywell skirted around Rider's assumptions, though I don't know the details.

Assuming the polywell design works as hoped, it is likely to be much smaller and cheaper for the same output than other fusion reactor designs.

The more sophisticated polywell design uses a form of magnetic confinement to trap electrons in the center of the device, creating a "virtual electrode" and reducing losses from ions impacting electrodes.

Polywell physics require a very low-pressure non-thermalized gas, which has been demonstrated but violates thermodynamics theory.

New confinement techniques (NIF, this article, Helion, Polywell) are actually making real progress.

The models have a striking similarity to Polywell's fusion device.