Gentle people,

The next step to secure our global life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness together involves cheap, renewable power which I expounded upon In my first blog post on nuclear fusion. I introduced some of you to Focus Fusion and the incredible open research they are doing that you can help fund now! They are by no means the only nuclear fusion effort worth knowing about.

"The committee believes that recent progress in the establishment of Wiffleball confinement is likely one of the most significant advances made in plasma physics and magnetic fusion over the past 50 years"

In November of 2013, a committee of Dr. Robert Hirsch, MISI, Committee Chairman, Dr. Stephen Dean, Fusion Power Associates, Prof. Gerald Kulcinski, University of Wisconsin, Prof. George Miley, University of Illinois, and Prof. Dennis Papadopoulos, University of Maryland reviewed research into a device called the polywell which was being conducted by Dr. Jaeyoung Park of the company EMC2. Some clever forum members of the community site following the polywell, Talk-Polywell.org had to submit a FOIA request with the US government in order to procure the review report. The device reviewed favorably and just requires funding for EMC2 and Dr Park et al to continue to be a major player in the research of Nuclear Fusion. The conclusion of the report follows:

III. Conclusions

The committee believes that recent progress in the establishment of Wiffleball confinement is likely one of the most significant advances made in plasma physics and magnetic fusion over the past 50 years. Unfortunately it has come at a time when the funding for the program is in rapid decline. Further federal support is urgently needed, if The EMC2 assets are to be preserved and expanded. Otherwise, the United States could well lose another technology “invented here” but developed outside the country.

Feasibility of the Polywell

Dr Park's team WAS able to publish another paper in 2015 entitled High-Energy Electron Confinement in a Magnetic Cusp Configuration, however any research beyond this publication remains a mystery. Dr Park continues to show up in the news on occasion talking about polywell.

I wish I had time to elaborate on the history of this device; time to tell you about Robert Bussard and the history of the tokamak and Farnsworth fusor. Instead I will leave you with a quote from the Abstract of the most recent paper published in the peer reviewed journal Physical Review X which opens with these incredible lines,

"We report experimental results validating the concept that plasma confinement is enhanced in a magnetic cusp configuration when β (plasma pressure/magnetic field pressure) is of order unity. This enhancement is required for a fusion power reactor based on cusp confinement to be feasible."

Special thanks to all those whom contributed over the years in the polywell online forum