LPP’s policy on data release
(37) CommentsLawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) policy on data release, as stated by Eric Lerner, President:
Now that our Focus-Fusion-1 device is operational, we know that many people who have been following this project will be eagerly awaiting our experimental results. LPP firmly believes that scientific advances occur when results, both positive and negative, are freely shared and discussed throughout the community.
However, it is important to understand that experimental data have to be analyzed, digested and interpreted before they can become meaningful results. This takes time and affects the way that results are released.
Eric describes three main ways of publishing scientific results:
Announcing results on a website
The fastest way to release results is to announce them to the press and put them on our website. The disadvantage of this route is that it lacks the feedback from our scientific colleagues, who might point out alternative explanations of the data or flaws in our analysis. It increase the risk of publicizing results that may in fact later prove to be in error, which can have a big negative impact on the credibility of our effort.
Announcing results at scientific conferences
The second fastest way, which we intend to use in most circumstances, is to announce results at scientific conferences. Here, even if the results are preliminary, we have an opportunity to get our colleagues reactions, get suggestions from them, and either get confirmation of our conclusions or, possibly, modify them. LPP is currently lining up conferences that we intend to participate in, including the Conference on Future Energy this month and the International Conference on Plasma Physics (ICOPS) next spring.
Peer-reviewed scientific journals
The slowest method is publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This method is useful for highly controversial results, where we expect considerable skepticism from some in the scientific community and the public in general—especially results that may seem “too good to be true”. The peer-review process, although it has very significant flaws, does allow us to answer some skeptical arguments and gives to our work, once published, a greater degree of credibility. Avoiding this process could very well bog us down in unproductive debate.
Since any positive result with hydrogen-boron fuel will in fact be highly controversial, we will almost certainly wait for peer-reviewed publication before publicizing these results, which we will not in any case be expecting until 2010.
So, we ask for everyone’s patience as we let them know, as rapidly as possible, of our results.
For those of you who were hoping for a webcam in the lab to watch it all unfold in real time, this may come as a disappointment. Here’s a little humor on scientific results to ease the pain.
Rest assured, we will be documenting LPP’s process as much as possible - even if we don’t get to publish everything right away.
The Baby has a Name!
LPP Press Release
Comments
For a more in depth discussion, start a thread in the forums.I still don’t get what “[to] make a BTU cost half as much electricity as Machinery’s Handbook says it’s supposed to. That number is supposedly an unassailable constant” means.
What number?
What does MH say is the “constant” electricity cost to make a BTU? Why is that challenged? FF is not altering electricity<—>heat conversion; it’s generating some of each from nuclear processes. 
Further to above: the 43kJ input is not converted to BTUs; it ionizes gas (decaborane) and generates a magnetic field. Heat is generated a couple of steps later by fusion, and I doubt MH has a constant for that process!!
From MH 23rd ed, pp.2,440 Power & heat equivalents:
“1 watt= 1 joule per second = .00134 horsepower = .001 kilowatt = 3.42 BTU per hour = 44.22 foot-pounds per minute = .74 foot-pounds per second = .0035 pound of water evaporated per hour at 212 degrees F.”
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Assuming that 80% electrical conversion efficiency = 80% thermal output, we get .8*8MW thermal, or 6.4 MW for the electrical price of only 8.6kj (watt-seconds), or 2.38 watt-seconds, lol.
Brian,
It would be nice if we could wait until we had a fully operational generating unit hooked up and powering a small town before we sprung this on the world, as you have suggested. It would eliminate all skeptics from the mix and would make it very difficult for special interests to stop its proliferation.
Just one little problem with that approach…Where is the money for the 3 year prototype stage of this project going to come from?
To sell stock, or to obtain grants, or win x-prize money (which I hope becomes available) this has to be done out in the open. The closer we are to achieving the goal the easier fund raising should be. Hopefully this is already somewhat the case, as one major hurdle (that of financing and building an operational DPF) has been achieved.
Jimmy;
Yeah, a fat angel for the engineering phase would be nice. As long as he/it was properly vetted for purity of intentions. Always in the back of the mind is the paranoid concern about getting derailed or dead-lettered by a “competitor”, of which there is no shortage.
My expectation is that unity will bring money out of the woodwork by the carload.
Aero;
Yeah, I sorta thought that must be what you were actually referring to. No violation of physics or “Machinery’s Handbook” constants there, just profit from fusion’s E=MC² contribution.
That’s it precisely, Brian.
A substantial energy profit is salable, be it thermal, electric, or both.
Bolt on a carbon tax and the deal looks even sweeter to several industries like commercial boiler, furnace, and HVAC manufacturers. Now the potential to produce net electricity is a sweetener rather than a deal breaker.
I wouldn’t be sweating an apparent lack of interest for at least another year, while the pulsed ignition system and ion converter are being proven and developed.
I wonder who would want nuclear fusion heating their water when safety procedures are not developed yet…
I don’t believe this technology when proven will be let out of nuclear power plants for a few decades no matter how inherently safe it is.
Breakable;
The heating will by electric resistance coils, and all “green power” isolated delivery scams notwithstanding, you can’t actually choose where the grid that gets and gives your electrons sources them, unless you have a physically isolated system.
So “letting it out of nuclear power plants” is irrelevant. The power will go where it’s needed.
As far as siting the generators, we’ve had major discussions about this elsewhere. My prejudice is that economics rules, and a 20:1 deployment and generation cost advantage RULES!
Typo: “The heating will be by ...”
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