Polywell Fusion - Keeping It Alive

Another short term contract [pdf] for wiffle ball fusion is out for bid by the US Navy. Here is the interesting part.

3.1.1 Contractor shall review the results from Contracts N00014-93-C-0224, N00014-96-C-0039, contract N68936-03-C-0031, and any other publically available current documentation regarding the technical research and development in the field of energy production using a fusion reaction.

3.1.1.2. The review shall primarily investigate the effects of parallel electron heat loss to the coil joints with respect
to plasma stability and electron confinement time.

3.2 TESTS

3.2.1 The contractor will modify/upgrade the existing wiffleball #7 (WB-7) device by installing compact, high temperature coil joints to investigate the electron parallel heat loss. This modified device shall hereafter be identified as Wiffleball #7.1 (WB-7.1).

3.2.2 The Contractor shall test the WB-7.1 to measure the plasma beta (ratio of plasma pressure to the applied magnetic field pressure) and to monitor the wiffleball formation process. The contractor will deploy multiple magnetic field probes inside the device to generate time varying magnetic field mapping to investigate the wiffleball formation.

3.3. The contractor shall take the results of the review specified in 3.1 and tests specified in 3.2 and provide a report detailing workable instrumentation set-ups to resolve the plasma production and physics questions raised in the review and tests for a final report for contracts.

This doesn't look like it amounts to any more than a few weeks of work. I'm going to look into the contracts mentioned and see if I can figure out the intention here.

Update:

Contracts
N00014-93-C-0224 Jan 1995
N00014-96-C-0039 Jan 1996
N68936-03-C-0031 March 2003

H/T KitemanSA at Talk Polywell

Why hasn't Polywell Fusion been funded by the Obama administration? IEC Fusion Technology blog.