(aside: "You have been hit by a Wall of Text for 16,384 points of damage. Would you like to make a saving throw? :D)
My comment about the title was in the same vein as yours about MRIs, and for many of the same reasons. People hear "nuclear" and think Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Those kinds of accidents can't happen with the Polywell, but scientific literacy being what it is in the US... it's just a badly-worded title.
The results of the experiments currently being done in Santa Fe are being kept quiet partly because the lab is operating under a contract and partly to avoid raising expectations that are unreasonable. That said, apparently Nebel & Co. are getting good results from WB7. To quote Dr. Nebel from
this article:
No answers just yet
Nebel said it's way too early to talk about the answers to those questions. For one thing, it's up to the project's funders to assess the data. Toward that end, an independent panel of experts will be coming to Santa Fe this summer to review the WB-7 experiment, Nebel said.
"We're going to show them the whole thing, warts and all," he said.
Because of the complexity, it will take some interpretation to determine exactly how the experiment is turning out. "The answers are going to be kind of nuanced," Nebel said.
The experts' assessment will feed into the decision on whether to move forward with larger-scale tests. Nebel said he won't discuss the data publicly until his funders have made that decision.
For now, Nebel doesn't want to make a big deal out of what he and his colleagues are finding. He still remembers the controversy and the embarrassments that were generated by cold-fusion claims in 1989.
"All of us went through the cold-fusion experiences, and before we say too much about this, we want to have it peer-reviewed," he said.
So at least they're going about it intelligently.
One reason for the dearth of information from other sources apart from Bussard and the Santa Fe lab is that he was under a publishing embargo for several years, and the current take on giving out information is as above: they want to wait for a peer-review. That should happen by the end of the summer if all goes well.
I'm not
nearly conversant enough on the actual science behind this to be able to answer Rider's objections, so I have to leave that to others who know what they're talking about. However,
this could be relevant in some way. I'll quote the bolded part; it's anecdotal, but interesting all the same:
In fact, while he apparently does not like to refer to him by name, Dr. Bussard has basically addressed all of Rider's objections. He has not ignored them. He tries to point out the way he believes the machines operate. I was witness, in fact, in 1995-96, to Dr. Bussard thinking Rider had actually found a fatal flaw in the idea. He dissappeared in the office for a couple of days of furious analysis and calculation, and emerged about the most jubilant I'd ever seen him. He'd discovered that not only was Rider wrong, but the machine itself had held the built-in cure all along, and would work better than the original model had predicted. I believe that was the edge thermalization process that "anneals" out any tendency the device has to Maxwellianize.
I'll say it first, so others don't have to: "It's just a message board." :P
The more I read about Rider, the more suspicious of his (and only his- other critics of IEC fusion aren't nearly as 'stern' as Rider) motivations I become. If the post at that link quoting Tom Ligon is true, I think Rider himself deserves a bit more scrutiny than what he's received thus far.
The whole thing need to be peer reviewed, full stop. The sooner the better, IMO.