National Ignition Facility Fires 192-Beam Pulse 438
An anonymous reader writes "The construction and test firing of the National Ignition Facility have been completed. NIF was designed as the first facility ever to achieve self-sustaining nuclear fusion and, in particular, to reach the point of ignition in which more energy is generated from the reaction than went into creating it. While the recent 192-beam pulse only produced 80 kilojoules worth of energy, all signs point to NIF being able to reach an order of magnitude higher (PDF) than that in the coming year."
Still problems? (Score:3, Interesting)
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It'll all be put towards making our cars fly, so that we can finally experience the 21st century as it was meant to be experienced.
Re:Still problems? (Score:4, Informative)
That's the problem with magnetically confined fusion. NIF will be inertially confined.
Re:Still problems? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Still problems? (Score:4, Interesting)
So far this was of big deal as laser experiments have always been single shot experiments. Current big lasers can shoot only once in a few hours, plenty of time to prepare each shot and align the target. High reprate lasers (with high energy) only start to emerge and people begin to focus on high reprate target production.
Re:Still problems? (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't see anything in the article about Helium removal. I thought that was the biggest remaining problem with nuclear fusion -- removing the Helium-4 "waste" from the reaction before the Helium "poisons" it and shuts down. Someone please correct me. I'm sure that's not entirely accurate.
They've already started on an adjoining balloon factory. If they can break even on the energy production the Helium balloon animals sales will drive them into profits.
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Yes. What do you think particle colliders are for? (Of course, turning helium into iron is a fairly boring affair, and particle colliders are expensive, so they're mostly used for interesting stuff, like producing transuranic elements, exotic isotopes or subatomic particles).
However, if you were asking if we have the technology to turn Helium into Iron _and_ harvest some of the energy released the the process ... then no, we can't do tha
Energy Independence (Score:3, Interesting)
When we have energy in surplus, at the (general) expense of no one, the world may move much more easily to peaceful respect and cooperation.
I'm looking forward to renewable energy sources blazing the path to peace, but what I keep hearing from people in the field of nuclear physics is that Fusion will be realized by the mid 2020s.
If we can only hold off on the nuclear weapons until then, maybe we stand a chance to exist in a time when we spend our efforts of work (money/tax-dollars) to help each other instead of kick each others ass as best as we can afford.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey, I saw that Star Trek episode too.
Like any good Slashdot geek I can appreciate a little Star Trek humor. But in all seriousness, the original poster is only half right. Nearly infinite clean energy is practically useless without the replication technology that takes advantage of it.
If our ultimate goal as a species is world peace, like the original poster was talking about, then we are going to have to eliminate the planetary struggle and competition of scarce resources that marks our current existence. In order to do that we will need b
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have effectively free and infinite energy, practically any other resource problem can be solved with today's technology.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine there are all sorts of resources where this view may hold true. But I'm not certain every resource problem can be solved this way - especially not within a desirable timeframe.
Furthermore, since we are in the realm of discussing science fiction, what about waste heat? There are authors (such as Peter Hamilton) who have envisioned that the widespread adoption of fusion and "free energy" sends global warming skyrocketing, not due to greenhouse gases but simply due to enormous amounts of waste heat.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:4, Interesting)
There are authors (such as Peter Hamilton) who have envisioned that the widespread adoption of fusion and "free energy" sends global warming skyrocketing, not due to greenhouse gases but simply due to enormous amounts of waste heat.
Err .. I don't think that waste heat will be a global problem. Compared to the heat input earth receives from the sun, a couple of hundred fusion reactors will be lost in the measurement noise.
However, waste heat will very much be a local problem. You can only heat up rivers and spots on the shoreline that much before problems occur, and you _will_ need a water-based heat sink for those reactors.
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Yeah, and a global outbreak of selflessness and common sense.
I fear we'll get infinite clean energy waaaay before we get that.
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Many of your examples are fueled by legions of people who want a slightly better life for themselves, even if it is in the afterlife. If you take care of their needs, they'll be less likely to go along with it. They'll have more to lose by being part of a destructive mission,
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Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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What governs humanity's motivation often goes beyond just the quest of plentiful resources.
No, it doesn't.
The radical religious factions tearing nations apart are a symptom of lack of resources. Not that there won't be fanatics, regardless, but without a large population of hungry, dissatisfied people with no opportunities and nothing to look forward to but a life of grinding poverty, the fanatics have very limited power.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Interesting)
There will always be limited resources, and those who would deny those resources to others as leverage against their fellow man. It's about power, not scarcity of resources.
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The next big fight will be over fresh water.
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Re:Energy Independence (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, don't expect energy to stay cheap. Fossil fuels are obviously finite.
Did you skip the Article AND Summary? Well let me remidn you, this discussion is about the implications of Fusion power. Dwell on that one of a while my freind.
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So Michigan is the new middle east, eh?
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
what I keep hearing from people in the field of nuclear physics is that Fusion will be realized by the mid 2020s.
Commercial fusion reactors have been 20 years away for at least the last 40 years. It's good to hear that we're now only 15 years away.
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Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it amusing that you assume that we are still in the 60s with plasma and fusion technology without reading up on any of it first.
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The long time line is primarily due to the budget and results needed from ITER so we can build DEMO properly. The neutron fluxes are rather crazy.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultra-cheap energy will create devices that require materials and technology which yield other shortages. Wars will continue over those items.
War itself will be cheaper to wage due to the low energy costs, removing a major incentive not to wage it.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultra-cheap energy will create devices that require materials and technology which yield other shortages. Wars will continue over those items.
War itself will be cheaper to wage due to the low energy costs, removing a major incentive not to wage it.
The first world would seem to serve as a counter-example.
True as our standards improve we'll squabble over more trivial things.
But I don't think it's as hopeless as you make it sound, there's a reason why the world is as peaceful as its ever been and I think it's related to the fact our material wealth is also as great as its ever been.
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[[ Ultra-cheap energy will create devices that require materials and technology which yield other shortages ]]
That's FAR from certain: ultra-cheap energy would allow to recycle materials better so external need for materials could be lessened too.
Beside which material are you talking about??
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but the amount of wars per year has decreased for many many years now.
Citation needed.
Re:Energy Independence (Score:5, Insightful)
> When we have energy in surplus, at the (general) expense of no one, the world
> may move much more easily to peaceful respect and cooperation.
ROFLMAO! Energy abundance will more likely just shift the resource wars to different places. We won't need oil any more but we will need all sorts of rare minerals just like we do now, only with limitless energy we will develop all sorts of new exotic manufacturing processes. But telling the House of Saud to go pound sand will still be priceless.
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But telling the House of Saud to go pound sand will still be priceless.
With our luck the final process will involve large amounts of sand, in which case the House of Saud will win the energy lottery yet again.
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Here's a picture of the House of Saud eating sand today (Riyahd sandstorm.)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20090310/621APTOPIX_Mideast_Saudi_Arabia_Weather_HAS110_564051110032009.jpg [nwsource.com]
close but not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
a society is as rich as its values. this is the reason the west is so powerful, not because it has nike sweatshops in indonesia. the usa, in 250 years, has eclipsed civilizations thousands of years older, because its foundational values from the enlightenment are simply superior ways of organizing society in productivity and happiness, and valuing progress and tolerance
however, in its need for energy, the west rewards places like saudi arabia. therefore, saudi arabia has no incentive to get better values, or evolve, and remains a stultified insanity exporting (wahabbi islam) country. when soccer mom fills up her SUV, she funds ultraconservative madrassas in pakistan and indonesia via saudi arabia that teach the west is the devil and should be destroyed
if oil never existed on the arabian penninsula, the insane ultraconservative religious ideas would remain the enclave of the few tribes who remained in the desert, and the cities would be full of young progressive thinking muslims, modern-looking and clamoring for change, and achieving it. simply because there would be no artificially propped up old guard preserving medieval values that simply don't work, and keeping their young from having a society they can envision themselves as better than the one they have
oil money, petrodollars, it keeps saudi arabia frozen in time, without any need or desire to adapt better values, and it allows it to export social values which are toxic to progress and prosperity. it exports these backwards values, and funds the evangelizing of ultraconservative wahabbi islam throughout the muslim world. so when we have fusion, and the value of oil drops to squat, only then will saudi arabia begin to modernize, because only then will it have to modernize for the first time since the penninsula was united in the early 20th century and oil was discovered
but right now, saudi arabia doesn't have to modernize its value system, because it is rewarded insane amounts of cash simply for sitting on a lot of oil. to the detriment of saudi society, the detriment of poor muslim societies that are recipients of the evangelizing of well-funded ultraconservative thinking, and the detriment of the west, which is vilified by the people it pays to give them oil to run their gas guzzling cars
in this way will fusion promote peace: by stop rewarding feeble, backwards societies and their unhuman values, simply because they sit on a lot of oil
how is that racist? (Score:4, Insightful)
i have muslim friends. i have nothing against islam. there's a mosque down the street. doesn't bother me at all. i am a very tolerant person
what i don't tolerate is: intolerance. get it?
your problem is you are confusing my criticism of ultraconservative islam, with criticism of just plain islam. i am criticizing the ultraconservative, not islam
we are talking about a society where christians and hindus can't practice their religion: all the rough jobs in saudi arabia are done by indian and filipino laborers, because saudi men won't do jobs "beneath them". don't you consider freedom of religion a basic human right? and women: in saudi arabia, a woman's rights are about as good as the rights of a head of cattle
this is horrible intolerance. and its the law of saudi arabia
i can't criticize that without being a racist in your mind? really?
since when does tolerance mean you tolerate the intolerant?
since when are you a racist simply because you criticize another culture? i can't criticize saudi arabia at all? and if i do, that means i must be a racist? you really believe that?
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since when are you a racist simply because you criticize another culture?
When multiculturalists are in position (namely, academia) to influence society.
Of course, anyone with at least half a functioning brain can see that it won't work ("The Diversity Theorem: Groups of people from anywhere in the world, mixed together in any numbers and proportions whatsoever, will eventually settle down as a harmonious society, appreciating--nay, celebrating!--their differences... which will of course soon disappear entir
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Seriously, calling the US a "nation of immigrants" is not something those evil multiculturalists just made up, its a freakin' fact. Wave after wave of immigrants from almost every continent at one time or another during the first century and beyond, at a rate that often exceeded the natural population increase in the main population.
The difference in that the previous waves of immigrants tended to Anglicize their names, give their children "English" names, speak English in the home if possible, etc, to assi
NIF is about nuclear weaponry, not energy. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, National Ignition Facility has nothing to do with energy production and everything to do with nuclear weaponry.
In reality, it is a physical simulation of the tough part of nuclear weapons design, the transfer of photon radiation to the thermonuclear secondary. There are extremely complex and exotic fluid dynamics. These results are used to calibrate the simulation codes for nuclear weapons, which are all about thermodynamics & radiation transfer, and not about nuclear physics.
For energy p
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Apologies for the self followup, but the evidence for the above is publicly available:
"NIF is a program of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. "
https://lasers.llnl.gov/ [llnl.gov]
NNSA is the section of DOE which operates the production and analysis of nuclear weapons.
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The problem is, as you provide for peoples' needs, they start to bicker about pettier and pettier things. For instance, look at the violence that breaks out between fans of opposing sport teams.
I'm a shark, you insensitive clod! (Score:4, Funny)
Enough of all this shark-jumping! Sharks have feelings, too!
Actually I'm a loan shark, but we're all brothers.
big a pdf (Score:2)
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Your computer is infected with the Adobe virus. A format and reinstall is required to completely eliminate it.
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Re:big a pdf (Score:4, Interesting)
6MB? That's nothing. A few days ago I clicked on a link to some information about a local city park. Five minutes later, after being distracted, I thought the link was broken or I didn't click it or something. Nope: the 28MB pdf was still downloading! But at least I got the entry info for the 5k run... for last year! But I guess that's to be expected in a city of 20,000 that still doesn't accept online utility payments, doesn't have even one Starbucks (which I'm okay with) and has 3 Circle K stores one one road within 1.5 miles of each other.
hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Still on track for 2011 (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, can't get worked up over it (Score:4, Insightful)
We have been about thirty years away from having fusion power for the last forty or so years. Seems like they pick thirty years because it is far enough out that those making the predictions probably won't be around to be held to account.
And the NIF webpage says nothing about trying to actually achieve a stable fusion reaction, just general high energy research stuff with some carrots dangled out to keep the funding going. So we are still probably thirty years away from fusion plants.
If we were really serious about energy independence (or if ya still believe in AGW) we would be building fission plants as fast as we could pour concrete and dumping serious coin into R&D on fusion. The idea being fission is what we can do NOW but be sure we have something in the pipeline lest we, in a hundred years or so, find ourselves running out of Uranium and back in the same energy crisis and by then demand would be so great burning dinosaurs would be pissin' in the wind.
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Its funded by the DOD, not DOE. Its primarily for research and stockpile stewardship.
NIF (and the rest of LLNL) is certainly part of the DOE:
http://nnsa.energy.gov/ [energy.gov]
Inertial confinement vs. magnetic confinement (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's be clear here. The purpose of the NIF is not to achieve fusion for energy production purposes. They just sell it that way. Its main goal isn't even simulations of the interior of Jupiter, or whatever they're hyping up this week.
You just need to look at the operating agency to see what its goal is: the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). That is, the people who make and control the H-bombs. See, the U.S. doesn't detonate H-bombs anymore, and needs to figure out whether the old warheads are still reliable. Instead, giant simulations of H-bomb detonations are used: hence the 20-petaflop Sequoia being installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
But these simulations are no good if the physics model being used isn't accurate. How do you get an equation of state for deuterium at a billion atmospheres of pressure and 10 million kelvin temperature? You do an experiment: NIF. (And also the Z-Machine at Sandia.)
I get annoyed that the DOE sells NIF as a fusion energy machine. It's not, and it was never meant to be, and when people realize that target implosion fusion is never going to put a watt onto the grid, they're going to get even more annoyed at broken promises from fusion. It's basically avoiding the hard marketing problem of H-bombs by selling the machine as energy research.
(disclaimer: I work in a magnetic fusion lab and while I'm not a pacifist, I don't generally like H-bombs and don't like that my field is associated with them)
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Let's be clear here. The purpose of the NIF is not to achieve fusion for energy production purposes. They just sell it that way.
They are not trying to sell NIF as the fusion energy production. It is the first step on a long road in that direction.
They are selling LIFE [llnl.gov] as the fusion energy of the future, this will be built on techonology developed for NIF.
From the link
LIFE, an acronym for Laser Inertial Fusion-Fission Energy, is an advanced energy concept under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Based on physics and technology developed for the National Ignition Facility (NIF), LIFE has the potentia
Re:Inertial confinement vs. magnetic confinement (Score:4, Insightful)
Go to the NIF site [llnl.gov]. What are the first things you see?
You can't tell me that there isn't a very deliberate marketing plan being put into action here.
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Hey. They said that its for "National Security" and "Energy for the Future".
They never said Who's future, and how much energy they're going to get all at once.
Re:Inertial confinement vs. magnetic confinement (Score:5, Informative)
I did my BSc thesis on the laser plasma interaction in NIF and my impression was that while inertial confinement fusion is extremely unlikely to be practical as a power plant, it may be used as an exceptionally intense neutron source for various experiments. Spallation sources can generally achieve high neutron fluxes and neutron energies, but an inertial confinement fusion device would generate orders of magnitude higher neutron intensities still. Moreover the fusion neutrons are virtually mono energetic, and this is impossible to achieve with most present spallation designs without drastically reducing the number of available neutrons. Essentially the only way to do it is to use some criteria like time-of-flight or neutron diffraction to select for only neutrons of a given energy, thus wasting all other neutrons, and this is only practical at low energies. At higher energies you would likely need to exploit the kinematics of some form of knockout reaction, like Li(D,n)Be, and since the large yield requirement would likely cause you to ionize your target, such a scheme would have challenges similar to those faced by inertial confinement devices. It also seems to me that it would be tricky to generate such a powerful deuterium pulse, if it is at all possible.
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You (I presume you are American) already have one. It's called... ITER. The US whined and moaned over the possibility of ITER being built in France, delaying its start by a couple of years. Eventually the US was over-ruled by nearly all the other countries who actually wanted to get on with developing fusion as a possible power source. Cadarache in France was finally chosen as the site and the project is now up and running.
There are a number of other fusion research projects going on around the world, b
So who says it doesn't have energy apps too? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of technologies that start out as a military primary (or even exclusive) purpose but yield benefits to the whole world. Sometimes it is direct, sometimes indirect, but it is very common.
Heck, take nuclear technology in the first place. Whole reason that shit got developed so fast was to make a big bomb. Los Alamos was not started for humanitarian reasons, it was started to blow some people the fuck up. Now the work they did there didn't have any direct civilian applications. Not much market
Re:Inertial confinement vs. magnetic confinement (Score:5, Interesting)
Well we (meaning humanity, not the United States) have achieved plasma discharges several hours long in the TRIAM-1M tokamak in Japan.
We have also achieved plasma conditions in pure deuterium plasmas in which, had the reactors been fueled with "live" fuel (50% deuterium, 50% tritium), the Q-value (energy out / energy in) would have been greater than one.
There have also been two experiments in which 50%D/50%T "live" fuel has been used. One is the Joint European Torus (JET) in Culham, England, near Oxford. It's still operating today, albeit on "inert" fuel (100% D). Even with 100%D, some amount of fusion still goes on, so it's not totally "inert", but it's far less than with 50%D/50%T. The other experiment was the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in the United States at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL). That's now disassembled.
The problem is that we haven't done all of these things at the same time, yet. That's why we're building ITER
ITER, the big reactor being built in Cadarache, France, will achieve Q=10. It was supposed to achieve "ignition", in which self-heating of the plasma is enough to keep it hot, and you can turn off the external heating (corresponding to Q=infinity), but the ITER consortium had to cut the budget when the U.S. pulled out of the project in 1998. Of course, then the U.S. rejoined in 2003, but by then the plan was set on "ITER Lite". It's not supposed to be done construction until 2018, though, and there's a chance of further schedule slippage approaching 100%. It's going to run for 25 years.
If you go to slide #25 of this [pppl.gov] presentation by Chris Llewellyn-Smith, you can see that the current "fast-track" plan for a commercial fusion plant has the first plants operating in 2048. Of course, that presentation was in 2005, and the ITER schedule has slipped by about four years since then, so we can say that if we somehow manage to stick to the "fast-track" plan from now on (we won't), there could be operating fusion power plants in the 2050s.
Yes, it's a long-term plan. That doesn't mean it's not worth funding. There still is no other energy source that can compete with its theoretical benefit. The only ones that come close in ability to provide a large amount of energy are fission and solar, and they have the disadvantages, respectively, of long-lived actinide waste, and massive land use.
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has the first plants operating in 2048.
Now it's 40 years away. I remember when it was only 20 years away, around 1960.
Re:Inertial confinement vs. magnetic confinement (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice comments on this thread! I totally agree with you about the need in physics to separate basic and weapons research.
I used to work in fusion (DIII-D), but I don't believe the "40 years away" mark. My feeling is that the materials to build a commercial grade reactor are still too expensive and that there is some non-trivial materials work still to be done with the reactor walls and gathering energy. I realize this is what the ITER people tell the grant reviewers they're going to look at, but it has been my experience that plasma physicists are not really interested in materials research when it comes down to who gets to pay postdocs and grad students. In the end, the monolithic grant structuring in fusion will need to integrate or approximate the smaller scale, more distributed materials research community (lots of small, cheap experiments) for fusion to have a chance to work commercially in 40 years. I doubt the handful of experiments around now will be able solve the materials problems quickly. Oddly, this is not an opinion I got from studying materials physics, but from the plasma physicists I used to work with who thought ITER was trying to sell something it couldn't deliver prior to being changed into "ITER lite" and cutting back on the expectations.
NIF could do some materials research, and I'm sure they'll run a few test, but it's still the wrong kind of experiment. The money would have been better spent developing a tool which could be sold to ~50 research universities for materials testing for fusion.
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massive land use
yes, we have to build solar panels on the ground, not on roofs.
This is a really big deal, right? (Score:2, Informative)
Can this replace all nuclear fission and coal power plants with a clean plentiful nuclear fusion?
Isn't this a change-life-as-we-know-it achievement?
Would a local expert comment on this?
they'll point the lasers into the fault lines (Score:2)
turning all of california into beachfront real estate
thereby boosting house values, and saving the economy
we need someone to fly around the earth real fast to make it rotate backwards and reverse time
little help! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok... i'm not a nuclear scientists obviously and I need a little more information to help me out. What's so great about nuclear fusion? If this works does that mean we'll have clean energy without radioactive byproducts? If not, why is this better than nuclear power plants today?
Next, assuming we get this working, what material does it require to make it work successfully? And really, what then becomes the bottle neck to producing infinite cheap energy?
I went and skimmed the wikipedia page but in my 3 min search i couldn't find anything to answer my questions. Without this knowledge I don't think I can appreciate this discussion.
Thanks in advance.
d
Re:little help! (Score:4, Informative)
What's so great about nuclear fusion?
Fuel for nuclear fusion is more abundant than fuel for nuclear fission, by a couple of orders of magnitude.
If this works does that mean we'll have clean energy without radioactive byproducts?
Not quite. The "waste" of fusion isn't radioactive, but most fusion reactions generate neutrons that will activate whatever the reactor is made out of. So there will be some waste that needs to be dealt with.
If not, why is this better than nuclear power plants today?
It doesn't depend on heavy elements as fuel, and doesn't produce waste that's a mix of all kinds of crap (unfissioned material, fission products, unfissionable (but still toxic) heavy elements, activated materials), but just one kind of crap (activated materials).
Next, assuming we get this working, what material does it require to make it work successfully?
We have the materials, we need to get the processes right.
And really, what then becomes the bottle neck to producing infinite cheap energy?
Possibly, waste heat. You'll still need to get rid of that, provided that the fusion reactor drives a standard turbine setup.
Bad/misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
They testfired the lasers they're going to be using for fusion later. Those beams (attempt to) put out a fixed amount of energy. They reported the total energy. No fusion happened, no energy was net produced, the only thing that happened was the lasers fired at 420J each.
This is pretty clear from the article, but not like anyone would RTFA anyway.
Oblig. Marvin the Martian quote: (Score:4, Funny)
"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
Exclusive Photo! (Score:4, Funny)
indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Because energy is a useless fiat commodity, while you can eat cold, hard dollar bills.
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Those dollar bills are not only a food source, a medium of exchange, but also a store of value. At the right price, they make great firewood!
Re:indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, we should just give up now. Obviously the fact that it's not ready for commercialization now is indicative of it's future potential as a technology.
Excuse me while I go reload my coal plant.
Re:indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, you have a plant that grows coal? Are you selling seed packets?
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Wait, you have a plant that grows coal? Are you selling seed packets?
I just planted some. And according to the instructions, all I have to do is sit back and wait sixty million years, then I'll RICH, BABY!!!
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Re:indeed (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, the oil that you will get out, will be useless for your coal plant.
Shoulda have buried some plants...
Re:indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, you have a plant that grows coal? Are you selling seed packets?
You should be forewarned that it takes a little while after planting the seeds before you can start digging out coal.
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And your source for this sweeping dismissal is ... what, exactly? Please, oh please, share with us your understanding of the subject that has apparently eluded all those scientists and engineers who have worked on this project for years.
Your .sig is oddly appropriate in this context.
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Re:indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a fucking idiot. The time from the earliest nuclear experiments and commercial nuclear plants was almost a century. The time between finding out that black liquid from the ground burns and oil refineries was a thousand years. The time between fire and steam power was longer than all of recorded history.
The time it takes an idiot to turn a random brain firing into an unthought out Slashdot posting, however, is obviously much, much shorter.
Re:indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
According to your post, the time between initial observation and commercialization of major energy producing methods has been decreasing by orders of magnitude as history marches on. Maybe it's not so stupid to ask about commercialization of the technology within a single generation.
Re:indeed (Score:4, Interesting)
That's exactly the case made by some futurists. The most prominent one of whom I am aware is Ray Kurzweil. He has some pretty compelling explanations illustrating exponential trends in just about every facet of the growth of intelligence and technological capacity. I'm probably exaggerating his position a little bit, but he might argue that dreaming of harnessing fusion power by the end of the century is so quaint; by then we'll be closer to harnessing all of the energy that the earth receives from the sun.
Re:indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear experiments in 1855? Surely you joke. Nobody in 1855 knew what a nucleus was, or was even convinced about the atomic theory of matter.
In fact, nuclear fission was discovered in 1938, and large scale full production systems were operating by 1945 (Hanford), with commercial utility turn-on by mid 1950's.
Nuclear fusion was discovered in early 30's, I think, before fission.
The reason why nuclear fission went from discovery to exploitation immediately, and fusion is still really hard, is due to the laws of physics.
Specifically:
1) neutrons have charge zero, but nuclei don't.
2) strong force is very short range
These will never change.
And yes, the original poster is right, NIF isn't helping much for energy production.
I'll give you a hint (Score:4, Informative)
He should probably wash his hands next.
A thousand years? Come on. That's the difference between the viking raids and landing on the moon. A lot can happen in a thousand years.
And FYI, RTFA. The thing has a maximum theoretical payoff roughly ten to one in terms of input/output, which they're predicting by 2010. 2MJ goes in, 20 comes out. If they only manage half that, you still have a x5 payoff. Which is still a massive win.
I don't know about you, but that much energy out of a nugget of 2mm nugget of beryllium sounds pretty freakin commercializable to me.
I'm thinking all sorts of great things can come from this. Uber cheap electricity, plug in hybrids to end the fuel crisis, shutting down coal/oil electricity plants, ion drives...there are lots of applications.
And you're not going to have to wait 1000 freaking years for them, either.
Re:I'll give you a hint (Score:4, Funny)
I'm thinking all sorts of great things can come from this. Uber cheap electricity, plug in hybrids to end the fuel crisis, shutting down coal/oil electricity plants, ion drives...there are lots of applications.
And the USA can stop invading oil producing nations and can start going after berrylium sources. Expect to see Utah added to the axis of evil really soon now!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and how much energy goes into getting gas to the pump? (Hint: A lot more) why do people, always ignore that with gasoline when they are poo-pooing a different technology.
People like you just really hate change, don't you?
And why are you comparing this to a combustion engine efficiency? you should be comparing this to power generation efficiency.
When talking abut electric engines, then talk about the efficiency of engines.
Of course in that comparison, combustion looses, badly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. It's pure science. They have no other goals except "study the ignition of nuclear fusion". It's a bit hard to do that inside a nuclear reactor (or bomb) and thus the big freakin' lasers.
Re: (Score:2)
Or to a lot of classified papers that won't be seen by the general public for another 30 years.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot has changed since then.. including the widespread suppression of nuclear research..
Re:indeed (Score:4, Informative)
Do tell? Citation needed. Cause last I remember, unless you're dealing with Muon-catalyzed fusion, the temperatures and pressures you need for bulk fusion are a few orders of magnitude higher than you want to get in a fission reactor if you want it to remain controlled.
I hope you're talking special research reactors using exotic neutron moderators and coolants because most moderators in commercial reactors (graphite/heavy water) just can't stand that much heat. I expect you get much higher temperatures in your average blast furnace. Otherwise you would have some big problems with containment of a very hot radioactive pile and there just seems to be less dangerous ways to study fusion. Sure you could get a blob of fissioning material hot enough to melt through your equipment and all the way to the mantle, but that's not generally considered a good environment for study. Let's not forget that magnetic-containment plasma fusion has been studied in the lab for a few decades now. Although I would expect that the initial experiments in fusion probably involved collisions between ions accelerated by cyclotrons or fusors [wikipedia.org]. Seems a lot more controllable and accessible than super-hot fission piles.
The H-Bomb trigger and compression jacket is certainly. That's how they get the compression and heat for the fusion ignition of the hydrogen isotopes, which produce additional neutrons that pump back into the fission reaction. The later stages in a multi-stage bomb could be tuned more for fusion energy release though, or at least so says the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]. Because the H stands for Hydrogen and hydrogen can only fuse - it can't undergo fission (although tritium does decay) - there's gotta be some fusion in an H-Bomb.
mod parent up! (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're confused. The scientists there are conducting experiments for the sake of science. That is pure science.
The people who fund them see the benefit. That does not, however, make the science "impure". It just means that there are additional reasons for conducting these experiments.
They're observing nuclear fusion. That is as pure as science gets.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
because it's not going to be energy production, fusion has been 10 years off for the last 40 years.
Which clearly means it is never, ever going to work and we should just give up, right?
Re: (Score:2)
No sharks, but this article [bbc.co.uk] has a nice picture. Cool that it looks like something from low budget TV sci-fi (except that it's real)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)