Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 833 posts

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#31

Post by entropicgravity »

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

The efficiency of the lasers is awful though and they will have to get at least 100x that energy yield for it to be a net power source. A lot of heat winds up in the laser glass and it takes it a long time to cool between shots so you are doing very good to make a few shots a day. A real power plant is going to need more like 10 shots per second. Heavy-ion fusion has been talked about since the 1970s and it seems muc…

Unfortunately large fusion is unlikely to ever be economic because the cost of solar/battery is coming down so quickly and is already in the 1-2 cents per kilowatt hour for the solar component. And costs will continue to drop.

Small scale fusion on the other hand would have a viable niche application at the poles, in the sea or underground or any other environment that is without sun or space.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#32

Post by LatteLazy »

weberer wrote: post #30
LatteLazy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I was actually making a joke: fusion power has been described as "a decade away for the last 50 years" which I think sums it up pretty well... https://www.engineering.com/story/why-is-fusion-power-is-alw... The potential is hard to ignore, but that doesn't mean the potential will ever be achieved. This (like crypto currency) is the realm of vapourware I am afraid. Always just around the corner. :(

>vaporware Have you never heard of ITER? Its set to power on in 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

What's sort of my point: we've had big projects that would totally definitely work this time every few years since the 90s. Will ITER work? Maybe. Would it be the first to fail (or even the 10th) if it doesn't? No. Per your own link there are literally 100s of other "reactors".

Its the same as crypto or emissions reductions.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#33

Post by 543g43g43 »

entropicgravity wrote: post #31
PaulHoule wrote: post #3

The efficiency of the lasers is awful though and they will have to get at least 100x that energy yield for it to be a net power source. A lot of heat winds up in the laser glass and it takes it a long time to cool between shots so you are doing very good to make a few shots a day. A real power plant is going to need more like 10 shots per second. Heavy-ion fusion has been talked about since the 1970s and it seems muc…

Unfortunately large fusion is unlikely to ever be economic because the cost of solar/battery is coming down so quickly and is already in the 1-2 cents per kilowatt hour for the solar component. And costs will continue to drop. Small scale fusion on the other hand would have a viable niche application at the poles, in the sea or underground or any other environment that is without sun or space.

We won't know what the cost of solar/battery will be in a sustainable energy economy, until someone builds a solar-powered solar panel and battery factory. At the moment, productions costs are heavily (as in, entirely) subsidised by fossil fuels (mostly coal).

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#36

Post by thehappypm »

jeffbee wrote: post #11

I guess I don't really get it. Nobody doubts that you can get a tremendous output of energy from a fusion bomb with modest inputs. This thing they've ignited is a tiny fusion weapon without a fission blanket and with a huge, inconvenient optical primary. I mean I'm all for science but I don't see the road from this to civilian fusion power as people generally understand the term.

This is like a version 1.0 steam engine. Miniaturization and optimization can come next.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#37

Post by boringg »

monocularvision wrote: post #19

It’s a real bummer to me that hype around fusion has faded so much because of the false hopes that this sort of thing barely registers on HN anymore.

I think that people are waiting to see the real announcement not the scoop with limited details. Let's see what the Granthom announces tomorrow. Tough to be excited about scoops with limited information and without the level of robustness of the accomplishment.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#38

Post by mgoetzke »

While I appreciate all the effort in nuclear fusion and do think we should continue to invest a little of each years global R&D budget, it seems these reactors (e.g ITER and this one) still require tritium which is rather hard to come by efficiently.

Which means normal nuclear reactors will be needed to make it and minimising any economic viability of the dependent fusion rector for a long long time.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#39

Post by atemerev »

mgoetzke wrote: post #38

While I appreciate all the effort in nuclear fusion and do think we should continue to invest a little of each years global R&D budget, it seems these reactors (e.g ITER and this one) still require tritium which is rather hard to come by efficiently. Which means normal nuclear reactors will be needed to make it and minimising any economic viability of the dependent fusion rector for a long long time.

Normal nuclear reactors are a good thing too, and they alone are enough to solve all of humanity’s energy problems (though we should pursue fusion power too, of course). See Integral Fast Reactor.
Post reply on HN