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Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#181

Post by waps »

eru wrote: post #143
waps wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without weapons research 1) we never would have had nuclear power in the first place. (or it would have taken decades more) 2) It would even have taken a lot longer to develop oil energy and widespread cars (allied research on oil) 3) We wouldn't know about co2 separation (since the nazi state was cut-off -mostly- from oil, they researched liquefaction and nuclear power) Nobody ever gives cruel losers credit, I guess…

You are forgetting about opportunity costs. People could have done those things without a war or weapons research.

They would never have gotten funding for it. No way in hell.

Plus, war made sure that they put getting working reactors first. Not interesting science. A critique in fusion research is that nice, flexible and very accurate/complex apparatus is given preference over quick-iteration and fast experimentation. War made sure that the researchers went straight for the goal (and there is the fact that the Germans and the Americans both knew that there was probably a way to tickle the uranium reactors to result in Hiroshima. This caused the Germans to be careful, although even their experiments would today be considered absurdly dangerous. But the early American experiments were bat-shit insane). So thought hard about every step, and constantly fucked up (someone left 2kg uranium in a bath of water + cadmium by mistake, then walked out for the night : the first meltdown. They didn't figure out what had happened until years later. Someone inserted a steel rod into a barely sub-critical reactor submerged in water. No-one left the building alive (due to the water exploding as steam violently enough to bring the roof down, not due to a nuclear explosion). None of this would not have happened in peace time.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#182

Post by ff10 »

stcredzero wrote: post #102
ReverendBayes wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have fusion in 30 years instead of 60 years, we have colonization of the solar system happening in our lifetimes. We'd have the economic rationale for removing all military engagement in the middle east. We have 30*380 billion on petro cost savings here in the U.S: http://www.fuelfreedom.org/the-real-foreign-oil-problem/oil-... God knows how much CO2 we remove from the atmosphere. 100 billion sounds cheap to me…

> We'd have the economic rationale for removing all military engagement in the middle east. This only works if fusion can make petroleum cease to be a strategic resource.

Agree. It's great to have that energy source. Storing it is a whole different thing.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#183

Post by TallGuyShort »

Apocryphon wrote: post #34

Glad to hear that this is continuing at LLNL despite the shutdown. Too bad no politician is going to use this as an example of why gov't investment is not a bad thing.

Probably because "The real story here is that this facility allows the US to do nuclear weapons research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty." -- Another HNer from this field.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#184

Post by tanzam75 »

bandy wrote: post #177
tanzam75 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> total energy dumped into the entire system: 1.7 megajoules. In comparison, the fusion power produced was a paltry 8 kilojoules In other words, the National Ignition Facility hasn't achieved ignition yet. If you can actually achieve ignition, then nobody will care about the megajoules needed to get it ignited. Because once you've got ignition, you can get an arbitrary amount of energy out. But if you can't get ignit…

While they have had problems in the recent past: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ignition-failed ~~ They've since had ignition: http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_792110c0-2c5b-11... ~~ [I'm positive that the ICF's predecessors also achieved ~~ignition~~ fusion on smaller scales.] The real trick is that [0] you need to get out more than you put in (exceed break-even) [1] you need to be able to harness th…

> They've since had ignition

No. Notice how it is worded.

> "More importantly, Moses said, the mechanism that generated the powerful energy burst appeared to be the self-sustaining thermonuclear fusion process that defines ignition."

In other words, they did not achieve ignition. They achieved something that is necessary to get ignition. Specifically, alpha heating.

This is another important step on the road to ignition. It is not, however, ignition itself.

Why do you think the title of the article says "Marks Progress Toward Ignition," rather than "Finally Achieves Ignition?"

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#185

Post by pjc50 »

bcoates wrote: post #113
nikatwork wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just that the western nations decided to go stupid about fission I have many highly intelligent friends who subscribe to your view. Unfortunately they forget that fission is only as safe as the weakest link, and the consequences of failure are severe, especially when near a water source. I'm not talking about crumbling old soviet-era reactors or even older Japanese ones. Witness Australia's only nuclear facili…

That appears to be an accident handling the output of an isotope manufacturing reactor, not anything involving a power reactor. > I would argue that there needs to be a significant improvement before fission is publicly acceptable. I would argue that fission is already held to a standard well above that of almost any human endeavor, even those with roughly similar risk profiles (compare almost any form of mining, or…

The problem with fission is that its disasters are very hard to clean up. Mine collapses or fossil fuel fires are brief events. Most chemical spills either break down, are neutralised, or diluted to harmlessness (although far from all, see the various Superfund sites).

Fission disasters tend to emit nasty metals that are bioaccumulative, don't break down in a short timeframe and may be airborne or waterborne.

(Having said that, it looks like Bhopal was worse than Chernobyl for harm, and the chemical industry is still in business)

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#187

Post by tyree732 »

NhanH wrote: post #90
rpedela wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick your favorite energy technology (oil, wind, solar), it still applies.

It's quite a bit harder to run out of wind and solar.

Sure, but it's not too difficult to run out of the materials necessary to usefully collect those energy sources.

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#188

Post by dekhn »

nikatwork wrote: post #122
bcoates wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That appears to be an accident handling the output of an isotope manufacturing reactor, not anything involving a power reactor. > I would argue that there needs to be a significant improvement before fission is publicly acceptable. I would argue that fission is already held to a standard well above that of almost any human endeavor, even those with roughly similar risk profiles (compare almost any form of mining, or…

> That appears to be an accident handling the output of an isotope manufacturing reactor, not anything involving a power reactor. That is irrelevant to my point, which is that the biggest risk to reactor safety with current fission tech is human error and negligence. > compare almost any form of mining The only form of mining comparable in terms of potential environmental damage is ocean oil drilling[1], which I also…

If your technology has reached the point where human error and negligence is the primary source of risk, you've succeeded. That is the goal of producing all reliable technologies. Of course, at that point, your system design primarily exists to prevent human errors from causing harm (for example, yesterday there was a news report that a Fukushima cleanup worker managed to engage a pump that would dump a bunch of radioactive water in the wrong place. He was saved by a backup system.")

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#189

Post by bandy »

tanzam75 wrote: post #184
bandy wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While they have had problems in the recent past: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ignition-failed ~~ They've since had ignition: http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_792110c0-2c5b-11... ~~ [I'm positive that the ICF's predecessors also achieved ~~ignition~~ fusion on smaller scales.] The real trick is that [0] you need to get out more than you put in (exceed break-even) [1] you need to be able to harness th…

> They've since had ignition No. Notice how it is worded. > "More importantly, Moses said, the mechanism that generated the powerful energy burst appeared to be the self-sustaining thermonuclear fusion process that defines ignition." In other words, they did not achieve ignition. They achieved something that is necessary to get ignition. Specifically, alpha heating. This is another important step on the road to ignit…

You're right. In my head "ignition"=fusion, so I was auto-translating as I was skimming. They're looking for something slightly different, and probably using energy output (among other things) as indications of self-sustained fusion, which we've certainly obtained in bombs (fission explosion sets off fusion reaction ☞ big bada boom).

Re: Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

#190

Post by dekhn »

drjesusphd wrote: post #133
dekhn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether the sun is capable of fusion isn't super important. We can take advantage of that, but it doesn't mean we can build many safe plants based on an evolution of the NIF design. If your alternative fuel requires hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the future, just to show viability of the basic research concept, before it can actually be useful, you will be at a massive competitive advantage relative…

> What I am saying, is that relative to other potential investments, fusion does not seem to be a worthwhile investment, as the risk/payoff ratio is worse. I disagree. There exists MILLIONS of years worth of fuel on earth, compared to a few decades of oil and gas, and a few hundred years worth old coal or fissionable uranium. That's quite a huge payoff for relatively little risk (compare fusion research funding with…

Well, I think you're underestimating oil and gas, but that's another argument.

Nobody's denying fusion is a great energy source.

But your claim that there is a payoff for low risk is unsupported by reality: we have only ever invested money in fusion (risk) and have never received any useful power for it (payoff). At this time, the risk/payoff ratio is infinite.

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