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While I'm excited for this, I'm also cynical about the public reaction to fusion power as it gets closer to success and eventual general availability. These past 2 years have highlighted to many how a combination of poor critical thinking and politicisation of so many aspects of our lives can lead to literal catastrophes. Will the public see Fusion as the wonderful advancement for humanity that it will likely be, or…
I don't think it will as it should be radically cheaper. It should come with an economic improvement.
I think the first ~50 years of fusion projects are likely to be very expensive and I'd expect that reputation to stick.
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
That fusion is not fission?
I get the impression that the rate of progress is increasing in fusion energy research. Finally! Or is it just various fusion startups making PR waves to get more investments?
NIF is inertial confinement fusion. Magnetic confinement fusion startups have been making waves because of a new type of magnet which doesn’t need to be supercooled and can create the same amount of magnetic pressure w a smaller device (I think). In addition to that, there are the same old and not-so-old publicly funded experiments which have been making good progress of their own. ITER is still being built, but a lot of these publicly funded experiments are tied to ITER.
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
This is where we are at, that is what we are aiming for.
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
We have know for centuries that all you need to go high is a big fire pointing down, but soon realized that the hard part was maintaining the fire long enough to reach orbit or other planets.
And even when that would become possible, the problem of how to land in the destination, build shelters and grow food remains.
So, why we insist on this irrational pursuit?
First because we can.
Second because the the search needed to achieve that generates far more societal benefit than just the space goals.
And third because society can pursuit many goals at once. We have several people, just let them explore.
So, fusion is hard, but very probably not impossible. The pursuit of it will advance science and technology. If successful, can trigger societal changes we can only imagine today (serious carbon capture becomes possible. Smelting of very energy intensive alloys becomes cheaper and possible).
And if the ultimate goal of a miniaturized reactor becomes possible, our spaceships can fly basically anywhere.
While I'm excited for this, I'm also cynical about the public reaction to fusion power as it gets closer to success and eventual general availability. These past 2 years have highlighted to many how a combination of poor critical thinking and politicisation of so many aspects of our lives can lead to literal catastrophes. Will the public see Fusion as the wonderful advancement for humanity that it will likely be, or…
I think this really understates the case against nuclear power. The problem with nuclear power stations is they are prone to the same kind of industrial accidents all large plants are prone to, and they are on the more dangerous end of the scale when it comes to what can happen if there is an industrial accident. You can say that people aren't accurately weighing the risks, but you can't say it's irrational for people in, say, Japan, to be very skeptical of their government's capacity to either regulate industry or respond to industrial accidents and spills in a way that protects public health.
Fusion power, as far as I can see, is not on the more dangerous end of the scale, so would probably pass all of the mainstream, basically reasonable objections to new nuclear plants.
(For the record, I'm not anti-nuclear.)
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
Indeed, the brute-force approach is to simply detonate a hydrogen bomb underground, tap off steam, then repeat. That was seriously investigated (I believe as part of Project Plowshare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare ), but the high cost of the bombs made it uncompetitive with other methods.
I don’t understand the appeal of this type of fusion (as opposed to the plasma reactor approach). We’ve known how to get positive energy out of fusion fuel since thermonuclear weapons in 1952. The really hard part would seem to be capturing that energy efficiently. This experiment is stuck at the ignition phase. When that’s positive energy they won’t be done, they’ll be able to start working on the practical problems…
Fission devices have been very well understood since the early 1950s, but fusion reactions are somewhat less so. The NIF provides an instrument for probing the plasma densities and temperatures that occur inside a nuclear fireball, so is directly relevant to H-bomb research.
This becomes trivially obvious when you realize that a laser implosion fusion reactor producing power would need to achieve in excess of ten ignitions per second to produce the sort of power output needed just to power its own lasers ... and that each hohlraum costs on the order of a third of a million dollars. (What kind of power plant costs $11Bn per hour to operate?) Answer: it's not a remotely practical design for generating electricity, so it must be something else, and promoting it as "clean energy from fusion power" is a cynical propaganda move to disguise a nuclear weapons research tool.
The final clue is that the NIF is operated by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose primary job is designing and ensuring the reliability of nuclear weapons.