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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#321

Post by wpietri »

boc wrote: post #251

It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.

> This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.

I think that's true. But I also think there is a lot in the way of breathless PR around science topics both from university press offices and lower-end science news outlets. Especially around fusion, which has been 20 years away for a lifetime. So I get why people are going to be particularly skeptical.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#322

Post by DennisP »

dools wrote: post #253
e1g wrote: post #71

Good write-up to temper expectations at https://twitter.com/wilson_ricks/status/1602088153577246721 My TLDR (from a layman): * The output is greater than the energy *in the lasers*, but the lasers deliver 1% of the energy required to power them. Need 100x improvement to break even. * Converting the generated energy into electricity would cut the output in half. We need a further 2x improvement here, so it's ~200x to…

Helion tech seems to be interesting in that they use the electricity directly so avoids the costly conversion via steam/turbines etc.

And right now they're building their seventh reactor, for a net electricity attempt in 2024.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#323

Post by wolverine876 »

rcarr wrote: post #313

Genuine question: I seem to recall there being some very similar news about how 'ignition' had been achieved not too long ago. Am I imagining things or is this a genuine new development?

The story here isn't ignition. It's that they got out more energy than they put in, which is of course necessary to use fusion as an energy source. We'e been able to produce fusion for awhile, but net positive energy hasn't happened before.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#324

Post by yummypaint »

stuckinhell wrote: post #304
boc wrote: post #251

It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.

People have been burned time and time again by scientists over hyping stuff in the last 10 years, then combine that with the replication failures over nearly every single scientific field. Then look at the extreme amount of business fraud in the last 10 years with places like Theranos and FTX Hackernews is not infested with reflexive contrarians. Hackernews has healthy amounts of skepticism and doubt. Extraordinary c…

When people use the word "reflexive," they're talking about things like conflating business hype designed to attract publicity and VC capital with a press release for a major scientific paper from NIF. I don't think it's unreasonable for HN to hold itself to an understanding of these things. If you actually want to critically examine evidence then you must necessarily read the paper before posting.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#325

Post by throwawaymaths »

boc wrote: post #251

It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.

Look if a scientist at LLNL is excited about it, then there's a conflict of interest here. The fact of the matter is that there is such a high likelihood that inertial confinement is a dead end, because as far as I can tell there is not a realistic plan to harvest the produced energy, which at least, some of the other designs do. The bar is literally higher in other branches of fusion research (and they too are getting called to task for reporting plasma q values instead of estimated plausible total yields). Until someone starts at least building a model of how to collect this energy high levels of skepticism are warranted.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#326

Post by Retric »

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #295
Retric wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel is hardly the only advantage, the major issue with fission is the enormous costs of trying to avoid problems or cleanup after them. Thus 24/7 security, redundancy on top of redundancy, walls thick enough to stop aircraft etc. Fission is still by far the most expensive power source even with massive subsides and is only even close to economically viable as base load power backed up with peaking power plants. In t…

this is simply not true. according to IEA https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el... LCOE of nuclear is cheaper than almost all other possibilities we have. sure nuclear is very expensive up front, but a nuclear powerplant can run for 100 years while wind and solar had to be completely replaced every 25 years. your correct that nuclear has had some very expensive accidents, but the chance of a mo…

You see a lot of handwaving such as that very close to 0 statement with nuclear but someone’s got to be on the hook.

The rate and cost of failures directly relate to insurance costs. A 1 in 100,000 chance per year to cause a 500 billion dollar accident represents a ~5 million per year insurance cost to offset that risk before considering the risk premium associated with insurance. And that’s on top of the normal risks for large complexes that have little to do with nuclear just high voltage equipment etc. Unsubsidized insurance costs are something like 0.2c/kWh which is quite significant for these projects.

In the end you see a lot of people talking nonsense around nuclear costs using wildly optimistic numbers, but there hasn’t been a power plant built and operated in the last 20 years that come even close to these numbers. Let alone when you start to compare predictions for decommissioning costs with actual decommissioning costs.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#327

Post by doctor_eval »

jonathanoberg wrote: post #308
jonathanoberg wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is.

No, it isn't Yes, it is. You just contradicted me No, I didn't Yes, you did No, no, no You did just then That's ludicrous Oh, this is futile No, it isn't I came in here for a good argument No, you didn't. You came in here for an argument Well, argument isn't the same as contradiction Can be

"An argument is a connected series of statements intended to form a proposition. Contradiction is merely the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says"

"No it isn't!"

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#328

Post by govg »

spoils19 wrote: post #285
rogerkirkness wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older I get the more I think it's just counter signaling that one is smarter than whoever did this work, which is almost certainly not the case.

Quoted post unavailable.

The average HN reader who is probably a generic software engineer in their 20s/30s will know more about nuclear fusion than scientists at LLNL?

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#329

Post by politician »

boc wrote: post #251

It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.

> “Initial diagnostic data suggests another successful experiment at the National Ignition Facility. However, the exact yield is still being determined and we can’t confirm that it is over the threshold at this time,” it said. “That analysis is in process, so publishing the information . . . before that process is complete would be inaccurate.”

From the article!!!

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#330

Post by DennisP »

foota wrote: post #307

How does something like this produce power? With tomamoks etc., it seems like they draw out some of the heat (somehow) but how does this work with a pellet that has to be hit by a laser? I'm confused about what the working fluid is, if you will. Is there some kind of plasma chamber that the laser has to go through, that heat is then extracted from?

The energy output is 80% neutron radiation. Surround the reaction chamber with a mix of molten lead (for neutron multiplication) and lithium (for tritium breeding) and run some cooling pipes through it.
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