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

US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

energy.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 1001 posts

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#491

Post by anon291 »

josho wrote: post #469
anon291 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind have massive environmental impacts. Fusion's foot print is much smaller for the same output. Batteries are rather dangerous. Fusion is -- as far as I understand it -- much less likely to escape a reactor due to how difficult it is to sustain the reaction. Moreover, it's more dependable. So in sum, the advantages are (1) dependability, (2) safety, and (3) small footprint.

> Solar and wind have massive environmental impacts Got a source for this? The only time I've seen this has been political talking points that had no backing.

My source is the fact that solar panels cause shade on the ground and squander energy that would normally be going towards developing biomass into developing energy instead. It just doesn't seem healthy for the animals and environment that live there. Especially with the talk of in ground installation, which basically destroys entire environments and soils and covers it with impermeable membranes. That's not great for soil health.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#492

Post by clavalle »

Mistletoe wrote: post #401
ajross wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually current modeling has supernovae as being only a small contributor to the measured abundance of heavy nucleii. These guys tend to come from a more exotic source still: material thrown off as a neutron star is tidally disrupted during a merger event with another neutron star or black hole . The wikipedia page is pretty good, as always: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis Almost everything with mass o…

Good Lord the universe is old. To think of how rare all that must be and how it had to have time to somehow get here to our planet.

If they weren't here, we wouldn't be able to talk about it.

I'd be interested to know if we're in an element rich vein of the wider universe or if all the good stuff is more or less evenly distributed?

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#494

Post by moffkalast »

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #33

> LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE) Yesterday, everyone was complaining about the 2.2:2.0 ratio, but now we're working with 3.15:2.05. With modern lasers, that'd be a total Q of 0.375 assuming 100% ef…

> demonstrating the scaling laws at work

One would think that one look at the sky would be enough to say that "hey this fusion thing scales pretty well".

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#495

Post by ihaveajob »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #103
jkelleyrtp wrote: post #33

> LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE) Yesterday, everyone was complaining about the 2.2:2.0 ratio, but now we're working with 3.15:2.05. With modern lasers, that'd be a total Q of 0.375 assuming 100% ef…

This is a stupid question but I don't know anything about fusion: How is it possible for X energy to create X+Y energy in output? Doesn't that violate some fundamental law of physics?

A daily life parallel: You can use a lighter to put a small amount of energy into a bunch of wood to extract more energy than you put it. In the case of fusion, this energy is coming from fusing hydrogen atoms, rather than a chemical reaction.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#496

Post by ZeKK14 »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #440
jboy55 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually pretty good, since this is primarily weapons testing. The real money is being spent in the EU, where there is at least a chance of getting a sustainable fusion reaction.

It's, depending what calculation you believe, around 20 billion for ITER. Started in 2013, first plasma in 2025, first full fusion in 2035. So about a billion per year. Of course, costs are calculated differently, and I'm not sure on what time scale the 600 million are, but it's not that drastically different. Research wise, it's a pretty big chunk of money. But yeah, more money in research would be nice. (Disclaimer…

ITER is built in France, but is financed by many countries outside of EU, including the USA. It's not a huge cost per-country.

> the ITER Members China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States

See https://www.iter.org/proj/Countries

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#497

Post by donquixote25 »

lostmsu wrote: post #426
brianyu8 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you have experience in software, then https://www.llnl.gov/join-our-team/careers/find-your-job/0d6...

Aren't they required to post salary ranges by some Californian law?

Law goes into effect next year.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#498

Post by IgorPartola »

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #33

> LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE) Yesterday, everyone was complaining about the 2.2:2.0 ratio, but now we're working with 3.15:2.05. With modern lasers, that'd be a total Q of 0.375 assuming 100% ef…

I keep getting lost in the numbers here. What was the net gain/loss for the entire system? Without the “lasers are 1% efficient at 20% energy loss with 40% energy transfer loss” and all that.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#499

Post by ClumsyPilot »

kortilla wrote: post #420
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. fusion funding has been sliding downwards for decades which is a large reason why it takes so long to do anything. It's largely the same reason why NASA takes so long to do anything. 1. Shortage of funding 2. failure can result in loss/exhaustion of funding 3. extremely low risk tolerance 4. physical experiments needing new HW only happen when the likelihood of success is extremely high 5. projects are over engi…

It has nothing to do with funding. SpaceX had far less than NASA. For another example from a different angle, the military has limitless supplies of funding but innovates even less than NASA.

You are comparing company that makes trucks with a company that makes precision scientific instrumers, and you are declaring that truck companu is more efficient per kilo of produce. this is stupid.

Nasa develops nuclear reactors, landed on titan and has reached pluto. Spacex vehicle has never left the Earth-moon system.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#500

Post by wedn3sday »

dleslie wrote: post #182
bioemerl wrote: post #20

Here's your most exciting paragraph > LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). Many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable IFE to power homes and busines…

The question on my mind is: where do I sign up to join this effort?! Edit: I'm Canadian, the question is rhetorical.

Former LLNL employee here, they hire a LOT of foreign nationals. Several people that I worked with there were Canadian.
Post reply on HN