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US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

energy.gov

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Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#501

Post by benevol »

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?

No post body was provided.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#502

Post by chrisco255 »

daxfohl wrote: post #484

My pessimistic self feels like the short-term effect is that it sets a deadline by which oil companies know they have to extract and sell all the existing oil on the planet, and a doubling down on increased emissions now because fusion will solve it eventually.

There are hundreds of years worth of oil deposits (possibly more) even at current usage rates. "Selling all the oil" isn't in the realm of possibility.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#503

Post by pdonis »

lostmsu wrote: post #447
pdonis wrote: post #98

Calling this "ignition" is a misnomer. The correct term, as given in the article (as opposed to the headline) is exceeding breakeven: more fusion energy output than energy input to the target. "Ignition" means the reaction becomes self-sustaining and does not require any further input of energy to continue.

> the reaction becomes self-sustaining This is applicable only to continuously running reactions like in jet engines.

Which would also include any other method currently being pursued to achieve fusion, besides laser confinement. I'm guessing that the laser confinement community had to invent another meaning for "ignition" since the usual one would not be applicable to them.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#504

Post by nebolo »

panosfilianos wrote: post #369
devmor wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic impact doesn't just come from the fuel to energy ratio. One of the biggest differences is also in the space required. Nuclear fusion reactors could eventually end up being very small - like smaller than an SUV. Imagine the cost savings in miniaturizing electrical grids.

This seems interesting but not especially impactful. For me, the question here is: can we get our energy to cost 90% less than it did? Don't get me wrong, I recognise that this is still a huge win (especially environmentally) and that it can have huge runway effects (eg. much more effective decentralization etc.) but it's quite interesting on how we can get these billions of people out of poverty first (or during).

While not 90%, transmission and distribution are around 40% of the cost of retail electricity, so lowering those substantially would go a long way.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#505

Post by ClumsyPilot »

azinman2 wrote: post #204
hackernewds wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funding does seem miniscule given we spend 100x more on funding military excursions in the name of energy security

Is the bottleneck for fusion money though?

There are like 20 designs of various fusion reactors on the drawing board that need to be built and tested.

Scientists also don't work for free. They arent mushrooms that grow by themselves

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#506

Post by BadBadJellyBean »

twic wrote: post #429
subsubzero wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know how much tritium is needed for a city's energy generation? What about a state etc? Reason I ask is the only uses I have seen for tritium is on old watch dials made in the pre-90's. Curious how much of this resource is out there.

Take spullara's numbers: 2.01410177811 u = 3.34449439340696e-24 g deuterium 3.01604928 u = 5.008267217094e-24 g tritium 17.6 MeV = 7.832863e-19 kWh energy Divide through, and you will see that you need 4.27 ug/kWh of deuterium, and 6.39 ug/kWh of tritium. A random source [1] says that New York will use 50.6 TWh per year by 2027. That would require ~216 kg/yr of deuterium and ~323/yr kg of tritium. This is all assumin…

I wonder if that is much or not. I have no idea how hard this is to produce. Do you have an idea about that?

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#508

Post by ClumsyPilot »

beowulfey wrote: post #312
worik wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they using these "flash pumped" lasers if more efficient ones are available?

It’s a proof of concept. Upgrading lasers that already work is not necessarily the best use of limited funds.

They could get higher power out of more efficient lasers, enabling research at higher energies or bigger targets

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#509

Post by josho »

busyant wrote: post #333

I'm sure this has been considered, but I haven't ready anything about the "geo-political" effects of virtually unlimited energy from fusion. I imagine that power dynamics would change drastically, but I have no clue, really. I understand that's still far away, but are there any articles/discussions on how large scale fusion-generated energy would change the world?

Oh it will be interesting. Assuming it is possible to commercialize this at scale then relatively overnight we'll some some of the following:

* The middle-east no longer becomes a strategic region. Wealthy regimes see their income disappear. The US has supported Israel as a strategic check in the region, but with oil losing its value the US no longer needs to fund Israeli security. We are likely to see skirmishes if not major wars, but this time it's over empires in decline, rather than empires with strategic resources.

* Texas' GDP declines substantially creating significant unemployment. Will government scape goat immigration and create further social problems, or invest in leading the transition creating a new wave of energy industries.

* Developing countries swiftly raise their standard of living as cheap energy is brought online. No idea what this ramification would be.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#510

Post by emmelaich »

pishpash wrote: post #364
867-5309 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are all made of star stuff

Star stuff sounds like some German element.

Exactly what I thought! I checked with google translate.

star stuff = sternzeug. stern stoff = star fabric

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