Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab • Hacker News Board

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#751

Post by zbobet2012 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

upsidesinclude wrote: post #724

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #447

Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. "NIF is just a nuclear stewardship program", "it's not actually generating power", "fusion still 30 years away". I think it's very clear, given the past year that NIF has had, that they are very rapidly approaching a point where we have the tech to "solve" inertial fusion. https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/papers-presentations Getting…

Here's the thing: In order to make inertial confinement work, this process needs to occur multiple times per second All the fancy stuff with the hohlraum, magnetic compression, target cryo cooling must be accomplished accurately and repeatedly, BUT ALSO shot out of an "injector" to fall precisely into alignment with the lasers, in vacuum within a plasma field... When you write it all out! Yikes! Then! This has not in…

All of the problems you just described are solved for in EUV lightsources for lithography on chips at 100khz or more. These are less hard then you make them sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw

Probably the hardest part is making sure the droplet is cost effective enough that we care.

Again, to op's point, this is an incredibly shallow analysis. The question I would be pushing towards is:

What are the hardest remaining engineering problems? How likely are we to overcome them? At the end of that process will it be a cost competitive outcome?

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#752

Post by PaulHoule » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

Unklejoe wrote: post #749

upsidesinclude wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing: In order to make inertial confinement work, this process needs to occur multiple times per second All the fancy stuff with the hohlraum, magnetic compression, target cryo cooling must be accomplished accurately and repeatedly, BUT ALSO shot out of an "injector" to fall precisely into alignment with the lasers, in vacuum within a plasma field... When you write it all out! Yikes! Then! This has not in…

> BUT ALSO shot out of an "injector" to fall precisely into alignment with the lasers, in vacuum within a plasma field... It does sound like magic, but doesn't EUV involve some process similar to this? Something about shooting drops of tin with a laser? That sounds like magic to me too but is apparently a thing. Obviously two totally different things, but the level of magic to me is the same.

The tin is reaching 400,000 K, a fusion reactor has to attain more like 100,000,000 K.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#753

Post by vixen99 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #674

deng wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. To be fair, that's not entirely the fault of HN. It's hard to get excited about fusion research when I almost always feel mislead, because it is almost never explicitly stated that we are talking about Q-plasma here. I don't expect much from science journalism, but I feel that the fusion scientists have no problem silently playi…

Plus, this is about 10-th time in the last 10 years we are told "we are around the corner, clean energy will save us". Please tune down the message.

A long history indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#754

Post by pontifier » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #644

pontifier wrote: post #584

I see I'm a little late to the discussion, but this is very similar to the patented Fusion device I've been proposing for several years here. http://www.DDproFusion.com The main idea behind my reactor is to contain NIF like explosions in magnetic fields. I've been trying to get a test reactor built for a long time, and my plans have been hampered by a theft earlier this year. A huge difference between the current NIF…

I thought I would let you know that you misspell "inertial" on your website as "innertial". Normally I don't point out spelling mistakes, but I think it may be more noticeable when pitching a nuclear fusion reactor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion

Thanks, I always try to do my best, but I can only see through my own eyes.

I had one of the main videos on the site set to private for a few years until someone told me they couldn't see it. I had only tested on my own devices which were all logged in to my Google account so I never saw the problem.

I felt so stupid, but very thankful for the feedback. How many people went to the site and immediately dismissed it because such a central piece was missing? Probably a lot. I'm sure there are scientists who will never take a second look at the idea because of stupid errors like that. So truly, I value the feedback.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#755

Post by PaulHoule » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #447

Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. "NIF is just a nuclear stewardship program", "it's not actually generating power", "fusion still 30 years away". I think it's very clear, given the past year that NIF has had, that they are very rapidly approaching a point where we have the tech to "solve" inertial fusion. https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/papers-presentations Getting…

I get disappointed that I can't get interest in stories like

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/First-Light-team...

Fusion has the strong advantage (and disadvantage) that it is a powerful neutron source. Even a very low performance reactor can be useful as a neutron source

https://ats-fns.fi/images/files/2019/syp2019/presentations/T...

Fusion might be useful for making isotopes long before it is competitive as an energy source. In the 1980s I know scientists were looking to hybrid systems that convert ²³²Th to ²³³U and ²³⁸U to ²³⁹Pu as fusion reactors produce so many high energy neutrons that they could be better than fast breeders for manufacturing fuel for thermal fission reactors. In fact, it is very possible a fusion reactor could be used to make fuel for nuclear weapons.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#756

Post by poopbutt6 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:37 PM UTC

TheDudeMan wrote: post #715

There is a difference between a breakthrough and a milestone. This is a milestone.

I agree!

- Breakthrough: a sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development

- Milestone: a significant point in development

This is clearly neither 'sudden' nor 'dramatic' and should NOT be celebrated or acknowledged as a 'breakthrough'. This level of journalistic malpractice is worth noting, and I have contacted the author on Twitter to voice my disapproval.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#757

Post by Schroedingersat » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

543g43g43 wrote: post #747

moloch-hai wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make the same mistake fission boosters make. Converting heat to electricity is expensive . Solar and wind skip the expensive step, going straight to electricity. Electric power from solar and wind is already much cheaper than coal, without subsidy, for this reason, and because coal has to be dug up and transported. Coal has a high operating cost. Solar and wind have extremely low operating cost, and also very low…

>Converting heat to electricity is expensive. And? Most of our power usage is not supplied through electricity. Solar panels are never going to heat my house.

Why not? Plenty of places have enough sunlight to do so even in winter. Parts of Alberta have similar sunlight mid winter to PNG mid summer.

Plus storage is a thing. Using a heat pump to dry NaOH or melt Sodium Acetate, or heat a large pond can store low grade heat economically for months. Ammonia, or methanol can do so indefinitely.

Then there's transmission. HVDC can transport energy 10GW pernline for thousands of km at costs comparable to local generation.

I'd be very surprised if you could avoid using a solar panel to heat your home in 40 years even if you go out of your way to do so.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#758

Post by 543g43g43 » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

Schroedingersat wrote: post #737

543g43g43 wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A new panasonic or jinko mono panel installed in india has epbt under 6 months and an eroi around 100. I certainly haven't made any claims as specific as this without any backup!

You claimed solar has too low EROI to be viable. Prove new solar in a median location is lower EROI than the median for new gas using up to date info on the whole process and solar cells you would buy for a project started now such as 155 micron wafer mono PERC.

>You claimed solar has too low EROI to be viable.

Nope, I said that it's lower than other sources of power, and thus an energy economy based on solar will look very different than what we currently have.

Given that electricity represents a relatively small percentage of our power usage, in the majority of cases (materials manufacture, industry, heating, etc), the EROI of renewables will be worse than fossil fuels.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#759

Post by panick21_ » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:50 PM UTC

Technically many of the issues with fusion might be solvable.

However, I see no reason what so ever why fusion would ever be cheaper then a GenIV fission reactor. I guess the advantage fusion has is that states actually invest serious money in fusion while fission is struggling to get funding.

The reason why I think fission will remain cheaper.

- Capital cost is less. A GenIV fission reactor is pretty low tech overall, in a non water based reactor the containment is mostly just a steel tub. Everything around the reactor, the heat loops, the turbine and so on will be mostly the same.

- Fuel cost. Fuel cost is already a small part of reactor cost, if we switch to a breeder the fuel cost is basically nothing. For Fusion, in the long term this is an issue and you likely have to breed new tritium.

- Operation cost. Seems to me that self regulating GenIV reactor should be easier to operate overall and there is much less complex technology involved that could break.

- Safty. A GenIV reactor that is passivly safe is already incredibly safe. Specially with a molten salt reactor, the radioactive chemical that get blown into the air, will just remain in the fuel salt and will remain in the reactor safety zone. A fusion reactor does actually contain radioactive material that could be dispersed into the air. A fusion reactor might still be safer, but the difference doesn't seem that big.

So really I don't get it, why would fusion ever be cheaper then fission?

That said, I'm not against research of fusion. I just wish more money was spent on actually getting GenIV fission reactors into real world uses. That would actually be a more viable solution to energy problems on the plant.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#760

Post by weregiraffe » Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 4:52 PM UTC

moloch-hai wrote: post #594

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #447

Very disappointed by the discourse in this HN thread. The same old quips over and over. "NIF is just a nuclear stewardship program", "it's not actually generating power", "fusion still 30 years away". I think it's very clear, given the past year that NIF has had, that they are very rapidly approaching a point where we have the tech to "solve" inertial fusion. https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/papers-presentations Getting…

There is nothing disappointing in skepticism about the importance or value of this work. 1. It is, purely, bomb research dressed up as civilian activity for funding purposes. Everyone working on it has top-secret clearance. 2. It has no consequence for any civilian project. The target that produced a couple of MJ cost $10M. (2.4 MJ is 3. Extracting useful energy would require capturing hot neutrons in a "blanket", he…

7. It doesn't matter, even if renewables were free. They is no way to store energy from intermittent sources that will allow to power human civilization. You are going to end up like Germany, replacing nuclear power with coal and gas.