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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

#801

Post by dotancohen »

nonethewiser wrote: post #645
dotancohen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much will my electric bill be reduced? Your bill will be the same, or higher. But you'll be doing so much more with electricity. Push a button, and your clothes are clean in seconds. Push a button, and your beard is shaved in seconds. Push a button, and four of your five senses are entertained for hours.

Why cant you currently do those things then?

I'm unaware of a clothes washing machine currently on the market that finishes the job in seconds. I believe that the technology has yet to be introduced.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#802

Post by TeeMassive »

davedx wrote: post #520
TeeMassive wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H-bombs use the hydrogen to produce more neutrons which boosts the fission process. It still is a fission bomb.

Nope... "thermonuclear bomb, also called hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, weapon whose enormous explosive power results from an uncontrolled self-sustaining chain reaction in which isotopes of hydrogen combine under extremely high temperatures to form helium in a process known as nuclear fusion."

The fissile "spark plug" inside the fusion material is responsible for the majority of the energy...

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#803

Post by mbg721 »

dotancohen wrote: post #801
nonethewiser wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why cant you currently do those things then?

I'm unaware of a clothes washing machine currently on the market that finishes the job in seconds. I believe that the technology has yet to be introduced.

When it is, how many seconds-long washings will my cheaply-made shirts survive? My guess is nearly one.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#804

Post by zbobet2012 »

moloch-hai wrote: post #784
jboy55 wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least ITER has a plausible, in a sci-fi story sense, way of creating a sustainable fusion reaction to which more fuel could be given. The fact the neutrons produced, if it did reach the high Q ratios, would irradiate and break down everything involved, is probably 2070's scientists and engineers problems to solve.

In that paradise of abundant cheap solar and wind power, only weapons people will be interested in fusion. They will probably be trying to come up with zero-fallout things they can use tactically.

Solar and wind power are not sufficient for spacecraft, and many other applications. Fusion power still has very interesting applications.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#805

Post by pciexpgpu »

eastbound wrote: post #16
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2.05 MJ in, 3.15 MJ out. That's amazing.

Minus the laser power supply, is it correct?

What would it take to store/feedback the gained (converted) energy to power the lasers? Sort of like a bootstrap with a very inefficient source of power, and over time transition to the produced clean energy?

Armchair scientisting aside, this news seems like the most exciting news over the past few years - a great way to end this year (/pandemic). We are far out from a production-ready thingy, but if it took decades for brilliant scientists to conjure up this initial clunky toy thingy, I am sure an army of scientists/companies would work at building the real thing much, much faster: we had only a freaking 8086 not 30 years ago!!

We have the basic blueprint from government funded research no less.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#806

Post by bunabhucan »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #771
jboy55 wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and not a gigantic amount of fusion that you have in thermonuclear weapons, Ironically, this experiment was designed primarily to simulate the fusion you have in thermonuclear weapons. That's the NIF's purpose and the purpose of this experiment. From Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04440-7 "Herrmann acknowledges as much, saying that there are many steps on the path to laser fusion energy. “NIF was n…

How would it help build better weapons? I thought the existing thermonuclear bombs do the job perfectly fine. Sure, the military might want to make them a bit smaller or a bit cheaper, but is it really such a big deal as to warrant a major announcement?

"Nuclear stockpile research" is only making weapons "better" in the sense that they are reliable despite not having been tested in decades. There's probably a component of "unemployed nuclear weapons designers is a bad thing" also.

The fusion for power experiments are using the same laser equipment but different targets and sensors.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#807

Post by User23 »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #771
jboy55 wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and not a gigantic amount of fusion that you have in thermonuclear weapons, Ironically, this experiment was designed primarily to simulate the fusion you have in thermonuclear weapons. That's the NIF's purpose and the purpose of this experiment. From Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04440-7 "Herrmann acknowledges as much, saying that there are many steps on the path to laser fusion energy. “NIF was n…

How would it help build better weapons? I thought the existing thermonuclear bombs do the job perfectly fine. Sure, the military might want to make them a bit smaller or a bit cheaper, but is it really such a big deal as to warrant a major announcement?

The USA no longer has the technical capability to manufacture the necessary parts to maintain the current stockpile. The whole strategic arms reduction treaty regime is basically a fig leaf to cover for the fact that we have to cannibalize some legacy weapons to maintain the rest. If nothing changes the USA probably won't have an effective arsenal within a century. Given the likely state of the USA by that time, that's probably for the best.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#808

Post by zbobet2012 »

highwaylights wrote: post #388
rsync wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yesterday, everyone was complaining about the 2.2:2.0 ratio, but now we're working with 3.15:2.05." What is the difference between todays announcement and yesterdays ? I thought we were just getting re-submitted headlines, but apparently this news is different than yesterday ?

Speculation. People believed that X:Y was 2.2:2.0, but it's now 3.15:2.05. The 10% EROI apparently wasn't impressive enough, it's now 54% EROI on paper (assuming less because of capture inefficiencies). I'm no expert, but theoretically my understanding is that this ratio should scale along this same pattern for higher values of Y.

The X:Y ratio should increase for high values of Y in ICF. See https://suli.pppl.gov/2019/course/SULI2019_IntroICF_TMa_2019...

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#809

Post by ShakataGaNai »

markasoftware wrote: post #625
opportune wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree. We should be dumping as much as we can in getting fusion up and running ASAP. It could be a silver bullet to stop climate change alone, and by driving energy costs lower, enable huge innovations in AI/automation and increasing material wealth. $1T to move fusion forward just 5 years from eg 2040 to 2035 could alone have a huge ROI in terms of climate mitigation and decarbonization

Will not be a silver bullet, electricity production contributes less than half of global CO2 emissions. Still need other solutions for transport, industrial processes, agriculture, etc. Further, it's possible that fusion plants might be prohibitively expensive to build and maintain, even if their fuel is cheap.

There are a lot of bigger picture items around energy. Part of Europe's challenge with the war in Ukraine is that a lot of countries buy Russian gas & oil.

>Russia accounted for about 55% of Germany’s natural gas imports and 35% of Germany’s oil imports last year, causing Germany to resist a blanket European Union ban on Russian energy.

If every country could assure their energy independence, geopolitics would look very different. Yes, there are still many problems, like natural resources. But if you can assure all your residents can keep the lights on, their houses warm and the economy moving (EV's for transit, technology)... its very reassuring.

Re: US Department of Energy: Fusion Ignition Achieved

#810

Post by aoetalks »

eru wrote: post #793
floxy wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we should take this as a lesson in communications. The "breakeven" thing is a red-herring that should have been have been left out of the message, or at least only mentioned as a footnote. The critical ELI5 message that should have been presented is that they used a laser to create some tiny amount of fusion. But we have been able to do that for a while now. The important thing is that they were then able to…

> [...], or the ginormous fusion of the sun. The sun actually has very little fusion per cubic metre or per kg. Per volume the core of the sun produces only a quarter of the heat of the human body (and per kg it's even less, owing to high density). That's why our fusion reactors can't just mimic stars, they have to far surpass them to be useful to us.

This is incredible.
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