Laser Fusion Passes Major Hurdle 354
chill writes "The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has performed their first controlled fusion experiments using all 192 lasers. While still not ramped up to full power, the first experiments proved very fruitful. The lasers create a lot of plasma in the target container and researchers worried that the plasma would interfere with the ability of the target to absorb enough energy to ignite. These experiments show that not only does enough energy make it through, the plasma can be manipulated to increase the uniformity of compression. Ramping up of power is due to start in May." The project lead, Dr. Sigfried Glenzer, is "confident that with everything in place, ignition is on the horizon. He added, quite simply, 'It's going to happen this year.'"
That's about the coolest or hottest thing ever (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Within a Year? Blasphemy! (Score:3, Interesting)
My interpretation is simply that they want to reach the density and temperature required to start fusion within the plasma. This only means that the fusion reaction is starting to happen. Only after that can one start to ask the interesting questions (can enough energy be extracted to have a net surplus? can the energy output be improved? is this economically viable?). So they aren't done for several years yet.
Please calm down... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Please calm down... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course laser fusion can't provide a sustained burn for seconds, that's not how it works! Your car engine doesn't burn fuel in a sustained way, but it does a pretty good job of providing enough average power right?
The key point here it's a step towards getting gain in a fusion plasma. And hopefully in 2010. The earliest a tokamak is likely to achieve the same is 2020. The steps towards a powerplant are different for tokamaks and lasers, but high rep-rate lasers exist and projects like HiPER [hiper-laser.org] will look to address these issues.
Re:Ignition = net positive energy (Score:3, Interesting)
Would this basically be like creating a tiny star?
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it killed passenger trains. Rail is the preferred method of inland transportation in the container shipping industry, and is cheaper than trucking. As a matter of fact, the reason passenger trains are so expensive is because cargo shipped on rail is that beneficial to everyone involved that passenger trains can't compete with it.
Re:Yes, but is it REALLY working? (Score:2, Interesting)
Technically the process will generate some radioactive material due to neutron activation of the reactor components, but we're talking small amounts that only need to be stored for a few decades until they are perfectly safe.
One interesting proposal has been to use the neutron flux produced by fusion reactors to transmute long-lived high-level radioactive waste produced in fission reactors into short-lived waste products. So potentially the by-product of fusion reactors would allow us to reduce the impact of fission reactors.
Re:Oil Men (Score:3, Interesting)
People who make their money on scarcity fear the onset of plenty.
Everyone suffers from the, "What's good for me is good for America," syndrome, even me.
Put those two together, and you get your friend from Texas - or the MafiAA.
There's no shortage of science fiction that examines the impact of the "replicator" on society, sometimes as a side-item. I know a co-worker who is uncomfortable with ST:NG because it was "too socialistic". The way I looked at the series, the basics of life were so cheap that under normal circumstances they could be taken for granted, most of the time. Everyone had moved beyond that on the hierarchy of needs, and their concerns were much more sophisticated.
Or for another example I would suggest Joe Haldeman's "The Forever Peace". It's not a sequel to "The Forever War" - that's "Forever Free", but it's an excellent book in its own right, and touches on some fascinating topics.
as a physicsist... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a physicist, I love these experiments, but...
The people running this thing need to think really, *really* hard how their comments play out in the media, maybe try and be a little more clear. The difference between getting fusion (the physical process) to work and getting fusion (the power generation system) to work is huge! Should they accomplish their goals in a year, they will still be a very long way away from thinking about building an electricity generating system. The line of "getting more power out than we put in" for fusion in the lab was crossed decades ago, and it's still unclear how doing this with yet another method of creating a fusion plasma is going to result in a more straightforward commercial reactor design.
This is how we end up with government officials who think we're all full of hyperbole, and don't actually do any work. I know they're fighting for their jobs at Livermore, but I don't see how they can keep this up long term. At some point, some Congressional committee is going to ask them to deliver on what has been promised, even if it was a confused, incorrect promise mis-translated by the media.
Oil dependence isn't a myth (Score:3, Interesting)
argued that if free energy were discovered tomorrow, then the whole economy of the world would collapse.
I agree this is clearly nonsense in the long run though some countries (Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, etc) who are primarily dependent on oil income would experience very severe economic problems. It is correct to say that oil is one of the underpinnings of the current economy and it would take some time for adjustment.
Of course, he simultaneously argued that oil production was used for so many applications that the world was dependent on it and could not function without it.
For the foreseeable future he is probably correct in that assertion. The number of products we use that have some form of oil-based products is astonishing. Besides fuels like gasoline or diesel, many, many, many other products have oil as a vital component for which there is no substitute. Synthetic fibers, lubricants, paints, plastics, coatings, chemicals, coolants, and fertilizers all jump to mind off the top of my head. Without oil for power and fertilizer, modern agriculture as we know it could not exist. It is entirely correct that our modern world could not function without oil.
Re:Please calm down... (Score:3, Interesting)
Temperature is important if you take it to mean the energy that the particles have; naturally it has nothing to do with the total energy in the reactants. The product of temp., density and pressure is crucial but if the reactants aren't moving fast enough to overcome the coulomb barrier then you won't see fusion happening at all.
Temperature isn't necessarily the best metric to use though, because not all fusion machines have their reactants' energies forming a Maxwellian distribution. Such a device has the reactants all at the same energy, which would render the conventional idea of temperature entirely meaningless.
Coming back to the NIF, it's certainly really cool science - frickin' lasers and all - but the idea of a massive machine like this, which destroys a significant portion of the reaction chamber after each firing doesn't lead me to think of a workable power plant. I'm probably biased towards the Bussard crew, but a handful of SC coils in a vacuum chamber seems a lot more feasible than 200 lasers that have to be fired together with ps precision.
Re:Ignition = net positive energy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So... (Score:1, Interesting)
Note: Non-energy uses of oil is only about 10% of the total oil demand. (at least in Europe according to the Austrian Energy Agency).
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
What the country needs to do is give me ultimate authority for creating long term clean electricity program.
We would use half the oils we use now in 9 years, and 90% less in 18 years.