Nuclear Fusion Real Soon Now 604
Mr. A. Coward writes "Researchers at the
National Ignition Facility are attempting to produce nuclear fusion. They'll focus 192 amplified lasers on a pellet of frozen hydrogen. 'NIF experiments will be the first to create fusion that gives off more energy than it takes in.' That will have to be quite a bit, since it will take 500 trillion watts to ignite the pellet in the first place. The facility has been plagued with delays, and so far only 4 of the 192 lasers have been completed. Researchers believe they will first achieve fusion sometime around 2014."
Sim City 2000 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, I think they suggested full scale Fusion plants in 2050, and Microwave power in 2020.
So in 16 years, prepare for lasers bombarding us from space.
In the year 2020 (Score:5, Funny)
Sim City 4 - very different design (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Mayor Rating
2) Number of high-wealth residents
3) Total power requirements
4) Total number of high-tech industry
5) Total energy demand
Same is true for all other nice things you get in that game. However, it's impossible to do that in one city, it just stagnates. The interaction between bordering cities it crucial. You basicaly get a region where you develop tens of cities, and RCI demand in one city affects the neighbou
As if! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:5, Informative)
Maser is older than laser (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maser is older than laser (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:4, Funny)
I want to be able to run a simcity where the Agricultural, Industrial, and Retail/Commercial sectors have almost entirely been replaced by decentralized molecular manufacturing, robotics and better AI. In addition to the water/sewage/electical grid, you'd have a molecular feekstock grid to recycle the molecules of old material objects into. The focus of the game would be in maximizing the happiness of the new leisure society.
--
Re:Sim City 2000 (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC 'priscilla' typed into SimCity 2000 opened the debug menu, which would allow you to do anything - including starting with fusion.
Real Soon Now... ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:4, Funny)
And when it crashes?! Symantec Anti-Rad... Now with CoolCore(r) Technology
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Things can take more than a decade, an election-term, a year, a month or a year. And that doesn't make them boring.
Re:Real Soon Now... ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:this is interesting news (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at the Omega Laser [rochester.edu](still the most powerfull in the world at 60 Terawatts! ya!) and there is currently construction [rochester.edu] going on here to complete what is called Omega EP(extended performance) by ~2007. Omega EP will produce an astounding 2.6 PETAWATTS(million billion watts!!) of power for a around a picosecond (so about 2-3 Kilojoules per shot which is much less than the NIF's megajoule scale shots) making it, by far the worlds most powerfull laser when complete. The new laser will use what's called chirped pulse amplification [utoronto.ca] to produce its incredibly high petawatt scale power.
Using the current 60 beam 60 Terawatt (~30Kj) laser to compress a pellet of hydrogen fuel and then just before the moment of maximum inward compression and then stagnation; the EP petawatt beam will fire, producing an instant injection of Mev scale electrons directly into the center of the collapsing target and hopefully producing high fusion yeilds and perhaps even approaching ignition. The Gekko XII laser in Japan with its 500 terawatt scale CPA lser has validated this scheme, which is called "fast ignition", reporting that with the CPA laser used at maximum compression with their 12 beam 40 terrawat laser they've achieve an increase in neutron output [photonics.com](fusion yield) by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude...Can't wait till we can fire ours up!
Re:this is interesting news (Score:5, Interesting)
PetaWATTS or PetaFLOPS? (Score:3, Interesting)
How good are (computer) simulations at modeling this? I mean the NIF and presumably you are going to spend billions to essentially run experiments. I assume this means that simulations of the physics are not good enough to predict what is the best design. So, what's the problem? Is there a fundamental lack of knowledge (quantum/relativistic effects/high energy densities) at these regimes or are your equations good but you just don't have the comput
Re:PetaWATTS or PetaFLOPS? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:this is interesting news (Score:5, Interesting)
The Omega laser with its 60 beams produces much higher irradiation uniformity and even though it's lower power than NOVA(which was decomissioned in '99) it holds the record for neutron production in a shot at something like 5X10^13 neutrons, indicating a much 'cleaner' convergence and fusion burn. There were several lasers at LLNL before the NOVA laser with various names like Janus, Argus and Shiva, which all used the fundamental frequency of Nd:glass lasers at 1064 nanometers(infrared) and the great contribution in the early '80s to ICF laser fusion by the Omega guys was the idea to convert this IR to its third harmonic at ~351 nanometers in the UV. This greatly increased laser absorption efficiency on target and consequently increased target compression pressures/temperatures accordingly. Allmost all high power Nd:glass lasers use this technique today.
What was that joke. (Score:5, Funny)
In 1980 we where going to have fusion in 2000.
In 2004 we'll have it in 2014.
Things are starting to look optimistic!
Re:What was that joke. (Score:5, Informative)
Fusion power does even come into play, since the only true break from fossil fuels and to make it renewable is from splitting water. And that means we need a super clean, cheap and massive amount of power. Hense fusion, and even then you are still wasting energy making hydrogen, just means we have clean energy, even though making the hyrdrogen and then running the fuel cell puts us at a loss. So we can't really expect the promise of fuel cell/ hydrogen economy to come true till fusion gets up and running.
Also far as hydrogen fuel cell cars they were promisied long ago, first 2000, then they all said 2004, now they say end of decade. Having worked on hybrid cars for years I and most anyone I know who works on hybrids and fuel cells agree fuel cell cars arn't going to happen. Especialy since a hydrogen IC engine beats a fuel cell in about all ways. Sure there is prototypes, and very complete ones at that, (fuel cell ford focus) and even some test fleets, but they are still nothing practical.
For now the hydrogen economy is a nice fun thing for people like George Bush to throw out there. Make it sound good, oil companies love it, it's all good.
The future for fuel cells are in laptops and cell phones were you by a small hydrogen cartrige. For uses where portable power is needed, and it must be clean. Things like stationary fuel cell powerplants are the silliest things ever. Since they need powerplant to make the hydrogen to power them.
Re:What was that joke. (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if we have to have powerplants to create our hydrogen fuel, it would be much better to have a bunch of such plants in each country than to have millions of polluting cars in each country. It's much easier to make sure the factories are as clean as possible than to make sure each car doesn't pollute.
General rule in environmental issues: the less distributed the sources of pollution are, the better.
Break Even When? (Score:4, Interesting)
At least cold fusion did not cost that much.
So when was the break even point that they recover all the money that has been spent developing it?
Re:Break Even When? (Score:5, Insightful)
the money hasn't just been going into a big hole with a sign saying "Fusion Power". it's been employing people and adding to our understanding.
Re:Break Even When? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, we may develop some fantastic death-star beam we can fire with pin point accuracy from space, but what does it matter if the enemy can simply still smuggle dirty bombs or plagues into our cities?
This is no more going to lead to a new superweapon [in and of itself] than any other increase in efficiency in power generation: we already have nuclear fusion bombs.
We've had fusion weapons since the '50s. (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, research into fusion *power* probably isn't going to increase their effectiveness much more.
Right now, the big areas of superweapon research are biotech and nanotech. Mmmm, grey goo.
Re:Break Even When? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of it as a long-term investment for the human race, that over the course of human history will pay itself off millions of times over. Clean energy (only byproducts = water & heat, no radioactive byproducts) from the most abundant source in the universe (hydrogen) with significantly less risk than fission power (or arguably even fossil fuels). As far as investments go, it's a no-brainer, even if
No need to oversell it (Score:5, Informative)
Fusion power generation, as currently being developed is nothing like this. It's still a sensible investment for the next few centuries and as a step to better things, but it's not the panacea you suggest and you harm the credibility of science and technology by claiming it is.
Likely 21st century fusion power plants will burn tritium and deuterium. While both are isotopes of hydrogen and deuterium is acceptably common in the universe (1 in 10000 or so atoms if I recall correctly) we are not burning hydrogen. Tritium is radioactive with a 12 year half-life, so is basically not found in the universe except where it is being formed (in stars mostly). To make commercial quantities of it, you irradiate lithium 6 with neutrons producing helium and tritium. Lithium is reasonably common on Earth, but not super-abundant. The costs of extracting and purifying lithium, and in particular lithium 6 are not negligible, although we are unlikely to run out for a while.
So, effective fuel is lithium and deuterium. Both are reasonably plentiful, but neither is cost-free.
Now the tricky bit. The deuterium-tritium reaction produces a helium nucleus (alpha-particle) which is no problem and a neutron. We need a decent proportion of those neutrons to breed more tritium, but inevitably, some of them will end up hitting things other than the lithium target. When they do, they tend to make what they hit radioactive. Thus, once your reactor has been running for a few years, all of the inner structure, the lithium tanks and so on, are medium-level radioactive waste. The neutron irradiation also weakens these structures, so they need periodic replacement. Gigawatt for Gigawatt, it's a lot less radioactive waste than a fission reactor produces (and no plutonium to manage), but its not nothing, and the cost of the equipment and expertise to manage this periodic replacement with acceptable staff safety and so on is also not nothing.
Water, by the way, is not a byproduct of fusion reactors.
The final issue is safety. Here the big win is that there are no realistic disaster scenarios on the scale of a fission reactor melt-down or someone using reactor-produced plutonium to make a fission bomb. There are all the hazards common to fossil fuels and fission associated simply with running a large industrial plant -- things falling on people, leaking chemicals, etc. A tritium leak is still a real hazard, and a molten lithium leak or fire would be pretty unpleasant, and the medium-level waster would need to be managed, but it is a lot better than fission.
So, not a panacea, but a likely move forward, and I don't think we do any good by describing it as a panacea and rasing false expectations.
Re:Break Even When? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares? I don't.
We need cheap, clean power. Fission is cheap and clean if done well, but with past waste disposal practices waiting to bite us on our collective bums in the future and certain incidents like that one in the Ukraine 18 years ago in the public memory, I don't think we can afford to risk it. Oil and coal are dirty and running out. Solar, wind, tidal? Useful adjuncts to conventional generation techniques, but blighted by NIMBY and power storage issues.
Everything that has been spent on fusion research could be multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, and the payoff for humanity would still be worthwhile.
A hundred years from now, I want a fresh set of environmental and social problems. I want our biggest concerns to be the marginal increase in salinity in some ocean currents from desalination plants and some wacky local weather issues due to waste heat from the fusion plants. I want population growth to be a non-issue because of better education of formerly developing and subsistence economies and cultures. I don't even care if my great-great-grandchildren speak Hindi or Arabic or Mandarin so long as the improvement between my life and theirs (materially and in freedoms) is comparable to the improvement between the Middle Ages and now - is it really an issue that I don't speak Middle English, Old Norse, Latin? Or that most of the world doesn't either?I want it to be a world in which pertoleum is seen as too valuable to burn, and as a valuable raw material for manufacturing. I want a world in which it is so cheap to transport and recycle our waste that is easier to "mine" our garbage than process new raw materials.
The thing is, power that is too cheap to meter (at least in personal-use quantities) is going to shake up things considerably. In the West we have all sorts of neat manufactured goods because power is cheap compared with a century ago. Imagine conveying those benefits to Africa, India, China, Iraq without the environmental downside. Imagine a world in which manufactured goods and food are so easy to produce that it doesn't matter that a significant percentage of the population don't make or grow things. Many Western economies are heading towards being services-based rather than manufacturing-based, but we can only continue to do this at the expense of the developing world - unless we can give everybody the same opportunities. We can turn the advent of fusion power into a golden age. Our descendents can wonder at a world in which it made more sense to build something in Beijing than Boston because the people in Beijing were paid less and lived under worse conditions than those in Boston. Our great-great-great-great-grandchildren can scratch their heads in wonder at the fact that people used to get sick and die because they could not afford to heat their homes in winter. They can stare in history books in disbelief, not comprehending what it would be like to live in a world before Universal Service Obligations extended beyond basic telecommunications to the energy necessary to sustain and enjoy life.
So, is this some left-wing Utopia? Maybe. But there's no reason it couldn't be shared by all - except that those currently holding the purse-strings will feel threatened - it's only natural that present energy suppliers may feel this way, although the more astute ones will already be diversifying and looking at possible futures. New industries will spring up that we can't even imagine now. Jobs will be displaced - but will we really need a coal miner then any more than we need cloth fullers now? Half the jobs our great-great-great-great-Grandchildren will be doing probably haven't even been invented yet.
So, when will the great payoff from fusion occur? With the first child's life that it saves. With the better husbanding of the scarce resources of this world, and with access to those of the rest of the solar system (Str
Re:Break Even When? (Score:5, Funny)
A hundred years from now I'd just like to be alive...
Re:Break Even When? (Score:4, Funny)
No problem. Just found the EIAA (Energy Industry Association of America), and outlaw all competitors, and artifically limit the supply. It works for other industries too, why not for energy. It's not as if the energy industry is missing the cash to buy quality congress critters, after all!
Re:Break Even When? (Score:3, Insightful)
National Ignition Facility? (Score:4, Funny)
where's the earth shattering kaboom? (Score:4, Funny)
first break even?? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.jaeri.go.jp/english/fusion/fusion.ht
This claims break even in 1996, and 1.25 power increase in 1998 in the JT-60 tokamak..
And this article seems to be stating they plan to hit breakeven in 2014 or further out.. hmmm.. perhaps they mean some special kind of break even, like the first ones using our method, or in the US, or something like that..
Re:first break even?? (Score:5, Informative)
Ignition, not Break Even (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignition means that the energy being produced by fusion and re-absorbed in the plasma is keeping it hot enough to keep on fusing with no external energy inputs until some other factor (like running out of fuel or the plasma blowing itself apart) intervenes. This has only been acheived in bombs.
As an analogy consider trying to light a recalcitrant campfire. Break even is when the total energy produced by your buring wood before it sputters out exceeds the energy put in by the match. Ignition is when it keeps burning on its own.
Re:first break even?? (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't sound very believable. Maybe if you were to say "stockpile can be modernized" it would make sense. But if all you're doing is maintaining the existing stockpile, just use your existing data that says a bomb lasts 20 years (or whatever), then
recycle it into a new one using the same design. If the design worked 20 years ago, it will still
First to achieve fusion in 2014? (Score:3, Informative)
Energy is not in Watts (Score:4, Informative)
Calculation a bit off (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article, the beams will be fully on "only for a few billionths of a second". For a naive estimate of the total energy being output by the lasers, we can simply multiply (500 GW) * (2 ns).
Now, this yields a quantity with dimensions of energy: (500 GW) * (2 ns) = (1 kJ). To get a handle on this, it is the amount of energy that is output in heat and light by a 100W light bulb shining for ten seconds.
For a scenario Slashdotters are familiar with, it's the amount of heat generated by a 1 GHz Athlon thunderbird in 12 seconds.
Re:Energy is not in Watts (Score:4, Informative)
The break even should factor in (Score:5, Insightful)
Great to see that it is now thought probable that fusion can actually be an energy producer though.
Re:The break even should factor in (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 1: Figure out if/how it is possible to extract more energy from a fussion reaction than was needed to initiate the reaction.
Step 2: Figure out how to scale the laboratory apparatus up to something capable of generating a useful amount of energy.
Step 3: Actually build a commercial scale fusion power plant
Yeah, but... (Score:5, Funny)
What about my flying cars? I was promised flying cars!
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
National Ignition Facility project status [llnl.gov] and photo gallery [llnl.gov] with lots of pictures
LLNL Science on High Energy Lasers [llnl.gov]
Correct photo gallery url (Score:3, Informative)
They do fusion all the time... (Score:5, Informative)
SWEET! Just in time for Duke Nukem! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think that's very much energy (Score:5, Informative)
Assuming that '500 trillion' means 500 x 10^12 watts... They said it would be for a 'few billionths' of a second: maybe 2 x 10^-9 seconds?
Am I counting wrong, or does that come out to about a million watt-seconds, or 0.277 kilowatt-hours?
I consume more energy than that makin' coffee.
Re:I don't think that's very much energy (Score:5, Funny)
2044 Bike Ride (Score:5, Funny)
Four days early (Score:4, Funny)
This announcement was supposed to come out simultaneously with the "verified" claim to have found Methane on Mars, and with Condoleeza Rice's hillarious admission of guilt before the 9/11 commission, all on Thursday. Now you've ruined it.
Power != Energy (Score:5, Informative)
Power is not the same as energy. It is energy per unit time. It is rubbish to say there will have to be a large energy output because the input power is high. By way of example, 500 trillion watts for a femtosecond = 500 joules. This is not an unreasonable amount of energy, contrary to the attempt to imply otherwise by shouting '500 trillion'.
Acetone (Score:4, Informative)
Delayed, but progressing (Score:5, Interesting)
The four beams mentioned in the summary are really just a testbed. In the previous system, Nova, there was a smaller machine called Novet that had the same purpose. I always forget the newer machine's name, but this is standard practice versus a major delay. NIF is behind the original schedule, but that's due to problems (e.g. lens issues) and technical challenges always faced in such large R&D projects.
From what I hear, things will be going pretty well from now on. Since this is an international effort (led by the US), other countries are building their own versions. France has similar system that was brought up last year with help from LLNL personnel and has allowed the lab to avoid many of the same pitfalls the French have faced.
My main contribution to this thread is simply that NIF doesn't seem to be heading towards cancellation, like many government projects. The people behind it are extremely competent and far smarter than I am. The scandals are behind them and will be making steady progress. It's a really, really impressive effort.
Barking up the wrnog tree? (Score:5, Informative)
Compare this to the efforts of JET [efda.org] the Joint European Torus project, which achieved breakeven (Q=1) during 1997 [parliament.uk] (good explanation of fusion milestones here). JET's successor, ITER [iter.org] aims to achieve Q of at least 10 [iter.org], paving the way for commercial-scale power generation.
The only thing that worries me about ITER is the level of bureaucracy [iter.org] exhibited, but perhaps this is to be expected from a multi-national consortium.
ITER are standing on the shoulders of giants, NIF are discussing specifications for a step-ladder.
Blue Sky Research (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, politicians get in the way of scientific research, and in the last 25 years in particular here in the UK, blue-sky research has been cut in preference to that which looks promising from a commercial point of view. The accountants rule. Unfortunately, this reduces science to mere "refinement of engineering" at the expense of radical new and exciting discoveries and knowledge; and they wonder why no one wants to be a scientist any more.
Yes... (Score:5, Interesting)
My thought is that if you want a way to get unbelievable energy intensities, use the big fusion reactor in the sky. Launch a gossamer thin sheet of aluminized mylar, spin it into a disk, and use a minimal amount of structure to form it into a parabolic mirror. If you use a 500 meter radius piece, that's a constant 740 megawatts focused on the pinhead-sized object of your choice. If you need more, just launch a bigger piece of aluminized mylar.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Informative)
The sun isn't a point source, so you can't focus it onto a pinhead unless you have a very short focal length. If you're planning to focus in the vicinity of the mirror, (say 1km in front with an f/1 mirror), you can only focus it down to an image that's about 9 metres across. If you were planning to beam the sunlight down to the surface of the earth, multiply that size by the distance you're sending it.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
-josh
Why are we doing things the hard way? (Score:5, Insightful)
If all the money that's been poured into fusion research so far had been poured into making those "cheap" solar arrays they keep telling us are "just around the corner" then we'd all have roofs made of the stuff that would make us energy self-sufficient and we'd even be driving electric cars that were powered by the sun.
It seems stupid to try and reinvent the wheel (fusion) when nature has done such a wonderful job about ninety quintillion times over and we can harness the power of at least one of those natural fusion reactors very safely.
Re:Why are we doing things the hard way? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps all this "enviro-clean" stuff is just a boondoggle? I mean, what do you get when you've pushed the limits of phyisics to get you a powerful power source? Let's see:
Solar is inefficent and expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
With fission and fusion the idea is to take a relativly small amount of energy to start a chain reaction that releases a very large amount of energy.
There is a solar array by the university but it's unsightly. We just don't have the stuff to make solar cells efficient enough to be practical. We can't very well be driving along at 20 miles per hour with 200 square feet of solar cells on the roof of the car that only has room for half a person.
Using the sun directly as a power source isn't looking very promising. So we make use of it instead to grow crops and whatnot. It's not like the sun's power is just going to waste. Trying to use it make electricity just isn't working out. The sun seems to be a screwdriver that we're attempting to pound nails in with.
Maybe one day we'll find a material that reaches a practical amount of efficency for solar cells. In the mean time we need power and fussion and fission are the most practical and cost effective.
Ben
Solar isn't enough (Score:3, Informative)
These Fusion methods are an embarrassment... (Score:3, Interesting)
There has been much progress with the plasma focus fairly recently. Taken from the Focus Fusion website [focusfusion.org]:
In recently completed test experiments, the researchers were able to achieve temperatures that reached up to two billion degrees in some shots of the plasma focus device, well surpassing previous records of 520 million degrees achieved by the commonly used tokamak device. The much larger and more expensive tokamak has been cornerstone of the US fusion program for 25 years.
The plasma focus functions in a fundamentally different way from other fusion devices. Tokamaks and most other fusion devices use powerful magnets to attempt to stabilize the plasma - the extremely hot, electrically conducting gas in which the fusion reactions occur. This task has been likened to lifting gelatin with rubber bands. Instead, the plasma focus takes advantage of the natural instabilities of the plasma, so that the plasma's own magnetic fields compress it and heat it. "The plasma focus works with the plasma, not against it," says Lerner.
Perhaps someone with the foresight to see the best path for future power generation can fund this research fully and cease our pseudo problems concerning concerns about future energy sources. The solution is apparent.
Just spin it a bit... (Score:3, Funny)
Article: "When all 192 lasers in the NIF are operating, they'll focus 500 trillion watts (everything after this point is non-existent) - more than 1,000 times the power generated in the United States - on their target, albeit only for a few billionths of a second."
Slashdotter: "500 trillion watts?! You gotta be fuckin' kidding! You're gonna blow up California!"
Case 2:
Article: "When all 192 lasers in the NIF are operating, they'll focus a few kilojoules worth of energy on a hydrogen pellet..."
Slashdotter: "WTF is this all about? Is this good? Or is it whack?"
Case 3:
Article: "With this (Dr. Evil style)LA-SER device, we're gonna get FU-SION using less energy then what your Prescott has consumed while you're reading this piece of crap!"
Slashdotter: "I, for one, welcomes our new fusion power overlord! l33t!!!!"
10 years?! (Score:5, Funny)
Easy one (Score:4, Funny)
In related news, NIF has ordered 192 sharks.
Should have gone into science (Score:4, Funny)
Me: Hmmm, lemme see, I think I'll finish it by year 2014, and then it may not work.
Boss: OK, here's your paycheck. By the way, we've approved that $20M yearly budget increase.
Boy, wouldn't that be sweet? Software industry is a wrong domain to work in right now. Those bloodsucking PHBs demand results every freaking week.
Re:Researchers? (Score:5, Informative)
Umm, fusion is most certainly NOT impossible. Stand outside tomorrow around noon and look up at the sky. See that big burning thing that hurts your eyes? That's a nuclear fusion reaction.
Re:Researchers? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Researchers? (Score:3, Informative)
Assuming you meant fusion instead of fission (which is how current nuclear plants work):
Sure it is, you ever heard of a "Hydrogen Bomb?"
What hasn't been done yet, is create a sustainable / controllable fusion reaction in a lab. If that ever happens, then we are on the way to being able to harness fusion for energy production, commercially.
Incorrect. (Score:4, Insightful)
So yes, we have the capability to artificially create fusion. We've had it for decades.
Re:Incorrect. (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have a reference for this? I thought the fusion part of the blast was the major difference between the tens of kilotons we used on Japan and the megaton-plus warheads we have now.
Re:Incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly recommend you read the entire link if you have the time. While the author definitely has a political argument to make, the author also does an excellent job of presenting facts to support his arguments. Even if you disagree with the arguments, the facts are quite interesting.
Re:Researchers? (Score:3, Informative)
http://people.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb9.htm [howstuffworks.com]
Re:stupid poster (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:stupid poster (Score:3, Informative)
5.0e14 W = 3.6e5 J/7.2e-10 sec.
Assuming "A few billionths of a sec" is 3.6e-9 sec, that's more like 100 W for 5 hours. (If my math is correct)
But your point stands.
Re:stupid poster (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I dunno (Score:3, Funny)
Don't you mean our past economy?
Re:I dunno (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the way science is done. If we can spend this kind of money entertaining ourselves, and making our children into big round fat blobs (from too much fast food), surely this is worth the money too.
Re:I dunno (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the US government probably funds this particular form of fusion research as much to improve their H-bomb designs under the test ban as to find a new energy source. Building a practical reactor isn't necessarily the main goal.
Re:Impossible! (Score:5, Interesting)
its kinda like putting a million bucks in the bank and living off the interest, but also putting aside enough of the interest to increase your returns.
Re:Impossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, a world of happiness and leisure... for everyone except the poor sucker who has to keep pushing the frozen hydrogen pellets into the lasers.
Hope he's got real thick gloves.
Re:Real soon? (Score:4, Funny)
I'd rather not. I never went for the Army type.
Re:Whose definition of "soon" (Score:5, Informative)
I know, I know, suggest a
Re:And in other news: CERN has been doing this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What's wrong with this statement? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of a spark plug in a piston engine. It releases a fairly small amout of energy to start a reaction that releases a larger amount of energy stored in the fuel/air mixture.
Fusion will be a Good Thing once the bugs are ironed out.
Re:I'm sorry but.... (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I couldn't resist...
Re:Take your time (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, I just can't let this go uncorrected. A fusion power plant is incapable of 'meltdown' in any way, shape or form. Fission plants can meltdown because they contain all of their fuel within the reactor vessel (think "all my gas is stored in my engine"). A fusion plant, on the other hand has its fuel piped to the reaction chamber ("my gas is in my gas tank, at the other end of the car"). At any given point there will be less than 10mg of plasma in the reaction vessel. This is not enough to damage the vessel, let alone melt anything at all.
Re:Take your time (Score:3, Funny)
In 4 billion years when that sucker goes red-giant we'll see what it can't meltdown
I like my Earth's extra-crispy.
Re:More energy than put in? (Score:5, Informative)
You can buy pure heavy water for about $300 per Kg. Making tritium from that is simple. The AC is delusional, you don't need to make it atom-by-atom. Just put some heavy water need a reactor for a couple of days and you're all set!
As I source I give you this link Heavy Water: A Manufacturers Guide for the Hydrogen Century [cns-snc.ca].
As for his "ideal" proton-proton reaction. First of all it's not in the slighest bit ideal. A Deuterium-Deuterium reaction is the ideal one. You can't make a proton-proton reaction anyway - you need neutrons. And guess what you do with the neutrons? You attach them to protons and make: you guessed it, deuterium!
The only thing the sun does, which we would not do in a lab is convert protons to neutrons by adding electrons. That's the only thing that you are not going to see mass produced in a lab. The sun does not do proton-proton fusion, you can't do that. What the sun does it take protons convert half ot them to neutrons, and hook them up with protons to make deuterium. Then it does deuterium-deuterium fusion.