Fusion vs Fission

[Content1]

Everyone who may be waiting for new plants to be built  to increase job prospects should check out     

             https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nic/icf/   

If fusion is able to be made to work, why invest in the old fashioned fission when Fusion is the future.   It not only doesn't produce the waste but it can make existing nuclear waste into fuel.    I admit I am biased. . . I work there.

[dirac]

Everyone who may be waiting for new plants to be built  to increase job prospects should check out     

             https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nic/icf/   

If fusion is able to be made to work, why invest in the old fashioned fission when Fusion is the future.   It not only doesn't produce the waste but it can make existing nuclear waste into fuel.    I admit I am biased. . . I work there.

According to your link:

"By following our recipe, we would make a miniature star that lasts for a tiny fraction of a second."

I think the grids require a bit more stability then a fraction of second and also hundreds to thousands more of reliable megawatts. Scale-up from from a lab to industrial scale is not that easy.

[thenukeman]

Fusion may not even be feasible to use as a source.  It has been worked on for decades and you get microseconds of Power.  Whoppe doo. Fission is known and is sustainable for a grid. Matter antimatter may even by pass fusion, who knows the future.  I am biased, little bitty experiments do not  equal large scale sustainable power.

Build Nuclear Fission plants NOW!!!!  Use coal to make fuel for vehicles until we get a good battery for vehicles.  Electric power tracks for trains sustained by Nuclear Fission Plants!!  Be energy independent as possible.  Make jobs here, keep jobs here!!!


Especially more HP  Jobs!!!!!!!

[SloGlo]

china 'n india ar building100 knew plants in da next 20 years.   dare people will have lotsa lectricity for manufacture, we won't have enuff.  build nukes hear 'n now.  in da mean thyme, git moor money iffen ya gots two work more four da outage dats short staffed.

[Content1]

Fusion is happening now, next year it will cross over to produce more energy then the costs to produce.   The 14Mev neutron released from the Tritium/ Deuterium (Like in 'Spiderman II') is coming.   It is that high energy neutron that can fission U238 and make spent fuel usable.  It is true the lab only will fuse a small amounts of matter to prove the viability of fusion.   The lab is only performing Deuterium/Dueterium now but the lasers fused it and neutron were released in recent experiments.  Higher yield fusion is scheduled in spring 2010.  If you can have the vision that once you actually produce energy in inertial confinement fusion it is only a matter of time to harness this energy.   This is not like the magnetic confinement that never solved the problem of confinement.  Using 192 lasers raise the temperature and pressure so fast, in the billionth of a second, the fusion already occurs before the target matter has a chance to expand.  Think of some method to then reinsert more fuel and fire again, it is a problem of application and not theory.  A source of power that is clean (helium is the waste) and is virtually endless of Dueterium in the oceans, while carbon should run out in a hundred years or so.

[B.PRESGROVE]

  Thats all great about the experiments, but in the mean time we need power now.  The only way to acheive the amount of power we need is nuclear and coal, the two sources that have been so faithful to us all these years.  Maybe some day we will see a small sun burn the land scape of earth due to a fussion accident or experiment gone wrong, but lets stay in the here and now. 

[Content1]

Fusion can only happen in a controlled environment, not like Chernobyl where it got out of their control.   It is not like fission where you have control rods that could blow off in an explosion.   
In lab experiments you limit the fuel to burn so you will never get a "Sun" like in Spiderman II.  The lasers acts as an ultimate piston and compress and heat the fuel to 100,000,000 degrees for 25 billioneths of a second, consuming all the fuel and ready for more.  It is not the heat that is as important as the high energy neutrons that are released to cause fission in u238 in a readctor based on spent fuel.   

Eventually maybe there will shrink the whole process, much like the laser in a CD was once huge not fits in your hand.   Then it is a process of firing the lasers, burning the Dueterium/Tritium and then pausing to re-load and fire again to the level of energy that is intended to be produce, much like "Mr. Fusion" in "Back to the Future" series.   The key is producing more energy then the lasers used to set off the burn, and capturing the energy from the burn.   We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.   

A safety feature is if you do not reload, the cycle stops right there.   No chance of runaway.   This is ony one of the many ideas coming from research.   It is just so few have paid attention to it because when you think of fusion, you think of the Takomak that can't keep the magnetic field perfect. 

We are doing shots every couple of days and even with a D-D reaction, they are getting out neutrons from the success fusion process.   It is like air flight.   All the scientists back in 1900 said motor powered flight was impossible because at higher air speeds the wing control become unstable.   The Wright Brothers didn't care and came up with powered flight.   One others saw it could be done. planes started flying everywhere.

One successful fusion is controlled and achieved, and research increases at an exponential rate, you will see them being built around the world.

[thenuttyneutron]

Fusion can only happen in a controlled environment, not like Chernobyl where it got out of their control.   It is not like fission where you have control rods that could blow off in an explosion.  
In lab experiments you limit the fuel to burn so you will never get a "Sun" like in Spiderman II.  The lasers acts as an ultimate piston and compress and heat the fuel to 100,000,000 degrees for 25 billioneths of a second, consuming all the fuel and ready for more.  It is not the heat that is as important as the high energy neutrons that are released to cause fission in u238 in a readctor based on spent fuel.  

Eventually maybe there will shrink the whole process, much like the laser in a CD was once huge not fits in your hand.   Then it is a process of firing the lasers, burning the Dueterium/Tritium and then pausing to re-load and fire again to the level of energy that is intended to be produce, much like "Mr. Fusion" in "Back to the Future" series.   The key is producing more energy then the lasers used to set off the burn, and capturing the energy from the burn.   We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.  

A safety feature is if you do not reload, the cycle stops right there.   No chance of runaway.   This is ony one of the many ideas coming from research.   It is just so few have paid attention to it because when you think of fusion, you think of the Takomak that can't keep the magnetic field perfect.  

We are doing shots every couple of days and even with a D-D reaction, they are getting out neutrons from the success fusion process.   It is like air flight.   All the scientists back in 1900 said motor powered flight was impossible because at higher air speeds the wing control become unstable.   The Wright Brothers didn't care and came up with powered flight.   One others saw it could be done. planes started flying everywhere.

One successful fusion is controlled and achieved, and research increases at an exponential rate, you will see them being built around the world.

You are kidding right? 

1.   We can build reactors that burn U238 and many other spent fuel materials.  Look up the IFR.  Clinton killed it with only a few years to go before the project would have been ready for building.
2.   Why do you think a commercial power reactor is capable of blowing up?  It is physically impossible for this to occur.  I could maybe understand your point if you talked about a rod ejection accident being a concern but even that is a not going to cause the reactor to blow up.
3.   Fission works now.  You need No energy input in fission to get energy out of it.  The first reactors on the Earth were not even manmade.

The only fusion system that I would even throw money at now would be inertia-magnetic confinement fusion.  This was developed by Dr. Bussard.  It is a shame that he passed on before he could complete his work.  You simply make a continuous fusion reaction in the center of a cube and then get electricity out of it by running the fused nuclei through a direct energy conversion device that is just an elaborate bundle of wires.

[thenuttyneutron]

Your enthusiasm is notable but your choice of analogies leaves something to be desired;

The first patent for a fusion reactor was granted in 1946, you say the best minds in the current research expect to be on-line in 20 to 50 years. That's ~85 to 115 years to go from the first reactor to something usable beyond a research platform.

The Wright Flyer was fabric, toothpicks, wheezing piston engines and wires. Powered flight broke the sound barrier in less than 44 years. Mach 3 was achieved by 60 years.

You need a better analogy, in terms of bang for the buck powered flight is light years ahead of fusion, and another 50 years on top of the current 63 is a long time to wait for a maybe. But, good luck with that just the same. 

I agree.  Kid, a snake oil sales man came and gave you a good lecture.

[Rennhack]

We will get there, some say in a lecture I attended in 20-50 years, not the too distant future.

They have been saying 20-50 years for 20-50 years now.  I worked at PPPL in their Fusion Reactor department. about 10 years ago... and I was in a lecture there that they said that FUSION would be viable in ... you guessed it 20-50 years.

Tomorrow never comes.

[Content1]

Yes, mankind is a little like Moses. . .he could see the promised land but was not allowed to enter.  But the children of Israel did.  And so will all of us and our world will change with the success of fusion.  The reason it has not worked until now was we did not have the power to bring up fuel to the necessary 100 million degrees and contain the reaction long enough for fusion to happen.   With the Lasers at the LLNL they have it.  By getting the fusion reaction to work it is like studying the inside of the sun.  Once you get the process down, and I have seen it, where you fire the lasers with such precision that it compresses the target 1000 time evenly along with raising the temperature to 100 million degrees, it for a few billioneth of a second made a minature sun, fusion occurred, and neutron were released from the conversion of heavy hydrogen into helium.  It is all recorded on film.   The lab, so famous for so many other discoveries there, is on the verge of another.  It is like watching the Manhattan project all over, except not to destroy in a bomb, but to find a source of energy that is inexhaustible for the benefit of all mankind.  We should be glad it is American Technology at work and this job is not being "outsourced."

[thenuttyneutron]

Someone has already made fusion work.  All you need to do is design an energy convertion system.  Refer to the picture below and when you come up with something, get back with me.

[Rennhack]

Tomorrow never comes.

I stand corrected, I just passed a billboard for our local power company that owns the fission nuclear plant near my house.  the billboard announced that "Tomorrow is here".  It sure is for that space age of fission.  But fusion is stuck in the science fiction era.

[Chimera]

IMHO, the main problem with fusion is we still don't have the theory right.  Back in the days of discovering neutrinos, the experimenters stated on more than one occasion that there were problems with the data they were retrieving - not the experimental models or the theories they were based on.  Then we put the solar observatory into orbit: When the data started coming in, the experts stated, "It can't do that!"  Personally, I'm not sure we should be flirting with the possibility of creating a singularity until the experts get a theory that fits instead of trying to fit the data into their theories.

[Content1]

I suppose if the cave men had smoke signal communication like the internet you all would argue "The Wheel:  What good is it!"

In Roman times:  "Why spend money on Research and Development, when we have slaves.  Those Barbarians will never pose a threat."

or more recent:  "Mr. Roosevelt, don't waste money on the Mahattan Project.   If we have to invade Japan someday to end the war, we will overwhelm them with numbers in an invasion.  A few more may die, but at least we will have saved some money."

The Moon, the greatest boondoggle of all time.   What did we gain?  A device we call the micro-computer which we seem to have found a use for.

We all have those questions in life, why are we here, how does the Universe work?   All nations that have abandoned dreaming and research find themselves in the dustbin of history.  With the squandoring of trillions of dollar it is nice to see we spend some of it on the future, not the "How can I profit in a week from this."   It is the short sided approach to our problems that have put us in the budget mess we are in.   This project was approved by liberals, wanting to find a way to end carbon emissions, and conservatives, how to turn water into money.   If it is successful both groups have made the long term commitment to achieve both.

[Content1]

something to add.   The director of the NIF (Search youtude under "NIF") feels fusion will be proven as a technology to pursue in 2 years, not 50.   Once you achieved controlled nuclear fusion, and can repeat it with certainty, it can be developed into energy producing units.  (Much like the Wright Brothers proved the viability of power assisted flight). We have tried various methods of fusion over the last 50 years, but not with success.   You must understand up to now, we have never achieved controlled fusion producing energy greater then that expended to produce it.  They videos explain Spring of 2010 is where these first milestones are scheduled.  Stay tuned, it is not as exciting as the first Moon landing, but its impact cannot be measured how it will impact our lives.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Again, ok we understand that the experiments are still going on and you have made some head way.....buuutttt you are a long way off from making a viable reactor to produce power for the grid.  By a long way I mean the 20 to 50 year marks.  I think it would be great to get fussion to work on a commercial scale, but we cant afford to wait right now.  We need power yesterday.  Not only that but where in the world do we have anything that can withstand 1,000,000 degrees of heat?  That is so unimaginably hot that my eyes are watering just thinking about it.

Fussion reactor on earth at 1,000,000+ dgrees = earth surface of molten, doesnt everything evaporate at that temp? (sorry I have to pick just a little)

[B.PRESGROVE]

100 Karma to you Content for your passion on this subject though.  Good job.

[thenuttyneutron]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/06/iec-fusion-wb7-wb8-and-wb9-information.html#

As I stated above, the kind of Fusion you are after is probably never going to work.  This device is about the only thing I have seen that might hold any value.  The fusion can be with hydrogen and boron.  This would be aneutronic fusion.  This means very few neutrons are produced and only 3 helium nuclei per reaction.


The energy would be mostly tied up in the KE of the He nuclei.  Even Tesla could have built an energy conversion device back when the airplane was being developed with the existing technologies.

[thenukeman]

Matter Anti Matter reaction produces most energy.

Propulsion Type            Specific Impulse [sec]
Chemical Bipropellant         200 - 410
Electromagnetic              1200 - 5000
Nuclear Fission                 500 - 3000
Nuclear Fusion                10+4 - 10+5
Antimatter Annihilation      10+3 - 10+6

Penn State is working on Antimatter

Basically 100 milligrams of Antimatter to get the thrust of the space shuttle.

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/introduction2.html

Being that Fusion is  difficult, maybe a breakthrough in antimatter as the cleanest energy which is pure energy conversion will bypass fusion.  Thats what I hope for!!  And It all can be made in the USA!!!!!

Maybe we should call this Fission vs Fusion vs Antimatter!!  LOL

[Marlin]

Electromagnetic propulsion? Is that ion drive?

100 quatloos for antimatter propulsion. Does that mean antimatter power plants. What would happen if you lost containment on the "bottle" for the stored fuel? (We're such a bunch of closet geeks!!) 

[thenukeman]

Ion Propulsion is electromagnetic, see below from Wikipedia,

An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion that creates thrust by accelerating ions. Ion thrusters are categorized by how they accelerate the ions, using either electrostatic or electromagnetic force. Electrostatic ion thrusters use the Coulomb force and accelerate the ions in the direction of the electric field. Electromagnetic ion thrusters use the Lorentz force to accelerate the ions. Note that the term "ion thruster" frequently denotes the electrostatic or gridded ion thrusters, only.

The thrust created in ion thrusters is very small compared to conventional chemical rockets, but a very high specific impulse, or propellant efficiency, is obtained. This high propellant efficiency is achieved through the very frugal propellant consumption of the ion thruster propulsion system.

Maybe we should call this the biggest Geek, Hey a new show!!     The best Geek Speak Wins and Star Trek must be worked in to make it more Geeky!!

[withroaj]

I guess we should call this one Fission vs. Fusion vs. Antimatter vs. Quantum Nucleonics.

Since we're on the topic of far out energy production:

http://www.besslerwheel.com/wwwboard/messages/1149.html

Hafnium 178, when bombarded with x-rays, produces a gamma flux around 60 times more intense than the x-rays that induced the reaction.  Weird.

[JsonD13]

That link seemed a bit too excited over a 3-4 MeV gamma.  If we could "harness the energy" from these, why wouldnt our power plants do that with the N-16 gamma?

Jason

[Paul]

Is your name Martin Fleischmann?
Cold fusion, the future is now!

[Content1]

For anti-matter, show me how you would contain it.   It we could contain it, then Tokomatic fusion would be here now in magnetic bottles.   All these ideas sound good for the future, while fusion is happening now.  And it is a 14Mev Neutron from tritium/dueterium fusion, well strong enough to fission U238 and get rid of all that spent fuel that is piling up and scaring the liberals.   The beauty of the 14 mev neutrons is the produce more energetic neutron when the split the u238, and u238 is much cheaper than u235, probably free in old fuel bundles.   

How about having a fusion plant built on an existing Nuc plant site and engineer it to use the spent fuel as it comes out of a spent fuel pool.  Have a reactor designed with a cavity where the fusion generator is located in the center and then continue using the fuel assemblies buring the u238 and plutonium now contained in the spent fuel until it is nearly exhausted of its energy.  All nuclear plants could be their over re-supply and waste disposer.   I have seen such reuse plant designs on display at the lab, an example of one use for successful fusion reactors.   

[thenukeman]

A penning trap contains antimattter.  The problem with antimatter is making it.  So if  a way to make it more efficently is found then the Fusion reactor is obsolete before it is built.  Antimatter is the ultimate that I know of, pure energy no waste.  Fusion problem is the heat, this is a big problem on a big scale.

Wikipedia

Penning traps are devices for the storage of charged particles using a homogeneous static magnetic field and a spatially inhomogeneous static electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited to precision measurements of properties of ions and stable subatomic particles which have electric charge. Recently this trap has been used in the physical realization of quantum computation and quantum information processing as well. The Penning trap has also been used in the realization of what is known as a geonium atom. Currently Penning traps are used in many laboratories worldwide, for example at CERN it is used to store antiprotons

[Brett LaVigne]

I get all the responses about tiny experiments don't equal sustainable power but we should also consider the early days of nuclear power.

The nucleus of an atom was split for the first time somewhere around the early 1930's. I know there is some debate about the details of this and it is not important for my point. Lets just agree that we split the atom in a controlled manor sometime in the mid 1930's to early 1940's. From there, we made a bomb and dropped it on a couple of cities to help end a war. Within' the next 10 years or so, plants were being designed and produced for Navy ships and submarines. In 1963, Humboldt Bay Power plant (I am sitting on the refuel floor there as I type this by the way) started making commercial power. So we are looking at about a 20 year period from the first successful experiment to producing commercial power. And, it would have been even less than that if it were not so secret then. Realistically, the Nautilus was 1954! Now we are talkin' no more than 12 - 15 years from start to usable, sustainable power.

With that said, Fusion presents different and maybe more challenging problems. But should we "nay-say" it because we haven't figured it out?

If it weren't for freethinking, smart and persistant people...We would all still be running around killing buffalo for food, praying for fire and living in caves.

[Chimera]

I wasn't "nay-saying" fusion.  What I meant in my post was that a lot of theoretical knowledge went into the first sustainable fission reactions - decades worth.  Once the theory was firmly in place, it was an engineering feat to figure out how to harness the heat to produce power.  That includes the SNAP reactors used in some satellites.  I am of the opinion that we are still deep in the theoretical stages of understanding fusion.  I also think that too much is made of every incremental step along the way.  We will get there in due time.  But I don't think I'll ever get to fly my Delorean powered by Mr. Fusion.

[Brett LaVigne]

I wasn't "nay-saying" fusion.  What I meant in my post was that a lot of theoretical knowledge went into the first sustainable fission reactions - decades worth.  Once the theory was firmly in place, it was an engineering feat to figure out how to harness the heat to produce power.  That includes the SNAP reactors used in some satellites.  I am of the opinion that we are still deep in the theoretical stages of understanding fusion.  I also think that too much is made of every incremental step along the way.  We will get there in due time.  But I don't think I'll ever get to fly my Delorean powered by Mr. Fusion.

Maybe nay-say was the wrong term, I didn't mean to come across hostile nor did I intend to single anyone out, sorry if it came accross that way. It was more of a blanket statement including other discussions on this theoretical future technology. I have heard several people talk of all the reasons why it won't work or isn't worth going after. I have just got to the point anymore that I don't rule anything out. Science progresses so incredibly fast it boggles my mind. It seems as if nothing can be completely ruled out.

[btkeele]

If it weren't for freethinking, smart and persistant people...We would all still be running around killing buffalo for food, praying for fire and living in caves.....(Brett L)

Brett....quit picking on my lifestyle, there is nothing wrong with Buffalo, I have
a recliner and direct tv in my cave, and I worship fire (water)......

[Brett LaVigne]

If it weren't for freethinking, smart and persistant people...We would all still be running around killing buffalo for food, praying for fire and living in caves.....(Brett L)

Brett....quit picking on my lifestyle, there is nothing wrong with Buffalo, I have
a recliner and direct tv in my cave, and I worship fire (water)......

You kill me Barry! LOL! I hope your doing well. By the way, had a Buffalo burger at the Big Texan in Amarillo, TX. Not bad...not great either, think I will stick with the cows

[Content1]

The bright side is a fusion/fission plant will require Rad Techs and outages to refuel the fission plant and the spent fuel burning plant, so either way jobs for the road techs.    The laser fusion portion is in need of conventional Rad Techs; irradiated equipment requires the same NRC rules as does power plants.   All I am saying is the younger folk get ready to hitch your wagon to the promised land when the opportunity presents itself.   In all the confusion about fusion don't limit your vision to fission.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Trust you me if you havent already see by most of the posts here, the guys and girls on this site know more than most of your college professors and doctored scientists.  We have all been keeping an eye on fussion power but with so many hurdles to overcome it is going to be a while yet.  You have to admit that.  We love the idea of some new nerdy way of making atoms do cool things, but we also have to keep in mind of our present situation.

[Nuclear Renaissance]

the guys and girls on this site know more than most of your college professors and doctored scientists.

Really?

[thenuttyneutron]

Really?

I have had to unlearn many "truths" that I paid a PHD to teach me.  My favorite fallacy is being taught that it is impossible to get superheated steam out of a nuke plant.

[Content1]

"the guys and girls on this site know more than most of your college professors and doctored scientists."

"I have had to unlearn many "truths" that I paid a PHD to teach me.  My favorite fallacy is being taught that it is impossible to get superheated steam out of a nuke plant."


Hate to burst your bubble with "Street" nuclear smarts verses book smarts, but these people at the lab with the PHd's are like Curies and Einsteins, education does matter when you are trying to duplicate what happens inside a star.   

A quantum mechanic doesn't fix problems with a quark wrench. 

I cannot invison how they got 192 lasers to not only converge on a point a little over a milimeter in size, within 1 billioneth of a second of each other, but to the turn heavy hydrogen into plasma like inside the sun (at 80,000,000 degrees at 3000 atmospheres) and fused it to helium in the spherical shape needed.  I saw the film, this is where the technology is at.   Yes, they will take a year or so to get it right using the more energetic tritium-dueterium reaction before announcing to the public what is happening, to insure they got it right and reproducable each shot.  I am one of the RCT's there (kind of like the military in the movie "Stargate" hired just in case they were successful getting their project to work) in my case, if the fusion works and start having radwaste problems to deal with we are ready to contain it..

[Chimera]

I have had to unlearn many "truths" that I paid a PHD to teach me.  My favorite fallacy is being taught that it is impossible to get superheated steam out of a nuke plant.

I thought everyone knew Indian Point One was an oil-fired, super-heated steam nuclear power plant.  That big stack in the middle of the site isn't an off-gas stack.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Hate to burst your bubble with "Street" nuclear smarts verses book smarts, but these people at the lab with the PHd's are like Curies and Einsteins, education does matter when you are trying to duplicate what happens inside a star.   

Uuuummmm most of the Street smart folks here are degreed scientist or close to it.  I understand you have to be pretty smart to work with that stuff where your at, but you can train a person to do that kinda stuff just as easily.....well some.....people (i use that word loosly)

[RDTroja]

I thought everyone knew Indian Point One was an oil-fired, super-heated steam nuclear power plant.  That big stack in the middle of the site isn't an off-gas stack.

The superheated steam did not come out of the nuke plant. The superheater was the oil-fired part.

[retired nuke]

The superheated steam did not come out of the nuke plant. The superheater was the oil-fired part.

Yep, IP1 was a PWR (sort of) with ctrl rods in the bottom head, and produced saturated steam which was fed to an oil fired superheater. The old superheater was rebuilt into offices. I think at least one of the steam generators is visible from the equipment hatch (is it still open??). Funny looking things, 2 horizontal vessels with multiple tubes between them. Learned about this several years ago from an old hand that started there about the time unit 1 shut down.

[Content1]

Hate to burst your bubble with "Street" nuclear smarts verses book smarts, but these people at the lab with the PHd's are like Curies and Einsteins, education does matter when you are trying to duplicate what happens inside a star.   

Uuuummmm most of the Street smart folks here are degreed scientist or close to it.  I understand you have to be pretty smart to work with that stuff where your at, but you can train a person to do that kinda stuff just as easily.....well some.....people (i use that word loosly)

Not too easily, some here in a fusion vs. fission posts get off on a tangent of Superheated steam at Nuclear plants.   Must focus on job at hand.  The fusion plants are not recreating science, just taking it to the next level.  Everyone know the binding energy per nucleon chart.  Deuterium/Tritium to Helium releases more energy than splitting U235.   We don't have to mine deuterium and put it through centifuges and then only get 3% enrichment, tossing out the other 97%.   Its all burnable and when we use spent fuel for more energy what a deal.   I do have a fusion joke.   What was the motto for fusion in 1955 "Fusion power in 50 years."   The motto in 2006: "Fusion power in 50 years."   Good mottos are hard to change.

[HydroDave63]

Not too easily, some here in a fusion vs. fission posts get off on a tangent of Superheated steam at Nuclear plants.   Must focus on job at hand.  The fusion plants are not recreating science, just taking it to the next level.  Everyone know the binding energy per nucleon chart.  Deuterium/Tritium to Helium releases more energy than splitting U235.   We don't have to mine deuterium and put it through centifuges and then only get 3% enrichment, tossing out the other 97%.   Its all burnable and when we use spent fuel for more energy what a deal.   I do have a fusion joke.   What was the motto for fusion in 1955 "Fusion power in 50 years."   The motto in 2006: "Fusion power in 50 years."   Good mottos are hard to change.

1. There is an electric-powered separation process for deuterium, it doesn't just bubble up from a well in Calistoga. Your fuel source is not without front-end cost.

2. Reprocessing trans-uranics works just fine in the countries that don't have Jimmy Carter.

3. Fission of uranium worked for free with just water and uranium ore at Oklo http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml  Nature almost always has the answer's to science's questions, whether aerodynamics or high-energy physics.  Oddly enough billions of stars started up just fine without 192 gazillion lasers.

4. Since we are mouth-breathers without PhD's, here is a link to a PhD written article from a quarter century ago about the electric origins of fusion with neutron fluence as a result in lightning. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v313/n6005/abs/313773a0.html

Basically, Tokamaks and their next generations are multi-billion dollar boondoggles. Assuming that fusion can ONLY happen with massive cramdowns of magnetism,heat and laser energy would be similar to Fermi assuming uranium can ONLY fission with a stream of high-energy neutrons from a spallation source in a pulse reactor. Yet, physics science accidentally found that U²³⁵ has a higher probablity from a lower energy thermal neutron.

Of course, this is all crap because I don't have a degree at all. I'll get back to my moppin' now, suh....

[Content1]

4. Since we are mouth-breathers without PhD's . .

Of course, this is all crap because I don't have a degree at all. I'll get back to my moppin' now, suh....

Did someone's nerve get pinched here, life is too short to be so easily offended.    The world could not function without "Real" people who do the practical work, not just theory.   I have a degree, but it is in education.  (I taught special Ed.)  I left the field because the nuke pay is so much better, so I rely on my Navy and nuclear experience to find work, and it got me the job at the lab as an RCT.   It is lucky to be a nuke right now, there are a lot of degreed people, like lawyers, etc. that are out of work.

[thenukeman]

Just a quarter of a gram (less than the mass of a paper clip) of antimatter making contact with ordinary matter would unleash an explosion similar to those produced by the atomic bombs used to end World War II.

Just think if Fusion is bypassed by Antimatter>>  Poor Content1 and his nuclear Fusion PHD's  will be just mouth breathers on unemployment with the Obsolete Fusion power knowledge!!!

[Content1]

Antimatter sounds like something that terrorist could not use for any purpose.   I, myself would rather stick to being pro-matter.  If terrorist got a hold of fusion fuel it would not do them much good without the machine to use it, it is just water.   You seem to have a thing for nose breathers . .  everyone breathes through their mouth when they exert themselves or have a cold in the nose.   You still must answer how to make, and hold, and safely use antimatter.   Fusion is coming soon to a city near you in a safe, controlled form.  It is kind of an honor if you lump a lowly RCT/college grad with someone who earned a PhD.  I wish I was 1/10th as talented as any one of those technological geniuses of our time.

[Content1]

They have already thought of things like an orbiting solar collector and transmit it back to Earth in a beam, woe be it to the poor bird, or plane, that may try to fly through it.   They have had the thermal thing in Hawaii for years, but they have not got rid of their oil plants.   Solar power takes up a lot of space in a centrally located unit, and the most efficient use, say on everyone's roof in sunny states, power companies would not profit from it though the individual homeowner would it they could afford it.   Until we invent anti-gravity (along with the anti matter) the cost of keeping a turbine in the air would exceed its generation.   Do we want a bunch of high energy beams pummeling the Earth?  Fusion seems to be the Universe's choice of energy production for the last 13 billion years, far from being a dead horse, we are just getting ready to go with the flow.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Ok wait a minute.  How in the world are we going to get a turbine to 30,000 feet and keep it there?  Not only that but how many of these things are going to be needed and Im sure they are heavy.  Also if, lets say, you start to put a bunch of these things in the air you would disrupt the jet streams, and it is unrealiable due to the ever changing winds speed and direction at high altitude.  (studied this kinda stuff when I was in Air Force).  I saw the TV show about this too.

The hole water and amonia thing would not work.  One big hurricane and your done.

Interesting though.

[Fermi2]

They have already thought of things like an orbiting solar collector and transmit it back to Earth in a beam, woe be it to the poor bird, or plane, that may try to fly through it.   They have had the thermal thing in Hawaii for years, but they have not got rid of their oil plants.   Solar power takes up a lot of space in a centrally located unit, and the most efficient use, say on everyone's roof in sunny states, power companies would not profit from it though the individual homeowner would it they could afford it.   Until we invent anti-gravity (along with the anti matter) the cost of keeping a turbine in the air would exceed its generation.   Do we want a bunch of high energy beams pummeling the Earth?  Fusion seems to be the Universe's choice of energy production for the last 13 billion years, far from being a dead horse, we are just getting ready to go with the flow.

Seriously you're not a real nuke yet right? Just a NUB?

[JsonD13]

cost of keeping a turbine in the air would exceed its generation. 

I believe he is referring to wind power, for which this statement holds true.

Jason

[Content1]

Seriously you're not a real nuke yet right? Just a NUB?

Only "real" nukes would be regularly posting on Nukeworker.   But before you question someone with an argumentum ad hominem aimed at me, at least point out some falacy in my logic or facts.

It is a fact fusion powers most of the Universe, it is time we took advantage of this near limitless source of energy.   All other methods are parasitic in nature, that is, the draw from the enviroment, like solar from the Sun, Geothermal from the Earth, Wind, hydro, oil, coal, gas and Fission nuclear.   All of those are finite and can someday run out, and generally only work here on Earth.   Fusion works anywhere you can find supplies of hydrogen and lithium, which can follow us into space.

[Llama]

Actually MARSSIM, my old buddy, using the sun could provide parasitic energy. In the case of parabolic trough systems and to a much lesser degree the solar power tower system parasitic energy is used by the various systems needed to support the solar power systems. So even though the use of the sun would not necessarily be parasitic directly, the processes used to support the systems would be. Now if we were to use devices to harvest the parasitic energies, such as piezoelectric generators in the case of roadways, then the process would be totally non-parasitic. What does this have to with fusion Absolutely nothing!
I just got carried away.

Sorry buddy I just had to do it   

p.s. I think I will go out and look at my rose colored sky 

[Content1]

There is one thing to add about the high powered lasers not even on the drawing board, only in  theory.  They may be able to go beyond turning lasers into the Xray range as they have here, but to the gamma ray range which could then impact the nucleus of atoms like accelerators do, to what end, who knows but it is definitely new ground that was not even conceived when they started.

For example:

Pumping Up Hope for a Gamma Ray Laser

Scientists generally agree that a laser that emitted gamma rays would have tremendous power. One of the scientists involved in efforts to make one. Carl B. Collins of the University of Texas at Dallas, estimates that such a laser might yield as much as 10.sup.21 watts. This surpasses the total power production of the United States (10.sup.12 watts) and is a respectable 0.03 percent of the total energy output of the sun. Thus it would enter a totally new energy scale for power sources made by humans -- in Collins's words, "a cosmic scale." He told the Second International Laser Science Conference, which met in Seattle last week, that new approaches show a good prospect of overcoming the difficulties that frustrated previous attempts to develop this laser.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_v130/ai_4539152/

[thenukeman]

Man I can see Content1 In 2059, 50 years from now, Telling Content 3 his Grandson that in 50 years the Fusion problem will be solved.  So Content 3 hold down the fort until 2109 for Content5.

[Brett LaVigne]

Man I can see Content1 In 2059, 50 years from now, Telling Content 3 his Grandson that in 50 years the Fusion problem will be solved.  So Content 3 hold down the fort until 2109 for Content5.

That's funny. But I will say this about that. Without free thinking and persistant people, our species would still be killing buffalo for food and praying to some god in the sky for fire and rain. I do not buy that this hill is too steep or too tall to climb. Scientific advancement is moving at such a pace that there are college students studying to work in job fields that don't currently exist. Consider the advancements of the last 100 years, from horse and buggy to super computers. I think it is closed minded to say it's too hard or the battle is too long. We might smash an atom in a collider next month or next year and find something that will solve many of the problems facing fusion power.

I like how excited Content1 is about this. It will be people (probably with multiple Phd's, so they would actually be smarter than us road techs, LOL! Can't even believe that was a discussion) with this kind of outlook that will figure it out.

[JustinHEMI05]

Content1 has gumption. I admire and respect gumption. .

[Content1]

Lastest note from the Physicists to the RCT's.  The calculations are in (theory) of just how powerful these 20 megajoules shots will be next year.   This is only in reference to the neutrons released from the fusion process, gammas not taken into account.   The are only working with a tritium/deuterium target smaller then the eraser on a pencil, and of course, the efficiency is not at 100% fusion conversion of the target, yet, in the large rooms surrounding the target chamber, the total neutron dose in the 50 billionth of a second laser shot would produce a doses over thousands of rems.  (In the actual target area, it reaches in the millions of rems.)   Yes, if a person was in the outer room (they have safety measures to prevent this) they would get a dose to kill delivered in 50 billionth of a second.   I bet they will not have a problem with insects or mice in there.  In defense of this, where much is expected, there will be risks.   It was the same with the development of fission.   It  kills the notion of a tiny "Mr. Fusion" like in "Back to the Future" because the neutrons are the hazard, not the fusion temperature.   

On the other hand, look at the power coming out of essentially hydrogen isotopes.   If you surround the target with U238 in spent fuel, you will get high energy fission which, of course, will get further neutron flux from the fissioning U238, and we solve our waste fuel disposal problems while getting real power for our country out of what now is waste.   Whatever fusion system results, safety shielding will always be the prime consideration on how small you could make it, much like a conventional fission reactor is now.

[HydroDave63]

Lastest note from the Physicists to the RCT's.  The calculations are in (theory) of just how powerful these 20 megajoules shots will be next year.   

100 quatloos that 1 year from now, the "50 years from now" carrot will still be dangling, with no breakeven fusion energy as a result of my tax dollars.

[thenuttyneutron]

Lastest note from the Physicists to the RCT's.  The calculations are in (theory) of just how powerful these 20 megajoules shots will be next year.   This is only in reference to the neutrons released from the fusion process, gammas not taken into account.   The are only working with a tritium/deuterium target smaller then the eraser on a pencil, and of course, the efficiency is not at 100% fusion conversion of the target, yet, in the large rooms surrounding the target chamber, the total neutron dose in the 50 billionth of a second laser shot would produce a doses over thousands of rems.  (In the actual target area, it reaches in the millions of rems.)   Yes, if a person was in the outer room (they have safety measures to prevent this) they would get a dose to kill delivered in 50 billionth of a second.   I bet they will not have a problem with insects or mice in there.  In defense of this, where much is expected, there will be risks.   It was the same with the development of fission.   It  kills the notion of a tiny "Mr. Fusion" like in "Back to the Future" because the neutrons are the hazard, not the fusion temperature.   

On the other hand, look at the power coming out of essentially hydrogen isotopes.   If you surround the target with U238 in spent fuel, you will get high energy fission which, of course, will get further neutron flux from the fissioning U238, and we solve our waste fuel disposal problems while getting real power for our country out of what now is waste.   Whatever fusion system results, safety shielding will always be the prime consideration on how small you could make it, much like a conventional fission reactor is now.

You are really stuck on using U238 as a fuel.  We already have the technology to burn U238 with just a fission reactor.

[thenukeman]

The Nutty Neutron is right!! CANDU reactors burn U238 everyday with heavy water and can be refueled while running.

[Content1]

I am not stuck on u238 as I am stuck on using spent fuel, mainly u238 as one immediate use for fusion power.   We have lots of it lying around and some want to stick in a mountain, I say let's use it first.

[withroaj]

At your current stage, what sort of energy output vs. input are you folks looking at?  I'm also wondering how you're planning to get a self-sustaining reaction out of fusion.  I'm not a naysayer at all, I'm just clueless about and intrigued by the process.

[Content1]

At your current stage, what sort of energy output vs. input are you folks looking at?  I'm also wondering how you're planning to get a self-sustaining reaction out of fusion.  I'm not a naysayer at all, I'm just clueless about and intrigued by the process.

Current stage, only firing deuterium/deuterium shots since the yield is lower and to insure the lasers are time precisely to completely consume the fuel.    In spring of 2010, they go live with using tritium/deuterium at near absolute zero encased in a beryllium shell.   It is estimated to use 20 million joules to ignite the fuel fired for maybe 25 billionth of s second, a lot of energy if it were continuous.   Once it is ignited it will well exceed the energy to ignite it, 100,000,000 degree, 3000 atmospheres and condensed to smaller then the thickness of a human hair from the size of a pencil eraser.   It is more like firing a bullet, that is, the energy to pull the trigger and hit the firing pin is way less then the energy when the ignited powder fires the bullet, must like here.   The difference is the bullet is deuterium/tritium reacting at a nuclear level converting to Helium and releasing the binding energy, along with high energy neutrons.

The goal would not be a self-sustaining reaction, but a complete reaction and release of energy to show it could be done.   Once you prove you can create controlled fusion, the plan would to make some mechanism where you fire a shot, charge lasers, reinsert and fire again, like the world most powerful machine gun.   As I said in a previous post, the pencil sized fuel that was compressed to the size of a human hair produces such energy that in the target chamber the neutron flux would be in the millions of rems, even in the room outside thousand of rems and even though the shot may be 25 billionths of a second, the total dose from neutrons received would be lethal, like in the center of a fission reactor.   It is not a continuation of the tokamak research, this is new and improved.   The liberals paid for it with the promise of clean non-carbon energy and disposing of spent fuel, the conservatives wanted new technology and a way to test our nuclear weapons without underground tests.   It is a technology that even if part of it is not successful right away other parts add to the safety of our nation.   It is better we are the researchers harnessing fusion rather then Iran and the Terrorists.   We are the good guys, don't forget.   This is not just hype.   We had the bomb first, and we did not use it to threaten others, only in self defense.   Had Hitler got it first, we all would be speaking German and Japanese.

[thenuttyneutron]

Have you heard of the concept called entropy?  You still have not told us about the power conversion process to power the laser from the fusion.  

Engineers have already proven that we make fusion work.  These reactors still sit on top of missiles ready to demonstrate their power.  Maybe we can build a big wind farm and detonate these "reactors" in the center every few minutes and get a nice breeze going.

I am going to stick with the Gen 4 reactors that use the caveman technology called fission as being the best next step.  These Gen 4 designs are helium cooled, graphite moderated designs that are 50% efficient.

[Content1]

Put fusion device in center of fisson reactor.   Surround by conventional reactor using spent fuel.  Use fusion high energy neutrons to maintain criticality in what would be a subcrital reactor depending on thermal neutrons.   High energy neutrons from fusion make u238 produce faster neutrons to further fission more u238.   Using your K effective formula the fusion neutrons to keep the conventional reactor critical and at power putting energy onto grid.   Grid energy used to fire up laser.   That is one idea.

idea two.   Direct fusion heat.   Using the refiring of the fusion "Machine gun" process but at a faster rate to heat up water to boil like in a fission plant.   But then you are wasting all those lovely high energy neutrons.

The key first is to show we take isotopes of hydrogen to helium.   Give our engineers a break, they will take it from there. 

Please note, I do not think Hitler would had sued for peace if he had the ability to put all his enemies to pieces.  He would have sued for piece like he did with the Czechs (Whom the Germans cancelled whenever they could), Polish, French etc.   It was worth saving probably 10 million Japanese civilian lives and 1 million Amercing lives by stopping the war when we did the way we did.

[Content1]

We are training the folks for the first 20 Megajoule fusion reactions, watch the news in the next 3-6 months for history to be made.  We are booked for  years to come by researchers wanting to test this technology from around the world.  Sorry to all the Science fiction fans, but high energy lasers are in the x ray range and invisible to the eye.   They all got that one wrong.

[thenuttyneutron]

Remember how some a**hole said that the Segway was going to be the greatest thing invented since the internet?  I still remember seeing that thing unveiled on Good Morning America.  It was a disaster!

Come back when you close your breakers and start putting power onto the grid.

[JustinHEMI05]

Nutty, although I share your sentiment about closing breakers, I also applaud innovators and people that are willing to take risks despite the odds and nay sayers. If it wasn't for the likes of Newton, Galileo and Edison, we would still be in the stone age. People thinking outside the box is how we will get past this archaic form of producing power (splitting atoms).

[Content1]

Remember how some a**hole said that the Segway was going to be the greatest thing invented since the internet?  I still remember seeing that thing unveiled on Good Morning America.  It was a disaster!

Come back when you close your breakers and start putting power onto the grid.

We at the point similar to the Manhattan project, it will be the first example of where the energy derived from a fusion reaction is greater then the energy used to produce it, it has never been done before.   It is like the Wright Brothers who were told powered flight would never be stable, and they ignored that research and made the first plane.   Once people saw flight was possible, they changed their attitude and planes started popping up everywhere.   The same will happen here once the fusion occurs.   Are you one of the naysayers who say something like, "If God had meant us to have fusion, we would have been born with laser-beams?

[Fermi2]

We at the point similar to the Manhattan project, it will be the first example of where the energy derived from a fusion reaction is greater then the energy used to produce it, it has never been done before.   It is like the Wright Brothers who were told powered flight would never be stable, and they ignored that research and made the first plane.   Once people saw flight was possible, they changed their attitude and planes started popping up everywhere.   The same will happen here once the fusion occurs.   Are you one of the naysayers who say something like, "If God had meant us to have fusion, we would have been born with laser-beams?

Like my Grandma used to say " Maybe but I kind of F'ing doubt it.

[thenuttyneutron]

We at the point similar to the Manhattan project, it will be the first example of where the energy derived from a fusion reaction is greater then the energy used to produce it, it has never been done before.   It is like the Wright Brothers who were told powered flight would never be stable, and they ignored that research and made the first plane.   Once people saw flight was possible, they changed their attitude and planes started popping up everywhere.   The same will happen here once the fusion occurs.   Are you one of the naysayers who say something like, "If God had meant us to have fusion, we would have been born with laser-beams?

Fission works just by making a big block with the consistency of dirt out of graphite and uranium.

I do think fusion will work one day.  I just don't think it will work with the technology that you are trying to develop.  Look up Dr. Bussard and his work.  I do think his technology has merit.

[thenukeman]

Come back when you close your breakers and start putting power onto the grid.
I will secong Nutty Neutron!!!

Skip Fusion, Go directly to matter antimatter reactor, it seems more plausible to me.  Temperatures too high for material in fusion reactor to sustain it seems to me.

[HydroDave63]

 Once people saw flight was possible, they changed their attitude and planes started popping up everywhere. 

Isn't that the slippery slope towards the scientific philosophy of Trofim Lysenko and bad sci-fi movie plots; obscure politically-correct scientists toeing the party line (but lacking scientific rigor and empirical evidence) come up with some wild theory and pull some new unprovable "theory" out of their hiney??  Did Keanu Reeves develop this new fusion with Morgan Freeman's help?  Simply wanting the next new thing doesn't make it happen, there has to be something real behind it.

Specifically with fusion, we keep hearing about how it powers the stars, yet not all astrophysicists are convinced that the fusion takes place in the core of a star, it may  be towards the corona. That would be consistent with the other two readily observed sources of fusion , lightning bolts and fission-fusion devices. Both of those experience fusion , but in the context of

Gobs of input power/ very short time span

What would make this whole "fusion is coming next year" thing a lot more plausible is some links to some published peer-reviewed material, the sort of stuff one would find on www.physorg.com Will there be any such articles, or just more advertising?

[thenukeman]

Is Fusion the New Global warming?  Money wasted and in the end no proof??  hmmm.  Sounds like throwing money away to me with the temperature thingy and the short time energy is made. 

[Content1]

What would make this whole "fusion is coming next year" thing a lot more plausible is some links to some published peer-reviewed material, the sort of stuff one would find on www.physorg.com Will there be any such articles, or just more advertising?

Just thought those at nukeworker wanted to hear it first, in the coming months you will have all the science papers you want to show that either it worked or failed, and why.  If it works our world will change.  Enough said until it happens.  I have a front row seat is all, much like the guy in Armageddon.

[Content1]

Un-C1:  This is great news!  I suggest you stop your kids from saddling the dead horse that commercial nuclear power is becoming and hitch their hopes to the rising star of fusion.  With your front row seat I am sure you can pull some strings...

Actually, already thought of that except they only take seniors in this field, so still have to stay hitched until they are a 3.1's.  We are still hiring seniors here, but only by word of mouth.   They are picky folk who do the hiring.  (I know you may say, then how did I get in?  Just lucky I guess.)

[Content1]

Skip Fusion, Go directly to matter antimatter reactor, it seems more plausible to me.  Temperatures too high for material in fusion reactor to sustain it seems to me.

It is called Inertial Confinement Fusion, it uses lasers to get the temperature at 100 million degrees for 20 billionth of a second.    You get power like a machine gun, firing multi-shots verses one big one like the sun.   They can do it.   If we spill our matter, we get water on the floor.   Our waste is helium.  Tell me how to make and safely contain antimatter and I am with you.

[Fermi2]

It is called Inertial Confinement Fusion, it uses lasers to get the temperature at 100 million degrees for 20 billionth of a second.    You get power like a machine gun, firing multi-shots verses one big one like the sun.   They can do it.   If we spill our matter, we get water on the floor.   Our waste is helium.  Tell me how to make and safely contain antimatter and I am with you.

Pipe dream.

[thenukeman]

Said before Penning trap stores anti mattter,  we can make anti matter now, Just not in great quantity, I think the making more of Anti matter problem will be solved before the millions of degrees heat from Fusion problem.  Just a thought.

[Content1]

Pipe dream.

Like in the movie, "Evan Almighty" when we are successful this year I will do the "Dance" and dedicate it to the naysayers like yourself.   We are so close and I am there, you are not to know or base an opinion.  I suppose you think the Moon Landing were done in a studio too.

[Fermi2]

Like in the movie, "Evan Almighty" when we are successful this year I will do the "Dance" and dedicate it to the naysayers like yourself.   We are so close and I am there, you are not to know or base an opinion.  I suppose you think the Moon Landing were done in a studio too.

Not hardly son. Pipe dream.

[co60slr]

It is called Inertial Confinement Fusion, it uses lasers to get the temperature at 100 million degrees for 20 billionth of a second.    You get power like a machine gun, firing multi-shots verses one big one like the sun.   They can do it.   If we spill our matter, we get water on the floor.   Our waste is helium.  Tell me how to make and safely contain antimatter and I am with you.

As pointed out here in October 2009, your passion for your job is inspirational.  Your information broadcast continues to reinforce what can be found here:  https://lasers.llnl.gov/.  Meanwhile, Newsweek also does a pretty good job of summing up the optimistic and pessimistic points of view.   Perhaps the bottom line is that the world is divided and "time will tell", as it does with all inventions pushing through innovation?  http://www.newsweek.com/id/222792/page/2

In the world of technical research, it seems that keeping up the hype and excitement in your expensive project/experiment is the key to continued funding.  How else would your senior PhD scientist there at LLNL keep his 10-figure grant money pouring in the front door for the last 20 years?  There is obviously some technical merit to the experiment, or it probably would not have gotten this far.

Personally, comparing an experimental energy conversion process to one that is on the streets (e.g., combustion, fission) running my car and powering my computer right now doesn't seem to be a fair argument, in my opinion.  The $3.5 Billion fusion toy that we have all invested in, seems to be just that...for now, but I hope my tax dollars work out for the DOE Lab there.  However, I'm convinced that I won't be dumping trash into a little fusion reactor in the trunk of my car anytime soon.   (Note reference to "Back to the Future").

[Adam Grundleger]

Seriously?  We can't get new fission units built and we're talking about new technology fusion units? 

Sure, there's rumors about government loans to get a few units built, but I don't buy it.  Until they untie the hands of the utilities to shift rates to pay for the new units and get them out of the debt cycle we won't have new construction on the scale we all expected. 

Instead, we'll wait and the suppliers will fold or move overseas.  If we ever get to work building plants they'll all come with tags that say "Made in China." 

So, on topic, lets say you all are successful with this new technology.  Do you think private industry will be in any shape to take it on once it's viable?  Never mind the fact that you can burn spent fuel.  Breeders have been doing that in Europe for decades.  It's not enough justification for the government to give up control of the funding, and until they do we're stuck.

[Content1]

You  don't know the power of the force, it is much more powerful than fission on a weighted basis.   Every time you use your PC, cell phone and other microprocessors thank the Moon program.   We will someday return when  we have people in office with the right vision to know the Earth will fill up and we need the ultimate "elbow room."   

From Fusion research we will get: High powered lasers to knock out incoming ICBMs (In the x ray to gamma ray range.)  If you don't think gamma lasers could do it, think of natural occurring gamma ray bursts from 100 light years away could wipe out all life on Earth.   Lucky for us no supernovas that close and aimed at us have ever happened in our galaxy.  You get a methods to verify nuclear weapons without underground testing.  You get methods to burn spent fuel.   When developed, you get power without greenhouse gases.  The supply of energy is essentially unlimited, we have millions of years of fuel available, long after we burn our last fossil fuel.   You are able to compliment the research on the operation of stars to add to what we find with the super-colliders in Europe.   Finally we can be like England and slowly fade away on the world scene as we give up on research and development or be on the forefront of technology and have the jobs here, not in China.   There are hundreds of others uses which have yet to be discovered.  Rome fell partially because they thought their technology would last forever and the Barbarians spent money on R & D and eventually overwhelmed Rome.   We are the modern equivalent of Rome, even about 1/3 of our language, our republican form of government etc.  came from Rome.  Let us learn from their mistakes so our arsenal of democracy will last forever!

Those of you who think it is a waste of money, what are we going to do when fossil fuels start to run out?   Even if you think it is a waste of time now, it will be needed by necessity someday.   Why make your grandchildren suffer from out lack of foresight to see the coming end of the fossil fuels and we did nothing to prevent it.

[HydroDave63]

and the Barbarians spent money on R & D and eventually overwhelmed Rome. 

Please refresh my memory, was it the Visigoth use of Stukas against the 10th Legion, or Attila The Hun dropping paratroops south of the Tiber that finally did Rome in? Just what the cornbread %&@ technology did these barbarians have?!?

Look, no one doubts that fusion would be the cleanest spiffiest power source. Might be why the Farnsworth Fusor got buried early on, since he got almost as close as the Tokamak to breakeven fusion with an electric tabletop device. But an endless parade of breathless posts about the imminent New Age of Fusion with ice cream and unicorns falling from the sky isn't going to make it happen. It's cool to be proud of being part of this project, whether it really achieves power generation or not. Just relax, document your surveys, and if and when the physics support your claims, we'll know who posted it here first (and second and third and Avogadro's Number) 

[Adam Grundleger]

I think you're right--it can be done.  I just don't think it'll be allowed to happen until free market funding is available.  

[thenuttyneutron]

You  don't know the power of the force, it is much more powerful than fission on a weighted basis.   Every time you use your PC, cell phone and other microprocessors thank the Moon program.   We will someday return when  we have people in office with the right vision to know the Earth will fill up and we need the ultimate "elbow room."   

From Fusion research we will get: High powered lasers to knock out incoming ICBMs (In the x ray to gamma ray range.)  If you don't think gamma lasers could do it, think of natural occurring gamma ray bursts from 100 light years away could wipe out all life on Earth.   Lucky for us no supernovas that close and aimed at us have ever happened in our galaxy.  You get a methods to verify nuclear weapons without underground testing.  You get methods to burn spent fuel.   When developed, you get power without greenhouse gases.  The supply of energy is essentially unlimited, we have millions of years of fuel available, long after we burn our last fossil fuel.   You are able to compliment the research on the operation of stars to add to what we find with the super-colliders in Europe.   Finally we can be like England and slowly fade away on the world scene as we give up on research and development or be on the forefront of technology and have the jobs here, not in China.   There are hundreds of others uses which have yet to be discovered.  Rome fell partially because they thought their technology would last forever and the Barbarians spent money on R & D and eventually overwhelmed Rome.   We are the modern equivalent of Rome, even about 1/3 of our language, our republican form of government etc.  came from Rome.  Let us learn from their mistakes so our arsenal of democracy will last forever!

Those of you who think it is a waste of money, what are we going to do when fossil fuels start to run out?   Even if you think it is a waste of time now, it will be needed by necessity someday.   Why make your grandchildren suffer from out lack of foresight to see the coming end of the fossil fuels and we did nothing to prevent it.

We will never run out of fossil fuels.  I do believe in the Peak Oil Theory postulated by Dr. Hubbert.  The price for those last few gallons of oil based fuels will be so expensive that the use of them will be curtailed and a different technology will be used.

I wonder if the average Joe could run a small boiler powered by wood to get their car down the road. 

[Fermi2]

I'll venture my opinion. Content1 is a 15 year old kid. Knows nothing about fission reactors so he's pretending to be part of a fusion research group. Since fusion as a power source is a myth, he no one really cares who he is.

[Fermi2]

Read Kruschev's Cold War. The moon program was just a cover because Kennedy wanted an ICBM that could hit Moscow from South Dakota. All the rest was just fluff.

[Adam Grundleger]

They used Imbert downdraft gasifiers back in the 1940s to power cars and trucks in Europe.  Some people are still experimenting with it.  Wood gas will run most cars, but it has less specific energy than petroleum or alcohol fuels, though wood requires way less energy to harvest and process.  Peak oil will happen, but it's a question of when.  I don't think there's enough information as to the remaining reserves.

Fusion or more widespread fission (or antimatter, or PFM for that matter) would solve a lot of problems, but there's no such thing as a free lunch.  As long as big government has its foot on the neck of industry, the point's moot.  

[thenuttyneutron]

They used Imbert downdraft gasifiers back in the 1940s to power cars and trucks in Europe.  Some people are still experimenting with it.  Wood gas will run most cars, but it has less specific energy than petroleum or alcohol fuels, though wood requires way less energy to harvest and process.  Peak oil will happen, but it's a question of when.  I don't think there's enough information as to the remaining reserves.

Fusion or more widespread fission (or antimatter, or PFM for that matter) would solve a lot of problems, but there's no such thing as a free lunch.  As long as big government has its foot on the neck of industry, the point's moot.  

We can always go to the Fischer tropsch method of making fuels.  The Nazis were able to use it to fuel their war machine.  With a combo of a fission reactor and a lot of coal, I bet you could make lots of fuel to burn in cars cheaply. 

[Adam Grundleger]

Sure, there's been lots of talk about coal-to-liquid and gas-to-liquid fuels, but the cost is very high and the demand isn't there.  We could use algae to make biodiesel or distill butanol or other higher energy-density alcohols from cellulose stock.

The problems are the same as for new power plants: Who's going to pay for it?  Will the government let it happen or will there be some environmentalist backlash that they use (or fabricate) to take it over? 

I want clean, safe power just like everybody else.  Fission works well and is safe.  Maybe fusion will turn out to be better.  I think that we're clever enough as a species to find out.  I just think that we're currently hung up on this nanny-state hand-wringing.  The public's so conditioned to think about dead ends like wind farms and solar panels and so negatively conditioned regarding anything nuclear that I doubt that public support for a new fleet of fusion plants will be there. 

Maybe, if we're lucky, over the next few election cycles we can roll back the "progressive" degradation of our government and free up industry to pursue new ideas.  Companies that are fighting just to keep from being nationalized tend not to go in for heavy R&D.

[B.PRESGROVE]

You know just saw a TV program on science channel about the sun.  I loved it, and of all things they talked about fussion just like the sun and how we hear on earth could make it possible.  The only problem so far is it uses way more energy than it produces, like has been discussed, only lasts for a few milli seconds, and the most important the MMMIIILLLLLIIIOONNNSSSSssss of degrees to sustain the chain reaction.  Its like mike said, a pipe dream.

[Content1]

You know just saw a TV program on science channel about the sun.  I loved it, and of all things they talked about fussion just like the sun and how we hear on earth could make it possible.  The only problem so far is it uses way more energy than it produces, like has been discussed, only lasts for a few milli seconds, and the most important the MMMIIILLLLLIIIOONNNSSSSssss of degrees to sustain the chain reaction.  Its like mike said, a pipe dream.

Was the show in black and white, and was the Vietnam war still going on?  We are way past the problems of getting more energy then it costs to produce it, and on to the problems of how to practically use the excess energy.   The French fusion research reactor in the pipeline is even bigger then ours.   They would not have spent the billions there if they had not good good research reports from our efforts here.  I also never knew pipes were sentient enough to dream.  The millions of degrees is a case of we have already been there, done that.  We are inertial confinement fusion here, and we are only at the 100 million degree for 30 billionth of a second, long enough to get the energy from the reaction.   We get power by re-firing like a machine gun style, verses a continuous boom.   The energy released in the target area is so great if you were in there during a shot, you would get a lethal dose in the 30 billionth of a second it fired.   We don't use it to execute people but to harness the power so released.  I will do the "Dance" this fall when we achieve it and encourage any other "horse and buggy forever" class it may be time to reassess your opinions.   This technology is so new, that Bruce Willis hasn't even made a movie about how the technology can be used for evil.

[co60slr]

Was the show in black and white, and was the Vietnam war still going on?  We are way past the problems of getting more energy then it costs to produce it, and on to the problems of how to practically use the excess energy.   The French fusion research reactor in the pipeline is even bigger then ours.   They would not have spent the billions there if they had not good good research reports from our efforts here.  I also never knew pipes were sentient enough to dream.  The millions of degrees is a case of we have already been there, done that.  We are inertial confinement fusion here, and we are only at the 100 million degree for 30 billionth of a second, long enough to get the energy from the reaction.   We get power by re-firing like a machine gun style, verses a continuous boom.   The energy released in the target area is so great if you were in there during a shot, you would get a lethal dose in the 30 billionth of a second it fired.   We don't use it to execute people but to harness the power so released.  I will do the "Dance" this fall when we achieve it and encourage any other "horse and buggy forever" class it may be time to reassess your opinions.   This technology is so new, that Bruce Willis hasn't even made a movie about how the technology can be used for evil.

You're reportedly 10 years away from a prototype...IF you're successful this fall.  On the plus side, you have plenty of time to practice that dance.  Meanwhile, even if successful, it may take your PhDs that long to figure out how to make their experiment economical.  $100K per fuel pellet?  How much is that per kw-hour for your future electricity customers?  While technically fascinating, it seems that the "invention" has a ways to go before innovation.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100128-nuclear-fusion-power-lasers-science/

[thenuttyneutron]

What is the burnup value for that fuel?  What percentage of the fuel is actually consumed?

With all that money used to build this science experiment, I bet we could have built an IFR prototype.  This IFR design is sustainable.  The fuels for this design are waiting for us at the bottom of all the spent fuel pools and DU tailings.  You can even burn Thorium in the IFR.

[Content1]

A reactor using sodium as a coolant presents self-evident problems.   You still need 20% fissile fuel etc.   Fusion, once the technology is perfected and they shrink the size of the fusion process the cost of fuel will drop, realizing that the availability of deuterium and tritium is abundant, and can last for millions of years giving mankind time to develop those antimatter systems that will eventually be made.   Coal, oil and other fossil fuel have a built in time limit, and we really need hydrocarbons to make things like plastics and medicines.   Traditional fission and its products are dirty as compared with making hydrogen into helium.   A day will come when we cannot live without fusion, a slow incremental use, like the computer did, that future generations will ask, "How did the ancients live without fusion?"

[BuddyThePug]

  I will do the "Dance" this fall when we achieve it and encourage any other "horse and buggy forever" class it may be time to reassess your opinions. 

When the Great Pumpkin fails to arrive by fusion power by 12/31/10 , what is your side of the wager? No more posts on the subject?

[Content1]

When the Great Pumpkin fails to arrive by fusion power by 12/31/10 , what is your side of the wager? No more posts on the subject?

I would be one of the first to know.  Research is not like a go/no go test.   Our brilliant scientists carefully study results each step along the way.  Like Edison who went through a thousand failures to get the first working light bulb, success is more a result of perspiration verses inspiration, and they have been sweating over the idea for 50 years.   The first tritium/deuterium tests are scheduled for August, and when we prove more energy out verses in, I can do the "Dance."  This is on the back of already successful deuterium/deuterium tests.   It will be an event like Lindburg crossing the Atlantic, men on the Moon, the ultimate realization of Einstein equation E=MC2 put into peaceful use for the benefit of all mankind.

[Content1]

Just a comparison to fission, it takes about 2 megajoules of energy to get the fusion to work, and it yields about 20 megajoules per reaction.  That is a lot of difference and to get the 2 megajoules is how the efficiency is to be achieved.   Naturally at first, we have a lot of overhead but with time, the energy balance will be harnessed.   It is possible to achieve this in the decade to come.

[Content1]

I want to say that you must be smoking crack, but I will not.

When we do our 20 mega joule shot, I will dedicate "The Dance" to you.   Note:  At DOE sites we have preemployment drug screening and random screening.  I have never taken a nonprescription drug my entire life.  It is amazing to me I have been quoting exactly what the Engineers have told me and yet, there are so many who doubt even its existence.   According to you we must be sharing the same pipe.  Were you there protesting the first Moon landing as implausible?   That was completed in less than 10 years, this has been researched step by step for over 50 years with many small victories to achieve this big victory this fall.   Don't worry, this will be filmed and be on you tube, along with all the major world's media sources.

[thenuttyneutron]

When we do our 20 mega joule shot, I will dedicate "The Dance" to you.   Note:  At DOE sites we have preemployment drug screening and random screening.  I have never taken a nonprescription drug my entire life.  It is amazing to me I have been quoting exactly what the Engineers have told me and yet, there are so many who doubt even its existence.   According to you we must be sharing the same pipe.  Were you there protesting the first Moon landing as implausible?   That was completed in less than 10 years, this has been researched step by step for over 50 years with many small victories to achieve this big victory this fall.   Don't worry, this will be filmed and be on you tube, along with all the major world's media sources.

I find it hard to believe that you have never used an OTC drug your entire life.

[HydroDave63]

I'm surprised no Effexor^TM has been prescribed yet 

[Content1]

Nay sayers of the past said. . .
If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings.   A motor car will never replace a reliable horse.   Man will never go to the Moon. 

Current nay sayers. . .
If God would have meant us to harness fusion, He's use it as a power source too for his creation. 

Wait a minute, has He created the stars that work on fission or anti-matter? . . . or maybe FUSION!  If it is good enough for God, it is good enough for mankind to harness.

[co60slr]

Current nay sayers. . .
If God would have meant us to harness fusion, He's use it as a power source too for his creation. 

Wait a minute, has He created the stars that work on fission or anti-matter? . . . or maybe FUSION!  If it is good enough for God, it is good enough for mankind to harness.

So, you're saying that your "brilliant PhDs" sit on the right hand of God and bring us the power of the stars?

I struggle with this thread.   My $0.25 opinion throws in an A+ for energetic/enthusiasm for your DOE Lab, but D- for posting nontechnical content laden with emotion.  That's not the way of a nuke.  Debate with facts...you may win.  Debate with titles, degrees, emotion...you lose out of the starting gate.  Wagging your finger at us saying that you'll "show us a thing or two" makes this sound like a grade school playground debate.  Personally, I don't think many of your fellow nukes here need a high school lesson in "E=MC2" or in the binding energy per nucleon curve. 

Your site's fusion experiment is not the only one in progress, nor the last to claim premature victory.  (I'm still waiting for cold fusion, which was proclaimed to be the new power source overnight).  I'm confident that it will happen someday...just as God will someday allow our yellow fusion star to turn into a Red Giant, which will consume the first 4 planets of our solar system.   Perhaps that will happen in 2012 or in 100,000 years.   Perhaps the timeline of your fusion experiment is the same.

DOE Fusion Strategy: http://www.science.doe.gov/ofes/
The source of your "infomercial":  https://lasers.llnl.gov/

I think there's no question that your PhDs will shoot very high powered lasers at a $100,000 fuel pellet this year and release a gigantic amount of energy that lasts for less than 1 second.  I hope for the sake of the tax dollars spent on this enormous project that your brilliant scientists are correct.

Back at the ranch, two years ago LNL promised us a portable fission reactor..."factories making them by 2012".  http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/246566/Portable_nuclear_reactor_powers_25_000_homes.  How's that immediate project coming along two years after this quote:  "...factoring in enough cronyism, corruption and official ignorance and boosterism, it's possible the principals could make some money during the initial stages, before the crows come home to roost"?   I'm not seeing any factories being built:  http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Finally, in the words of a famous Admiral:  "Those involved with practical reactors, humbled by their experiences, speak less and worry more."

[DDMurray]

If the facts are on your side, argue the facts.  If the law is on your side, argue the law.  If neither are on your side, just argue.

[Content1]

i give up, and yield to the naysayers.  While we are at it let's give up all technology to before the wheel was discovered and go back to the hunter-gathering stage.   The rest that was discovered since then is all an illusion of the "Dreamers" and never happened.  Uga-uga uga-cha-ga, cave man for "technology no good, me go kill saber tooth tiger for food."

[RAD-GHOST]

When we do our 20 mega joule shot, I will dedicate "The Dance" to you.

"The Dance"...I for one, can't wait!  Any chance of a preview?

Note:  At DOE sites we have preemployment drug screening and random screening.

Obviously not frequently enough!

I'm thinking this is a text book case of high altitude sickness......

RG...

[JustinHEMI05]

i give up, and yield to the naysayers.  While we are at it let's give up all technology to before the wheel was discovered and go back to the hunter-gathering stage.   The rest that was discovered since then is all an illusion of the "Dreamers" and never happened.  Uga-uga uga-cha-ga, cave man for "technology no good, me go kill saber tooth tiger for food."

Meh, don't let the nay sayers get you down. Just achieve, and I am am sure each of them will say thank you and congratulations.

[cupid2787]

Regarding Energy per fusion or per fission event what you say is right but if you consider the energy yield per unit mass of fuel atomic hydrogen in one case uranium (235 times massive) in another it is clear that thermonuclear reaction is much powerful. Of course fission reaction is first used to attain those temperature where fusion will start occurring. Once it starts the chain reaction mechanism will take over. Of course energy density may be large in case of fission as it is produced in a packed solid environment, whereas fusion will require huge confinement for equal power. Fusion also give rise to almost no radioactive pollution too, but still a workable fusion reactor is yet to take shape.

[RDTroja]

i give up, and yield to the naysayers.  While we are at it let's give up all technology to before the wheel was discovered and go back to the hunter-gathering stage.   The rest that was discovered since then is all an illusion of the "Dreamers" and never happened.  Uga-uga uga-cha-ga, cave man for "technology no good, me go kill saber tooth tiger for food."

You remind me of another poster on these pages that just doesn't understand debate. Not one single person here is a naysayer. Nobody says that fusion won't work... eventually. Not one individual has attacked the science or the technology... except to say it is not there yet. Most of us are very much into technology and technological advances and embrace the next improvement that comes along. You just can't work in a nuclear plant and be a Luddite at the same time. All we are saying is that it just isn't time yet to celebrate or start ramping up a technology that is still in the working theory stage. Someday soon, it will be there. But soon is a very relative term. Will we achieve more than second long fusion times in my lifetime? Probably (I am in my mid-fifties now... no telling how long my 'lifetime' is.) Will we be putting electricity on the grid from fusion in my lifetime? I doubt it, but I would love to be proved wrong. I guess my answer would be a hopeful maybe. But a hopeful maybe does not power lightbulbs or run an air conditioner and until fusion can do that, it remains an academic endeavor.

No one is putting your work down or saying that it is not useful. Someday it will be the way to generate electricity (unless someone like Tesla comes along and can figure out what he was really working on before he died.) For now, it is a big, expensive experiment that gives us a glimpse of what the future may bring. That in itself is good, but it doesn't spin a motor.

[JustinHEMI05]

Regarding Energy per fusion or per fission event what you say is right but if you consider the energy yield per unit mass of fuel atomic hydrogen in one case uranium (235 times massive) in another it is clear that thermonuclear reaction is much powerful. Of course fission reaction is first used to attain those temperature where fusion will start occurring. Once it starts the chain reaction mechanism will take over. Of course energy density may be large in case of fission as it is produced in a packed solid environment, whereas fusion will require huge confinement for equal power. Fusion also give rise to almost no radioactive pollution too, but still a workable fusion reactor is yet to take shape.

What? Thanks.

[HydroDave63]

Of course energy density may be large in case of fission as it is produced in a packed solid environment, whereas fusion will require huge confinement for equal power. Fusion also give rise to almost no radioactive pollution too, but still a workable fusion reactor is yet to take shape.

" Whiskey.. Tango....Foxtrot, Ghostrider..."

On-Topic: Fast neutron leakage. Discuss.

[HydroDave63]

We need a new material with no cross section for neutrons and engineered to handle the challenges of fusion!  Lets search for this magical material now so we are ready when we figure out fusion.

Our initial scans find large quantities of it in the rocks of Pandora. Let's call in BP 

[Fadge]

The only thing fusion has achieved is the H- Bomb  . Not anything close to a stable power source.

[HydroDave63]

Was the show in black and white, and was the Vietnam war still going on?  We are way past the problems of getting more energy then it costs to produce it, and on to the problems of how to practically use the excess energy. 

Livermore lab nears launch of fusion quest, though ignition not expected this month

By Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 09/20/2010 03:09:04 PM PDT
Updated: 09/20/2010 03:56:24 PM PDT

Within the next 10 days at a high-security building in Livermore the size of a football stadium, scientists will hunker down to conduct an experiment backed by billions of dollars and promises to change the world's energy supply.

The scientists at the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are preparing to meet an end-of-month deadline for the first set of experiments in the final stretch of a national effort to achieve the long-sought goal of fusion -- a reaction in which more energy is released than put into it.

Lab officials promised congressional funders that before Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2010, they would start "credible ignition experiments" in the enormous facility, which officially opened in spring 2009.

The facility's primary mission is to ensure the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear weapons stockpile through fusion experiments. If fusion is achieved, it also would open the door for research into unlimited sources of energy, such as using seawater as fuel, and would allow scientists to study celestial phenomena such as supernovas in new ways.

"And credible means that we have no reason to believe it's not going to work," Thomas D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the Livermore lab, told Sen. Dianne Feinstein during Congressional testimony in March.

Expressing doubt

However, most independent experts doubted that these first experiments this month would result in fusion ignition, according to a Government Accountability Office report released in the spring. Even Lynda Seaver, a lab spokeswoman, said this week that, in fact, there's no expectation of achieving ignition this month, given the composition of the fuel capsule at the heart of the experiment.

"This is not ignition. It will take a year or two to get ignition," she said.

How do you get excess energy when y'all don't even have sustained ignition?

[Content1]

We are working sometimes 12+ hour days to achieve this goal without complaint.  I have seen the effects from fusion, the next main goal is for the high yield shots that demonstrate the technology.  God willing, it will happen and all of mankind will mark that day it happens.

[Fermi2]

Pipe dream. It'll never happen.

[co60slr]

We are working sometimes 12+ hour days to achieve this goal without complaint.  I have seen the effects from fusion, the next main goal is for the high yield shots that demonstrate the technology.  God willing, it will happen and all of mankind will mark that day it happens.

Is your only addition to this thread (again) to be "golly, gee everyone....it's gunna happen!"

On the other hand, I hope you're right with billions of our tax dollars at stake.   It seems you have less than a week to prove it to congress.  http://www.physorg.com/news204484818.html

Shall we meet back here on Oct. 1st and see if you guys still have jobs there in your magical football stadium sized warehouse?

[HydroDave63]

Wait a sec! You can watch TV while you work?  I am not even allowed to have a radio that plays music.  I do have a fire brigade radio station.  Maybe I can get someone to sing me a song sometime on the back shift. 

If you were close enough, maybe I could buy an old transceiver on eBay (complete with dust and lint) that would allow me to play some country/western for you on NAWAS

[Content1]

:LINE: On the Path to Fusion Ignition: The National Ignition Facility Successfully Conducts First Integrated Experiment

Last night, Sept. 29, at 8:27 p.m., NIF fired its first integrated ignition experiment. This was the first in a series of shots that will lead up to conducting full-scale ignition experiments as part of the National Ignition Campaign.

This experiment demonstrated the integration of the complex systems required for an ignition campaign. All 192-laser beams fired 1 MJ of laser energy into the first cryogenically layered capsule. This capsule uses a mixture of tritium, hydrogen and deuterium tailored to enable the most comprehensive physics results, not to demonstrate ignition.  All systems operated successfully and 26 target diagnostics participated in the shot. From a system integration point of view, this experiment met all objectives.

The preliminary results of the target performance are very encouraging and are now being thoroughly analyzed. Over the next several days there will be more comprehensive information available.

This experiment signifies the completion of the FY 2010 National Ignition Campaign Level 1 Milestone. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the NNSA and the DOE for their support of this effort.

This achievement was made possible by efforts across the Laboratory and collaborations with the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at University of Rochester, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, and General Atomics. We also thank MIT, AWE and CEA and many others around our nation and the world for their contributions. I congratulate the NIC team for their dedication and skill, and the Laboratory employees who have made this possible.

This is a great moment in the 50-year history of Inertial Confinement Fusion. It represents significant progress in our ability to field complex experiments in support of our NNSA Stockpile Stewardship, DoD, fundamental science and energy missions.

Now ­ on to ignition!

George Miller

I am dreaming of a "Pipe" Christmas . . .

Special note to scoffers, we did it before the end of the fiscal year as promised the DOE.

[co60slr]

:LINE: On the Path to Fusion Ignition: The National Ignition Facility Successfully Conducts First Integrated Experiment

Last night, Sept. 29, at 8:27 p.m., NIF fired its first integrated ignition experiment. This was the first in a series of shots that will lead up to conducting full-scale ignition experiments as part of the National Ignition Campaign.

This experiment demonstrated the integration of the complex systems required for an ignition campaign. All 192-laser beams fired 1 MJ of laser energy into the first cryogenically layered capsule. This capsule uses a mixture of tritium, hydrogen and deuterium tailored to enable the most comprehensive physics results, not to demonstrate ignition.  All systems operated successfully and 26 target diagnostics participated in the shot. From a system integration point of view, this experiment met all objectives.

The preliminary results of the target performance are very encouraging and are now being thoroughly analyzed. Over the next several days there will be more comprehensive information available.

This experiment signifies the completion of the FY 2010 National Ignition Campaign Level 1 Milestone. I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the NNSA and the DOE for their support of this effort.

This achievement was made possible by efforts across the Laboratory and collaborations with the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at University of Rochester, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, and General Atomics. We also thank MIT, AWE and CEA and many others around our nation and the world for their contributions. I congratulate the NIC team for their dedication and skill, and the Laboratory employees who have made this possible.

This is a great moment in the 50-year history of Inertial Confinement Fusion. It represents significant progress in our ability to field complex experiments in support of our NNSA Stockpile Stewardship, DoD, fundamental science and energy missions.

Now ­ on to ignition!

George Miller

I am dreaming of a "Pipe" Christmas . . .

Special note to scoffers, we did it before the end of the fiscal year as promised the DOE.

Yeah...you did ANOTHER 1 MJ shot.  This time into a frozen pellet.  What happened?  Equipment operate as it did in January?  Anything new this time?  what is different between your Public Release today and the 1 MJ shot you did in January 2010?

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/2010/01/national-ignition-facility-rea.html

I'm not scoffing Fusion Experiments...there are several in progress around the world.  I'm scoffing you sounding like a wild-eyed, frenzy-haired, NYC street corner preacher who can only cut/paste from his Lab's website propaganda with the biggest argument, debate, or shred of technical information being "...we'll show you!".

Give me a break.  Do you have anything to offer other than a Tweeter newsfeed and your personal emotion?   Neither of which represents the "question the facts" attitude of healthy nuclear professionals.

For example, without any emotion, I challenge you to "teach" us exactly what the Milestone 1 attributes where, the critical parameters required for success, and what the actual values were achieved.  At the conclusion of the experiment, what are the top 5 concerns that were learned?   

Or did everyone turn off the lasers and with their Federal funding saved (for now), head out for a cold brew?

[Content1]

Quoting from you own blurb:

"A new direction

The next step is to move to ignition-like fuel capsules that require the fuel to be in a frozen hydrogen layer (at 19 Kelvin or −218 °C) inside the fuel capsule. NIF is currently being made ready to begin experiments with ignition-like fuel capsules in the summer of 2010.

NIF, the world's largest laser facility, is the first facility expected to achieve fusion ignition and energy gain in a laboratory setting."

As promised, we actually did an experiment with an ignition like fuel capsule as promised for 2010.   What they are doing now is starving the capsule of deuterium to insure the ignition is controlled.   They will slowly ramp up the percentage of dueterium until a tritium-deuterium is at a 50-50 mix over the next 2 years.   This is what they do at the lab level.   You do an experiment with controlled variables and insure that what you do is repeatable in other labs (Not like "cold Fusion.")  They already have plans to shrink the 2 football field laser array into the size of a motorhome, called "NIF in a box."   At that size it commercial potential become apparent.   Not, this is a lot more boring then the Wright Brothers or Edison with his bulb.  But as each milestone is achieved, it is as sure at the price of Gold will rise.

[co60slr]

Quoting from you own blurb:

"A new direction

The next step is to move to ignition-like fuel capsules that require the fuel to be in a frozen hydrogen layer (at 19 Kelvin or −218 °C) inside the fuel capsule. NIF is currently being made ready to begin experiments with ignition-like fuel capsules in the summer of 2010.

NIF, the world's largest laser facility, is the first facility expected to achieve fusion ignition and energy gain in a laboratory setting."

As promised, we actually did an experiment with an ignition like fuel capsule as promised for 2010.   What they are doing now is starving the capsule of deuterium to insure the ignition is controlled.   They will slowly ramp up the percentage of dueterium until a tritium-deuterium is at a 50-50 mix over the next 2 years.   This is what they do at the lab level.   You do an experiment with controlled variables and insure that what you do is repeatable in other labs (Not like "cold Fusion.")  They already have plans to shrink the 2 football field laser array into the size of a motorhome, called "NIF in a box."   At that size it commercial potential become apparent.   Not, this is a lot more boring then the Wright Brothers or Edison with his bulb.  But as each milestone is achieved, it is as sure at the price of Gold will rise.

Answer the challenge in the thread or live on as a cut/paste wack-job.

What were the metrics for your Milestone 1?  What were the objectives for Milestone 1, acceptance criteria, which ones were not met, why, what are the technological concerns now?

I want to know what my billions in tax dollars got me on 09/29/2010.  All I'm reading above is that over the next two years, another 8-10 figures of money will fly in the form of Grants.

Build your machine.  I love movies....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/

"Why build one when through government contracts, you can build two?"

Co58

[co60slr]

Still no reply.  Here, let me help.  The is the best quote yet from one of your own MIT educated research scientists: 

"The energy potential is there, for sure," Petrasso said. "The question is about practical implementation. There are a lot of ... issues that have to be dealt with to turn it into a reactor that makes energy."

Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/laser-fusion-ignition/#ixzz12T4x02hH

Now THAT sounds like a typical quote from a fusion scientist that I'm used to hearing.   Nothing new here.

Otherwise, assuming the "1000s of obstacles" are overcome (at what cost to taxpayers), they might be connected to a grid and preventing California brown-outs and rolling blackouts by 2030 or 2040.

[OldHP]

We, the USA, started experimenting with the possibility of "Fusion Power" with "Project Matterhorn" (when I was in grade school) which became PPPL - D&D'd in the 90s.  It is still the dream of many - clean, efficient, etc!  However, the fact at this point is it costs more energy than it can produce.

I'd still prefer to live next door to a NPP than a Coal Burner!   

[Content1]

I will not say much anymore, nobody likes to hear that fusion might work.   The fusion that won't work is close to crossing the break-even point by the summer (High yield shots).   The say they have a system for "fast fusion" that is made to strike after the already successful compression method to heat the target faster.   Of course none of this will work, I am at the lab and crazy with the rest of them.   I happen to be one of the technicians that takes samples from the imaginary fusion to see how much converted to Helium.   Of course I never see anything like neutron activation, it is in my head.   Their plans to make a power generation system the size of a railroad car that can power a small city is also imaginary. I do agree with the previous post, I would rather have an imaginary fusion power generation next to me compared to a CO2 belching coal plant.   I ride my bike to and from work.  Fusion produces no green house gases that will slowly kill us all.   But since fusion is imaginary, and the plant they are building in France that copies us shows how foolish the French investors are.   And the ability to test nuclear weapons without blowing them up is also imaginary.   How did we ever talk most all the Senators from both parties to build this?

[RDTroja]

I will not say much anymore, nobody likes to hear that fusion might work.   The fusion that won't work is close to crossing the break-even point by the summer (High yield shots).   The say they have a system for "fast fusion" that is made to strike after the already successful compression method to heat the target faster.   Of course none of this will work, I am at the lab and crazy with the rest of them.   I happen to be one of the technicians that takes samples from the imaginary fusion to see how much converted to Helium.   Of course I never see anything like neutron activation, it is in my head.   Their plans to make a power generation system the size of a railroad car that can power a small city is also imaginary. I do agree with the previous post, I would rather have an imaginary fusion power generation next to me compared to a CO2 belching coal plant.   I ride my bike to and from work.  Fusion produces no green house gases that will slowly kill us all.   But since fusion is imaginary, and the plant they are building in France that copies us shows how foolish the French investors are.   And the ability to test nuclear weapons without blowing them up is also imaginary.   How did we ever talk most all the Senators from both parties to build this?

If you have it stuck in your head that everyone is against you, there will be no convincing you otherwise. You are just going to cry the 'Boo-Hoo nobody believes me' song until you make yourself look pathetic. Nobody disbelieves in Fusion. Yes, it is a physical fact, yes there is science behind it, yes the things that you see are real. When it starts to put electrons on the grid it will be a viable source of energy, and not before. Period. I hope that I am alive to see it, but I am not so sure I will. So to me it is a nice theory that will not gain anything that I will be able to appreciate. Meanwhile we work on putting as many of those electrons on the grid from our existing clean, no greenhouse source of energy as we can. Good luck to the future, but my bet is on someone figuring out how to harvest the energy that the sun gives us freely, rather than trying to duplicate it here. It makes more sense to take what is there rather than try to reinvent it. Fusion may be the future, but it could just as easily be relegated to the 'nice experiment' pile (fission will be in the 'helped get us to the next step' pile) when we figure out how to efficiently tap the energy we are all awash in already.

Don't take it so personally. At the very least it is an experiment that will add to the human knowledge bank and possibly benefit us in ways we can't see yet. At best it will be the next temporary source of energy that will last until something better comes along. In either case (or somewhere in between) it won't be anything more than a part of history that we may or may not be able to witness.

And the power plant that OldHP was referring to as 'a NPP' more likely broke atoms than welded them together.

[Content1]

There is nothing in France of which you speak that copies the NIF, in Europe there are feasibility studies being funded;

In October 2008, Hiper received approximately 13m euros of funding to carry out a feasibility study. It also has access to European hardware and capability worth a further 50m euros.

If all goes well, engineers will begin to build the Hiper facility towards the end of the next decade, bringing the vision of a commercial fusion reactor one step closer to reality.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7972865.stm

In France they are building ITER, which is a magnetic, not laser, containment scheme;

http://www.iter.org/

What about this?  http://www.hiper-laser.org/

If we have no competition, all the better when it is made to work for the USA to win at something again, like we used to do in the past.  The fusions lasers are able to, in theory:

1)  Direct power with heat transfer to boil water like a nuke reactor
2)  Develop Gamma ray lasers that can see even through lead to inspect cargo containers at high speed to detect things like nuclear bombs from terrorists
3)  With the proliferation treaties, to test nuclear material without blowing it up at a test site (Now illegal)
4)  Covert the nuclear waste from nuclear plants from being stored and overflowing into usable for energy from the high energy neutron from fusion
5)  It will not just make helium from tritium and deuterium, but nothing holds it back like in the sun in layers, it may go, in small quantities, all the way up to iron giving us research in the process of stars.
6)  Other projects that have not been shared to date, but in demand as the lab is booked for experiments for the next two years from paying customers.

Remember, this is a lab and you never know what you find when start research in areas that have never been attempted before.   This is one of the few things left we still produce in the USA.   Let us not forget we are on the verge of having usable lasers on ships to intercept incoming missiles to protect them during attack at hundreds of miles away.   We in the USA have got to do the research and development if we want to stay the best in the world.   The Roman Empire, before it fell, did not have much research and development and eventually fell from their short-sightedness. 

[Content1]

Completed a high yield shot and working towards even higher shots at the NIF.  Solving the confinement problems in spite of what Harvard University said would make fusion impossible.  It is just a matter of time.

[RDTroja]

Completed a high yield shot and working towards even higher shots at the NIF.  Solving the confinement problems in spite of what Harvard University said would make fusion impossible.  It is just a matter of time.

That's pretty much what the rest of us have been saying all along.

The BIG question is... how much time? I figure I have 30 years at the outside left for it (i.e. significant energy source) to happen in my lifetime... and I would love to see it but I am not holding my breath.

[MacGyver]

Completed a high yield shot and working towards even higher shots at the NIF.  Solving the confinement problems in spite of what Harvard University said would make fusion impossible.  It is just a matter of time.

[thenukeman]

I said this in 2009,  Man I can see Content1 In 2059, 50 years from now, Telling Content 3 his Grandson that in 50 years the Fusion problem will be solved.  So Content 3 hold down the fort until 2109 for Content 5.

Solar, Wind and fusion seem to be in the same useless pile.

As I said before  I believe Anti-Matter problem will be solved before the fusion problem.

Just the humble opinion of a Certified Health Physicist part 1, NRRPT.

[MacGyver]

I said this in 2009,  Man I can see Content1 In 2059, 50 years from now, Telling Content 3 his Grandson that in 50 years the Fusion problem will be solved.  So Content 3 hold down the fort until 2109 for Content 5.

Solar, Wind and fusion seem to be in the same useless pile.

As I said before  I believe Anti-Matter problem will be solved before the fusion problem.

Just the humble opinion of a Certified Health Physicist part 1, NRRPT.

I am certain that Content 5's response will be something like the ending of this:

Not that I am an expert on this sort of thing.  Parenting that is.

[Content1]

I said this in 2009,  Man I can see Content1 In 2059, 50 years from now, Telling Content 3 his Grandson that in 50 years the Fusion problem will be solved.  So Content 3 hold down the fort until 2109 for Content 5.

Solar, Wind and fusion seem to be in the same useless pile.

As I said before  I believe Anti-Matter problem will be solved before the fusion problem.

Just the humble opinion of a Certified Health Physicist part 1, NRRPT.

Well there is a us for the NRRPT certification, that is, to talk about subject not in you specialty.  How many fusion questions were on the NRRPT?  I best just as many as there was for anti-matter.  I had the honor to log in the results of a 450,000,000,000,000 neutron shot that came from the fusion of tritium and deuterium, not fissile material needed here.  Let me see, I got a teaching credential, does that make my opinion better?  It won't be 50 years, it will more be like this summer where we are producing high yields.   It is taking a while to insure the methods are 99.99% reproducible, not like that cold fusion farce of years ago.  If you really thought we couldn't do it, you would be clamoring to your representative in Congress and the DOE.   It is precisely that it is working is why the research continues.

[thenukeman]

Yes, and the Congress people are that intelligent to know what to invest in like solar, wind, ethanol, etc. They will believe what the next clown says as  long as it gets votes in their district.

You may be right about lasers though, my understanding is that lasers are  cheaper to  seperate U235 from U238 than the centrifuge process with the new developments in laser technology.  Heard they may open a laser separation facility in Oak Ridge TN.    They had a old one with old laser technology that did not work cost effectively.  This new technology is suppose to work great.  We will see.  

The temperature problem seems to be too much of a hurdle to overcome for fusion.

[thenuttyneutron]

Well there is a us for the NRRPT certification, that is, to talk about subject not in you specialty.  How many fusion questions were on the NRRPT?  I best just as many as there was for anti-matter.  I had the honor to log in the results of a 450,000,000,000,000 neutron shot that came from the fusion of tritium and deuterium, not fissile material needed here.  Let me see, I got a teaching credential, does that make my opinion better?  It won't be 50 years, it will more be like this summer where we are producing high yields.   It is taking a while to insure the methods are 99.99% reproducible, not like that cold fusion farce of years ago.  If you really thought we couldn't do it, you would be clamoring to your representative in Congress and the DOE.   It is precisely that it is working is why the research continues.

Raise that neutron count up by a factor of 500000 and you will be at about what a power reactor can produce every second.

[HousePuke]

I currently work at NIF and I'm quite certain we will not see viable fusion on a power producing scale for some time to come. 
While the place is very interesting, and I believe the research is very valuable, I'm not ready to declare that fusion has arrived.

I did see some interesting samples of activation from the last shot though.

[thenuttyneutron]

Content1,

Fusion may become a reality for making electrical power in the future.  You let us know when we get there.  In the mean time I will continue to use a reverse fusion reactor to make electrical power.  Those prehistoric supernovas that made the materials that I am now reverse fusing are just accomplishing the same task of raising the binding energies of the fuel.

-TNN

[Content1]

Whether it becomes a power source soon, I am still amazed by the fact when you fire 192 lasers at an empty target, no neutrons, put some deuterium and tritium the size of a pencil eraser, it produces 100,000+ Rem from a shot lasting 20 billionth of a second with an instantaneous lethal dose and through activation to get a sensor reading 12+ miliremon contact.   Those 7e14 total neutrons (Latest shot) are coming from somewhere and compared with the magnetic confinement this is something.  The compression of the hydrogen isotopes are greater then the center of Jupiter and the research is comparable to the work done in the LHC in Switzerland.  If we perfect fusion for commercial use, called L.I.F.E., all the better.

[Gamma Glue]

"CERN scientists trapped  dangerously slippery antimatter for a record 1000 seconds (or 17 minutes), a huge achievement in terms of antimatter confinement."

Isn't that longer then we have sustained fusion? Maybe Antimatter will win after all...

The WB-D 100MW reactor is the most promissing fusion design, currently. One of the applications is to provide the power necessary to propell a VASMIR rocket to Mars in 39 days, which would be a good shift since the shuttle is no longer in use. Plus the WB-D would only cost $200 Mil. for a 100 MW reactor, instead of the $18+ Bil. already spent on the Tokamak. NIF is a good idea, but until they hire DR. Otto Octavius, I don't see them having sustainable fusion happening any time soon.
Maybe Thiago Olson has modified the fusion reactor in his basement.....

[Marlin]

   I did not know that anyone had picked up Bussard's work. I don't see how this design will be used for anything in the near future though as it is still in the proof of concept stage.


http://www.fusor.net/files/EMC2_FusionToPost.pdf

[Gamma Glue]

You posted a link to an article that was written in 2008.

Try this http://emc2fusion.org/
and
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/10/6619613-fusion-goes-forward-from-the-fringe

[Marlin]

You posted a link to an article that was written in 2008.

Try this http://emc2fusion.org/
and
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/10/6619613-fusion-goes-forward-from-the-fringe

I saw both of those while searching, there is still nothing new really just more work on establishing the plasma fields. I still looks like it is a ways off to fusion much less self sustaining power. There must be some promise to it if the Navy is investing though.

[thenukeman]

I agree with Gamma Glue, there is a chance that antimatter will beat fusion.   The CERN trapped antimatter for 1000 seconds as Gamma Glue said, more here

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110605191458.htm

If this can beconfined a little longer this could  be like nuke med, you make this and fly it or drive it to a antimatter reactor.   Then the exact quantity could be made.   If you really make it easy to make each site could have a plant that made this,  probably needs to  be like Canada and have abot 8 reactors on a site.   If I remember right, a piece of U235  that is eqivalent in size to a piece of coal has about 3 million times its power, fusion material, about 12 million times and Anti-matter is about 1.2 billion times. 


Time to go for the gold!! 1.2 billion times power and little waste.   Shut down the fusion, wind, solar, research and go antimatter.  Be like going to  the moon have it  done end of this decade.   Beginning of the 60's Kennedy  set the moon as a goal and we acheived it. Real energy independence would be antimatter.

[Higgs]

Plus we could build starships! Antimatter ftw!

[Gamma Glue]

Plus we could build starships! Antimatter ftw!

Antimatter as a power source wouldn't dictate that necessarily, we would still need an engine powerful/efficient enough to be designed. The VASMIR is the closest thing out there, and it's not even ready yet.
http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/

[Higgs]

You're like a constant downer, huh? 

[thenukeman]

Antimatter engines, the ICAN needs only  190 nano grams to fly to Mars.  The Aim star is below the ICAN, designed to fly from this solar system.  More here from Penn State and NASA.

http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/introduction2.html


And if you lose a tool in space, break it or left it on earth. A replicator can go with you to make it.   This is real!!!!   I do  not think it can replicate Anti-protons yet though 

[Content1]

We better not give up fusion.  We have given up our space program, let the accelerator go to Europe, what is left of any technological innovation here? 

[HydroDave63]

We better not give up fusion.  We have given up our space program, let the accelerator go to Europe, what is left of any technological innovation here?  

Why, mandatory apple slices instead of fries in the Happy Meal , we have most of the world's social networking sites and Snooki got a neck brace last episode. What could be better, I ask you!?!

On-topic: Personally I'm glad the Euros built the Completely Erroneous Ridiculous Numbers (CERN) project. Let them waste tens of billions on a gizmo while they keep making WAGs about what they even look for: "From previous work, the Higgs boson was thought to have a mass somewhere between 114 and 185GeV (gigaelectronvolts) – one GeV is roughly equivalent to the mass of a proton, a subatomic particle found in atomic nuclei. The Atlas team reported a Higgs-like bump in their data between 120 and 140GeV. In a later session, the CMS group announced two bumps in the same region."  So, rather than the good old days when chumps like Fermi , Lawrence and Einstein had to have the math that worked on positron energies, neutron thermalization etc. BEFORE they cut metal, vs. these Gen Y wannabes that want to build it, run to for a year, and then declare success. It's like me nailing a big ol sheet of paper in the backyard, shooting it a box of .22s , find a clump of coincidental holes, circling it with a Sharpie, and awarding myself the Olympic Gold Medal in Triathalon!

If you want fusion, then look at the SPAWAR LENR experiments. Lightning giving off positron annhilation gammas, without a fancy accelerator or 192 lasers. We were closer to fusion with the Farnsworth Fusor, than with the Tokamak. Meanwhile, we spend billions supporting the orbiting treehouse Irrelevant Soviet Subsidy (ISS), and SPAWAR lives on table scraps. That's the outrage!

[Gamma Glue]

Wow. So much hate and sarcasm.... I'm overloaded.

I thought the purpose of CERN was to find the HIGGS boson that theory and math already proved should be there. If they don't find it then it's back to the drawing board since the higgs boson is supposed to be the particle that determines the mass of other particles.
What I liked about the ISS was that the US bought a $1 million toilet from Russia to use on the space station... kinda defeats the purpose of international ownership and sharing of technologies if you ask me. I say they spend the money on Bigelow Aerospace and their private space stations. (They already have two unmanned ones in orbit for testing)
http://bigelowaerospace.com/
They use old forgotten NASA technology, that works better and is cheaper to make.

We were closer to fusion with the Farnsworth Fusor, than with the Tokamak.

Since the WB type reactors from EMC2 are based on the Farnsworth Fusor, I would have to agree.

[Higgs]

As my username implies, I am very much interested in the particle world, and I was saddened when Clinton killed the super conducting super collider and I am saddened that NASA is pretty much defunct. I agree, we should be pursuing new technologies and pushing human understanding of the universe to the edge.

America has chosen to take the path of entitlement, laziness and thoughtlessness. We have decided to leave it to other to innovate.

Sad.

Justin

[Starkist]

We better not give up fusion.  We have given up our space program, let the accelerator go to Europe, what is left of any technological innovation here? 

Unfortunately, "US of Americans" (sic) are more interested in ipads and angry birds then nuclear power. Hopefully we can turn our economy to developing worthwhile technology instead of ways to make us fatter and lazier....

[Gamma Glue]

Higgs field video.

[Content1]

Thank for the video.  If we find these particles, is there a way to harness this knowledge to do things we cannot do now?

[Content1]

Unfortunately, "US of Americans" (sic) are more interested in ipads and angry birds then nuclear power. Hopefully we can turn our economy to developing worthwhile technology instead of ways to make us fatter and lazier....

     I hope you are speaking for yourself.  There are plenty of American still doing things, striving to do better, sharing knowledge and creating new things.  We just have a government that rewards the people you described above.  We can always come back to our senses and run this country life our forefathers did.  When we as a nation go bankrupt, what rises out of the chaos will be the hard workers bringing us back to our place in the world.

[Starkist]

     I hope you are speaking for yourself.  There are plenty of American still doing things, striving to do better, sharing knowledge and creating new things.  We just have a government that rewards the people you described above.  We can always come back to our senses and run this country life our forefathers did.  When we as a nation go bankrupt, what rises out of the chaos will be the hard workers bringing us back to our place in the world.

Uh no. We are in the Ipod, facebook, and Youtube generation. We drop billions a year into social networking, if nuclear fusion research had a quarter of the funding those things did, Im sure we'd have reactors by now. You have a GM account, start a polysci thread. This is a fusion chat, not politics anyway.

Thank for the video.  If we find these particles, is there a way to harness this knowledge to do things we cannot do now?

Proof of theoretical concepts? Um... yes?



relax cochise...

[HydroDave63]

Higgs field video.

Higgs bosons: the cosmic packing peanuts that are wedged between James Clerk Maxwell's "luminiferous corpuscles of ether".

and for you Michelson-Morley fans out there....

"The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field."

    * Albert Einstein, as quoted in New Scientist, Vol. 130 (1991), p. 49

[thenuttyneutron]

Higgs bosons: the cosmic packing peanuts that are wedged between James Clerk Maxwell's "luminiferous corpuscles of ether".

and for you Michelson-Morley fans out there....

"The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field."

   * Albert Einstein, as quoted in New Scientist, Vol. 130 (1991), p. 49

The physics allusion of the periodic table

The math is beyond me (maybe I could have understood it before the knowledge decayed away), but it does fit with the particles that we have seen in high energy experiments.  We just have not seen them all.  

Mendeleev came up with the periodic table of elements and it explained the chemical nature of the elements.  He even predicted elemental properties of stuff that had not even been discovered yet.  Probe deeper and you get the chart of the nuclides which explains the nuclear properties of the many different isotopes.  Probe even deeper and you may get the "An Exceptional Theory of Everything".  I want this theory tested some more to see if it can hold up to some rigorous experiments.

I would also rank Maxwell up at the top of my list of greatest scientists ever.  Maxwell, Faraday, Fermi and Tesla would all rank above Einstein IMHO.  Maxwell indirectly gave me my job.  Maxwell had a theory that was debunked and that will never diminish his other scientific work.

[Gamma Glue]

Thank for the video.  If we find these particles, is there a way to harness this knowledge to do things we cannot do now?

They could also find a Higgs Singlet in their search for the Boson. Read about it http://news.discovery.com/space/could-higgs-go-back-in-time-kill-its-grandfather-110316.html. Finding the Higgs boson will prove current theories and lead us to understanding more about the world around us. Not sure what everyday use it will be...

Back on topic of Fusion vs Fission, I've read some about a traveling wave reactor. Is that a worth while idea?

[Starkist]

They could also find a Higgs Singlet in their search for the Boson. Read about it http://news.discovery.com/space/could-higgs-go-back-in-time-kill-its-grandfather-110316.html. Finding the Higgs boson will prove current theories and lead us to understanding more about the world around us. Not sure what everyday use it will be...

Back on topic of Fusion vs Fission, I've read some about a traveling wave reactor. Is that a worth while idea?

is that the reactor bill gates is funding?

[RDTroja]

They could also find a Higgs Singlet in their search for the Boson. Read about it http://news.discovery.com/space/could-higgs-go-back-in-time-kill-its-grandfather-110316.html. Finding the Higgs boson will prove current theories and lead us to understanding more about the world around us. Not sure what everyday use it will be...

Back on topic of Fusion vs Fission, I've read some about a traveling wave reactor. Is that a worth while idea?

Impossible... George Harrison and Roy Orbison are both dead. Oh... wait... that was the Traveling Wilburys... never mind.

[Gamma Glue]

is that the reactor bill gates is funding?

Yes.

[Content1]

Fusion is in kind a a plateau.  When you start to collapse the sample the lasers get out of focus as the target is compressed and the reaction is not as efficient.  We need a way to move them in as the sample is compressed.   At higher laser powers to get the higher yields, the optics imperfection slowly destroy the optics preventing the high yield.  We have come far, but it seems we have far to go.

[GLW]

Fusion is in kind a a plateau.....

Has been,....

For pret' near 60 years,...

Ah well,...

[HydroDave63]

Fusion is in kind a a plateau.  When you start to collapse the sample the lasers get out of focus as the target is compressed and the reaction is not as efficient.  We need a way to move them in as the sample is compressed.   At higher laser powers to get the higher yields, the optics imperfection slowly destroy the optics preventing the high yield.  We have come far, but it seems we have far to go.

When using an incorrect process, that is usually the result. Good scientists would back up and rework the theory before the next experiments. Alchemists, political hack pseudo-scientists (such as  Trofim Lysenko) and snake-oil salesmen would just keep adding whistles and bells.

And whatever happened to the Fusion Happy Dance of 2010??? :

Like in the movie, "Evan Almighty" when we are successful this year I will do the "Dance" and dedicate it to the naysayers like yourself.   We are so close and I am there, you are not to know or base an opinion.  I suppose you think the Moon Landing were done in a studio too.

[Rennhack]

Fusion is in kind a a plateau.  ....  We have come far, but it seems we have far to go.

Um...  We told you so.

[thenukeman]

Let's Defund Fusion Now!!! Make Matter -Anti Matter reactors!!!!

It is time to go for real power!! If I remember right, a piece of U235  that is eqivalent in size to a piece of coal has about 3 million times its power, fusion material, about 12 million times and Anti-matter is about 1.2 billion times.  


Time to go for the gold!! 1.2 billion times power and little waste.   Shut down the fusion, wind, solar, research and go antimatter.  Be like going to  the moon have it  done end of this decade.   Beginning of the 60's Kennedy  set the moon as a goal and we acheived it. Real energy independence would be antimatter.

[Content1]

Um...  We told you so.

I have invested a lot of time into fusion.  I will be disappointed if it ultimately fails not because it is a job to me.  We know it works on the Sun.  Making a working piece of the Sun is not so easy.  We should all hope it works someday, we can't build more nukes, Democrats want to shutdown coal, and oil is out the roof in price, solar has failed like the 1/2 billion spent on that "green energy" company that went bankrupt, wind kills migrating bird and doesn't blow enough to work without massive government subsidies, and it takes more energy to produce the ethanol from corn then we derive from its use.   Fusion we can destroy the Hydrogen to make helium that will have little impact on the Earth.  Helium will float away.  We have 6.5 billion on the Earth and growing.  We are destined for tragedy of starvation and lack of water unless we can achieve a balance somehow.

[thenukeman]

Karma to you Content for coming to reality on Fusion and the difficulties in sustaining it.  I hope like you that it will come to reality soon. Right now it does not seem like a reality in the near future.

[thenuttyneutron]

I have invested a lot of time into fusion.  I will be disappointed if it ultimately fails not because it is a job to me.  We know it works on the Sun.  Making a working piece of the Sun is not so easy.  We should all hope it works someday, we can't build more nukes, Democrats want to shutdown coal, and oil is out the roof in price, solar has failed like the 1/2 billion spent on that "green energy" company that went bankrupt, wind kills migrating bird and doesn't blow enough to work without massive government subsidies, and it takes more energy to produce the ethanol from corn then we derive from its use.   Fusion we can destroy the Hydrogen to make helium that will have little impact on the Earth.  Helium will float away.  We have 6.5 billion on the Earth and growing.  We are destined for tragedy of starvation and lack of water unless we can achieve a balance somehow.

Using the proven technology of fission and breeder reactor technology using more advanced fuel cycles, we could buy time to allow a better technology to replace it. 

Maybe on day we will have fusion.  We need energy now if we want to keep our progress going and I see nothing better than fission with today's technology.  I just want to move past Light Water Reactors and go with safer designs.

[Marlin]

The Brits seem to think we are on the right track with laser compression.

The UK has formally joined forces with a US laser lab in a bid to develop clean energy from nuclear fusion.

Unlike fission plants, the process uses lasers to compress atomic nuclei until they join, releasing energy.

The National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US is drawing closer to producing a surplus of energy from the idea.

The UK company AWE and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have now joined with Nif to help make laser fusion a viable commercial energy source.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14842720

[HydroDave63]

The Brits seem to think we are on the right track with laser compression.

The UK has formally joined forces with a US laser lab in a bid to develop clean energy from nuclear fusion.

Unlike fission plants, the process uses lasers to compress atomic nuclei until they join, releasing energy.

The National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US is drawing closer to producing a surplus of energy from the idea.

The UK company AWE and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have now joined with Nif to help make laser fusion a viable commercial energy source.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14842720

Since the Internet is forever....

I'll wager a steak dinner that the Brit AWE experiments fail to acheive break-even as well.

Sonofusion , as shown by RPI,can be demonstrated on a small scale using lower tech. The point being that even sonofusion uses lower input energy and exploits already existing EM phenomena on a small-scale. Another example is a lightning bolt, as cited earlier. There is no massive magnetic confinement, just a huge density of ionization and plasma that facilitates fusion during the ground-cloud charge motion. Trying to force fusion with higher and higher input energies won't work for the same reason that the first fissioning of uranium was at low-energy and using tabletop equipment  The best thermal neutron for U-235 doesnt come from CERN or a tokamak, but rather a pokey 0.025 eV neutron.

Tesla, Maxwell and Farnsworth together in a lab could have gotten us LENR fusion by now.  The key isn't the laser, it is truly understanding what an electron is or is not.

[Chimera]

We know it works on the Sun.  Making a working piece of the Sun is not so easy.

Actually, the scientists that study the sun keep getting amazed by what they are discovering.  This trail of "not knowing" goes all the way back to early neutrino experiments and is as new as the stars they've discovered that they claim shouldn't exist (see Astronomy picture of the day last week).  I'm of the personal opinion that, while they may have a working hypothesis for what the sun does, they really don't know enough yet to make fusion work here in a laboratory.

[Higgs]

We may not have hot fusion anytime soon, but we should have full scale cold fusion "energy catalyzers" any day now.  

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-italian-scientists-cold-fusion-video.html

http://sourceofrealnews.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/andrea-rossis-and-sergio-focardis-cold-fusion-reactor-status-update/

Justin

PS I was banned from a "prepper" website for refuting the claims of these "scientists."

[Mounder]

Higgs is dead.

September 12, 2011 - McGill Daily - There's probably no God (particle) - During the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics hosted in late-July at Grenoble, the latest data from the world's most powerful particle accelerator was presented. After years of waiting for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to be built and brought up to operational levels, and after numerous frustrating technical setbacks, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was ready to present its first tenuous conclusions about the Higgs boson. It was there that they dropped the bombshell: CERN had effectively ruled out its probable existence with a 95 per cent certainty rate.   The Higgs boson, popularly known as the "god particle" because of its supposed role in endowing all everything in the universe with mass, has been furiously searched for since the postulation of its existence in 1964. The Standard Model predicts a menagerie of subatomic particles, of these, the Higgs boson is the only one yet to be confirmed. As a scientific theory, the Standard Model is the most thoroughly tested in all of human history. It successfully unites electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force that keeps atomic nuclei together, and the weak nuclear force that controls radioactive decay under one theoretical framework. The Standard Model essentially says that all matter in the universe is composed of varying combinations of fundamental units called fermions of which there are two types: quarks and leptons. There are six flavours of quarks and leptons respectively, with antiparticles for each. The combination of these 24 different fermions is what gives rise to the matter in the universe. Particles such as protons are composite particles; those made from different quark combinations are collectively referred to as "hadrons".

[Higgs]

Well then, I guess a name change is in order.

[Rennhack]

Best Site Ever:  http://particleadventure.org/

[thenukeman]

The Standard Model went awry!! No Higgs Boson!!  We need new Physics to Explain!!!  In the Rap.  It is funny and Acurate.

Start at 2:40 for Higgs-Boson Explaination.

[thenukeman]

The thorium car 8 grams thorium 300,000 miles.   1 gram  for 40,000 miles approximately.    


http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/09/19/us-company-developing-radioactive-steam-powered-car-engine/

[thenukeman]

With Thorium at 150 dollars an ounce or about 5 dollars a gram this will be equivalent to less than a penny per gallon. 

http://www.hobart.k12.in.us/ksms/PeriodicTable/thorium.htm Cost of thorium. Help!!!!! AIEEEEEEEEEE, The Gas Companies and  pipe line companies have captured me.    They are buying this up and putting it up on the shelf.  HMMMMMF they are putting a muzzle on ME HHMMMMMMMFFFF.

[Higgs]

It is cool to see people thinking outside the box, but alas, we are a long way away me thinks. From your article;

"Sadly, Kulesus hadn't actually invented a thorium engine that worked – it was purely a concept, but one with some merit."

[Content1]

I have to admit the naysayers were right.  The closer they get to fusion, the more the problems multiply.  I have cast off my hopes and realize it is another governmen bonndoggle at taxpayer expense.  I take back anything I said in all previous posts.

[HydroDave63]

I have to admit the naysayers were right.  The closer they get to fusion, the more the problems multiply.  I have cast off my hopes and realize it is another governmen bonndoggle at taxpayer expense.  I take back anything I said in all previous posts.

Here is an article you might enjoy, related to that same fusion-dark energy orthodoxy...

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8qx7sc1r

[thenukeman]

Karma  to you Content1 for coming to the realization that Fusion is not possible now.  I wish people would learn that about wind and solar, That it sounds good but is not viable large scale.  We need Coal and Fission for awhile until something better comes up.

[withroaj]

Jefferson Labs seems to think fusion could be commercially viable by 2040.  That sounds like a long shot, but time flies when you're having fun.

http://wwwold.jlab.org/intralab/calendar/phys_seminar/2011/111019%20MCZ%20JLab%20colloq.pdf

[atomicarcheologist]

Jefferson Labs seems to think fusion could be commercially viable by 2040.  That sounds like a long shot, but time flies when you're having fun.

http://wwwold.jlab.org/intralab/calendar/phys_seminar/2011/111019%20MCZ%20JLab%20colloq.pdf

Twenty eight years?  But it's unrealistic to drill for more oil when that product won't get on the market for ten years.
Time drags when you're miserable, so if gasoline goes to $10 a gallon, we'll have all the time we need to perfect fusion.  Perhaps get it on a small scale so everyone can have their own in their backyard, car, bass boat, etc.!

[withroaj]

Twenty eight years?  But it's unrealistic to drill for more oil when that product won't get on the market for ten years.
Time drags when you're miserable, so if gasoline goes to $10 a gallon, we'll have all the time we need to perfect fusion.  Perhaps get it on a small scale so everyone can have their own in their backyard, car, bass boat, etc.!

You're right on that one.  The longest sustained "big" fusion reaction I've been able to find was 17MW for about 5 seconds.  If the reaction itself isn't even proven self-sustainable yet how long would it be until we can generate electricity from it?  2040 seems optimistic and our energy consumption continues to expand (as it should in advanced civilizations).

[UncaBuffalo]

...our energy consumption continues to expand (as it should in advanced civilizations).

PolySci?  







(Full Disclosure:  As a Dyed-in-the-Wool Voluntary Minimalist, I do disagree with your statement...)

Modified to add disclosure...

[withroaj]

PolySci?  

Not at all.  Even if it's just for the simple economics of it, I actively work to conserve in my day-to-day life.  When I talk about expansion in energy consumption I don't believe for a second that we shouldn't all work for better, more efficient ways to make it happen.  I like to think of a 1957 speech from a young visionary in the world of atomic energy.  He moved on to become a legend in one leg of the nuclear industry.

...Possession of surplus energy is, of course, a requisite for any kind of civilization, for if man possesses merely the energy of his own muscles, he must expend all his strength - mental and physical - to obtain the bare necessities of life.

...A reduction of per capita energy consumption has always in the past led to a decline in civilization and a reversion to a more primitive way of life.
-H. G. Rickover

Full transcript: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23151

As we advance as a civilization it only makes sense that we consume more energy.  Many innovations today allow us to consume the same amount of energy in increasingly efficient ways, but overall we're going to consume more as a species.  2040 is a long way from now, but that doesn't make it irrelevant to pursue fusion as a clean, abundant energy source with a small geographic footprint.  Discouraging fusion research, even with its staggering price tag, seems to me like telling Karl Benz or Enrico Fermi to back off because their results were too far off.

[UncaBuffalo]

...and our energy consumption continues to expand (as it should in advanced civilizations).

Many innovations today allow us to consume the same amount of energy in increasingly efficient ways, but overall we're going to consume more as a species.

If you were to revise your original statement to something along the lines of "...and our energy consumption continues to expand as our population expands", I would agree.

If you want to tie "advancing civilization" into the equation, I still believe PolySci is the right venue.  As you noted, efficiency needs to offset so-called 'advances'.  Your original statement makes me cringe, because it sounds like the manifest-destiny, consumption-oriented media that chaps my @%%.

...A reduction of per capita energy consumption has always in the past led to a decline in civilization and a reversion to a more primitive way of life.
-H. G. Rickover

Chicken?  Egg?  PolySci?  




"...and who is this Rickover pinhead gentleman that says more-primitive-way-of-life like it's a bad thing?" asked the Voluntary Minimalist.  

Modified to mellow

[UncaBuffalo]

 

Sorry. 

Back to Fusion-land we go!   

[withroaj]

Upgrade well taken.  I appreciate it.  Here's to fusion power by 2040! 

[Gamma Glue]

Anything new from Helion Energy? I can't find a lot about them. I thought they were supposed to have a working prototype by now?

[GLW]

Anything new from Helion Energy? I can't find a lot about them. I thought they were supposed to have a working prototype by now?

everybody was supposed to have a working prototype by now,....

"In 2010, more than 60 years after the first attempts, commercial power production is still believed to be unlikely before 2050."

"Such a plan shows why it will be very difficult to commission the first commercial-sized tokamak before 2050."

http://web.archive.org/web/20061107220145/http://www.iter.org/Future-beyond.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925354.300-bubble-fusion-makes-a-comeback.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925432.900-are-days-numbered-for-bubble-fusion.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8827

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18825280.100-fusion-fallacies.html

search for yourself, it's a never ending cycle of hype, followed by grants, followed by failure, followed by more hype, followed by more grants, followed by more failure, on and on and on,....

[withroaj]

But what about ITER?  They're dumping a ton of money into a TON of infrastructure to start up a big ol' Tokamak.  They seem pretty darn confident.

[GLW]

Have you read this thread?!?!?!

They always seem pretty darn confident,...

I wish it were so,....

lots of old fission dinosaurs to be decommissioned should cheap fusion be just around the corner,....

[Gamma Glue]

But what about ITER?  They're dumping a ton of money into a TON of infrastructure to start up a big ol' Tokamak.  They seem pretty darn confident.

It'll never work. Do a search for "Should Google go Nuclear" and watch the video.

[atomicarcheologist]

It'll never work. Do a search for "Should Google go Nuclear" and watch the video.

As long as there are Tax Dollars available, the project shall go.   

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Somewhat of an old topic, but I see nothing wrong with fission being the main power source for the human race for centuries... once we finally perfect it. A molten salt reactor running on uranium/thorium is a pretty neat idea. Sounds quite safe in theory; no pressurized water, potential for complete actinide consumption, no combustible gas production possible, truly inherent safety.

I have heard the analogy that fusion is so difficult you could have a group of PhD's standing around scratching their heads at it. Fission is so easy you can hire a kid straight out of highschool and he/she can run a fission reactor.

[Rennhack]

 

[Content1]

Somewhat of an old topic, but I see nothing wrong with fission being the main power source for the human race for centuries... once we finally perfect it. A molten salt reactor running on uranium/thorium is a pretty neat idea. Sounds quite safe in theory; no pressurized water, potential for complete actinide consumption, no combustible gas production possible, truly inherent safety.

I have heard the analogy that fusion is so difficult you could have a group of PhD's standing around scratching their heads at it. Fission is so easy you can hire a kid straight out of highschool and he/she can run a fission reactor.

I formerly worked at the LLNL fusion project and found there is no desire to have a "Eureka" moment, as if they are suceesful the money flow will stop.  Harvard claimed it will never work.  The crystals they use to amplify the beam damages to crystals at higher power, while may make an operable continuous firing laser for inertial fusion impossible.  You will notice even on the fictionable tv series "Big Bang Theory" never even discusses inertial fusion as a subject.  Even they limit at what level of fantasy the audience will believe.  The only thing the lab is converting is tax dollars into researcher's salaries.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

I formerly worked at the LLNL fusion project and found there is no desire to have a "Eureka" moment, as if they are suceesful the money flow will stop.  Harvard claimed it will never work.  The crystals they use to amplify the beam damages to crystals at higher power, while may make an operable continuous firing laser for inertial fusion impossible.  You will notice even on the fictionable tv series "Big Bang Theory" never even discusses inertial fusion as a subject.  Even they limit at what level of fantasy the audience will believe.  The only thing the lab is converting is tax dollars into researcher's salaries.

I read through most of this thread yesterday, you have had an amazing change of heart on the fusion matter since 2009.

[thenuttyneutron]

I formerly worked at the LLNL fusion project and found there is no desire to have a "Eureka" moment, as if they are suceesful the money flow will stop.  Harvard claimed it will never work.  The crystals they use to amplify the beam damages to crystals at higher power, while may make an operable continuous firing laser for inertial fusion impossible.  You will notice even on the fictionable tv series "Big Bang Theory" never even discusses inertial fusion as a subject.  Even they limit at what level of fantasy the audience will believe.  The only thing the lab is converting is tax dollars into researcher's salaries.

Are you ready to come over to our side of the Nuclear Binding Energy Curve?  In the end, you are still raising the binding energy of the nucleons in the fuel.

[GLW]

I read through most of this thread yesterday, you have had an amazing change of heart on the fusion matter since 2009.

yeah, and it only cost 300 million dollars to open one dreamers eyes,....

only 150 million to go at 300 million per,...

[Content1]

Are you ready to come over to our side of the Nuclear Binding Energy Curve?  In the end, you are still raising the binding energy of the nucleons in the fuel.

I was blinded by hope.  Hope is hard to kill.  It is dead in me.  I saw the waste, fraud and abuse on a daily basis.  When I complained once too often I was laid off.  I plan to write a book about the experience.  But none of us will see successful inertial fusion in our lifetimes.  However, if the goal was to make a planet killing death star, we are on our way.

[thenuttyneutron]

I was blinded by hope.  Hope is hard to kill.  It is dead in me.

Don't give up hope.  Hope is the flame of youth that motivates us.  Turn this crushing disappointment into another opportunity and work on the Nuclear Renascence.  There is much work to be done to bring the Generation 4 designs to fruition.

I consider the Thorium based fuel cycle to be a true renewable energy source.  This is where I think the future is with nuclear technology.  Could you consider pursuing this technology?

[Willy]

I saw the Bill Gates interview on this subject and it seem very interesting and hopeful.  Especially seeing as how he is willing to invest a ton of money towards these reactors.  
 

[Marlin]

I saw the Bill Gates interview on this subject and it seem very interesting and hopeful.  Especially seeing as how he is willing to invest a ton of money towards these reactors.  
 

   Bill Gates is pro nuclear but he seems to be luke warm to Fusion. He does see promise in nuclear in gereral because as he puts it there has been little inovation in nuclear technology and there is a lot of room for new and promising designs. He has invested in the Traveling Wave Reactor and it's prototype.

[HydroDave63]

   Bill Gates is pro nuclear but he seems to be luke warm to Fusion. He does see promise in nuclear in gereral because as he puts it there has been little inovation in nuclear technology and there is a lot of room for new and promising designs. He has invested in the Traveling Wave Reactor and it's prototype.

Walt Disney LOVED nuclear, and try to buy half ownership of one. Sadly, Walt never built any. Reckon Gates will do the same...

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

As far as I'm concerned Gates is barking up the wrong tree with the travelling wave reactor. The molten salt reactor is far more promising in my opinion. There is no better reactor to breed U-233 from thorium in the thermal spectrum. It is not just a paper reactor either, it was built by Oak Ridge in the 60's and run for over 10,000 hours. The molten salt program was the main directive at Oak Ridge through those years until it was shut down due to political reasons to focus the nation on pursuing the liquid metal breeder.

China is picking up the slack now. They are claiming that they will have a 2 MWth molten salt cooled reactor using TRISO fuel by 2015 and a similar power molten salt fueled reactor by 2017. I guess we'll see if China can finally do it.

[Content1]

I was blinded by hope.  Hope is hard to kill.  It is dead in me.  I saw the waste, fraud and abuse on a daily basis.  When I complained once too often I was laid off.  I plan to write a book about the experience.  But none of us will see successful inertial fusion in our lifetimes.  However, if the goal was to make a planet killing death star, we are on our way.

     As we enter 2015, the fusion situation at the Lawrence Livermore national Lab has grown darker. Back into 2013, they claimed a breakthrough and return to the real task the laser was designed for, research into nuclear weapons to ensure they will explode when called upon. They do not even pretend to have on the horizon the fusion process to produce power like nuclear plants. This is so ironic, as all the liberal politicians who are usually anti-military would never have approved the project if all it can do was research and bombs. They did find one use for this $4 billion boondoggle, the film the movie, "Star Trek 'into darkness'" at the lab, kind of symbolizing how Moses, the man in charge,  led our tax dollars into the wilderness to which he will never return. There is one positive

[Content1]

If we could take the laser if she could take the laser into space, and make 1 million copies, like the "death Star," we could destroy the planet.

[GLW]

........Hope is the flame of youth that motivates us.....

Well, at least you will not feel burdened by the 20 trillion plus dollars of debt the "Hope" generation saddles you with,...

After all, "Hope" has a price tag too,...

and your generation gets to pay the bill,...

or maybe Bill will pick up the tab,...

   Bill Gates is pro nuclear but he seems to be luke warm to Fusion. He does see promise in nuclear in gereral because as he puts it there has been little inovation in nuclear technology and there is a lot of room for new and promising designs. He has invested in the Traveling Wave Reactor and it's prototype.

then again,...maybe not,...

Bill Gates stops chasing nuclear 'wave', pursues variety of reactors

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/bill-gates-stops-chasing-nuclear-wave-pursues-variety-of-reactors/

[mjd]

Practical fusion is a nuncupatory power source totally outside of the current cycopede, due to its tardigradous development; pushed by constant babblement and hopeful illaqueation by fopdoodles..... and you can quote me on that.

[peteshonkwiler]

     As we enter 2015, the fusion situation at the Lawrence Livermore national Lab has grown darker. Back into 2013, they claimed a breakthrough and return to the real task the laser was designed for, research into nuclear weapons to ensure they will explode when called upon. They do not even pretend to have on the horizon the fusion process to produce power like nuclear plants. This is so ironic, as all the liberal politicians who are usually anti-military would never have approved the project if all it can do was research and bombs. They did find one use for this $4 billion boondoggle, the film the movie, "Star Trek 'into darkness'" at the lab, kind of symbolizing how Moses, the man in charge,  led our tax dollars into the wilderness to which he will never return. There is one positive

Are they conducting research on decontamination by laser at LLNL?

[Rennhack]

World's Largest Fusion Reactor is About to Switch On

http://gizmodo.com/worlds-most-insane-fusion-reactor-is-about-to-switch-on-1741199892

It took 19 full years to build W7-X. By the end of the month, approval to turn the reactor on is expected to come from Germany's nuclear regulators.

[GLW]

call me necromancer,...




it would appear even the colossus dinosaur aka "the government" is seeing the "daylight",....



http://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cuts

At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

[Marlin]

it would appear even the colossus dinosaur aka "the government" is seeing the "daylight",....

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cuts

At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, eliminate the Office of Electricity, eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and scrap the Office of Fossil Energy, which focuses on technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

I don't see an impact to fusion research. The increased budget to physics computing was for nuclear weapons testing and climate modeling. Returning it to 2008 levels leaves lots of money and does not seem to make any difference to fusion.

[GLW]

I don't see an impact to fusion research. The increased budget to physics computing was for nuclear weapons testing and climate modeling. Returning it to 2008 levels leaves lots of money and does not seem to make any difference to fusion.

I read a little different:


http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/10-questions-rick-perry-trumps-pick-energy-secretary

ITER is a multinational project to prove that generating energy by fusing hydrogen isotopes together at temperatures exceeding those in the center of the sun is scientifically feasible. But the project, currently under construction in southern France, is at least a decade behind schedule and could cost three times original estimates.

If a U.S. domestic project were similarly so far out of control, Congress or the White House likely would have killed it long ago. But the United States has only a 9% stake in ITER—matched by China, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea—whereas the European Union, as host, is footing 45% of the bill and is determined to see it through.

Attitudes in Congress range from enthusiastic flag waving to vocal opposition. The Senate has repeatedly put forward budgets that zero out ITER, while the House continues the back it. The annual compromise has been to provide only just enough money to remain a partner; but that has squeezed domestic fusion programs to the point of near-extinction.......


reckon we will have to wait and see 2018's budget,...

[Marlin]

I read a little different:


http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/10-questions-rick-perry-trumps-pick-energy-secretary

ITER is a multinational project to prove that generating energy by fusing hydrogen isotopes together at temperatures exceeding those in the center of the sun is scientifically feasible. But the project, currently under construction in southern France, is at least a decade behind schedule and could cost three times original estimates.

If a U.S. domestic project were similarly so far out of control, Congress or the White House likely would have killed it long ago. But the United States has only a 9% stake in ITER—matched by China, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea—whereas the European Union, as host, is footing 45% of the bill and is determined to see it through.

Attitudes in Congress range from enthusiastic flag waving to vocal opposition. The Senate has repeatedly put forward budgets that zero out ITER, while the House continues the back it. The annual compromise has been to provide only just enough money to remain a partner; but that has squeezed domestic fusion programs to the point of near-extinction.......


reckon we will have to wait and see 2018's budget,...

This is a different article and it focuses on France's ITER. It seems the job program for US fusion may still be intact. 

[GLW]

World's Largest Fusion Reactor is About to Switch On

http://gizmodo.com/worlds-most-insane-fusion-reactor-is-about-to-switch-on-1741199892

It took 19 full years to build W7-X. By the end of the month, approval to turn the reactor on is expected to come from Germany's nuclear regulators.

...Operational phase 2 (OP2) is planned for the end of 2021 to test the cooled divertor...

https://www.ipp.mpg.de/4828222/01_20

19 years to build and here we are 5 years later still testing,...

next year,...

once you get past 20 years you are on the downhill side of "we'll have fusion in only 40 years",...

fast approaching the 3rd time since 1946,...

http://www-fusion-magnetique.cea.fr/gb/fusion/histoire/site_historique.htm

[Rennhack]

Fusion is happening now, next year it will cross over to produce more energy then the costs to produce.   

Always 10 years away...

[GLW]

Always 10 years away...

good one,....



https://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/necromancer.htm