Fusion vs Fission

[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.