Fusion energy hurdle swept aside

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8485669.stm

by jot • 16 years ago

40 25 16 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

lutorm• 16 years ago

"One of many fusion hurdles swept aside", would be a less sensationalist headline... It seems they aren't even at break-even yet, so it's not like we can start building power plants this decade...

gjm112• 16 years ago

Not only are they not at breakeven yet. Unless I've misunderstood badly, they haven't even got fusion occurring yet.

DaniFong7• 16 years ago

Fusion's been occurring in other reactor designs since the 50's -- just not specifically in this particular reactor. High School kids have achieved fusion in their basement with Farnsworth Fusor type designs. It's not especially hard.

Breakeven, though, is a lot tougher.

gjm112• 16 years ago

Just to clarify: by "they" I meant the NIF folks who are trying to make fusion happen using lasers. Other people have of course had fusion (well below breakeven) for ages.

jackfoxy2• 16 years ago

I hope some good science and engineering are coming out of this, because American taxpayers have been pouring money down the fusion rat-hole for over 40 years. From my ignorant layman's perspective, I just don't see recovering more usable energy than the energy put in happening. It's been "30 years away" for the past 40 years.

Not everything is a matter of time. I'm not saying man's ingenuity won't figure it out, but the only place nuclear fusion takes place in nature is in stars, and that's powered by the pressure of a huge amount of mass, which can never be recreated on Earth. There has never been a goal-oriented technology project that has lasted this long, spent this much treasure, and produced so few results. Even brilliant people can engage in wishful thinking.

jcdreads• 16 years ago

Imagine a single thermonuclear explosion: one big enough to destroy a large city. The bomb doesn't weigh that much compared to the amount of energy released. A gigantic amount of energy comes from a small amount of mass. The c2 in Einstein's formula is the speed of light squared; it's a really huge number.

As for the wisdom of the NIF as public policy, that's something on which reasonable people can (and do) disagree. I'd only point out that the first government to master the goal of break-even fusion (getting more energy out of the reaction than is put in to trigger the reaction) will gain a _ridiculous_ economic advantage over the rest of the world, to say nothing of the non-economic benefits of energy independence. It's the kind of big bet that rich nations can (and in my opinion should) take.

jackfoxy2• 16 years ago

That is a decent rational, except that whichever rich nation makes the breakthrough (assuming it occurs) will not have a monopoly on the technology (unless it involves mining He-3 from the moon), in which case the rich nation that invested in lunar mining technology will have quite a jump.

It's pretty hard to keep big engineering secrets. As soon as the feasibility is proven, the fast followers will jump on the bandwagon.

delackner2• 16 years ago

Would their advantage really be all that big? Modern nuclear fission reactors can produce tons of energy and you can reprocess the fuel, providing what seems to me like energy independence available today.

jodrellblank• 16 years ago

"There has never been a goal-oriented technology project that has lasted this long, spent this much treasure, and produced so few results."

The aggregate human quest for eternal youth and/or immortality?

bioweek2• 16 years ago

I've always wondered why we can't just blow up hydrogen bombs in a giant underground chamber and extract energy from the heat produced.

delackner2• 16 years ago

Much safer to just run a nuclear reactor. But I wonder... would a fission explosion-based reactor even be possible, let alone more efficient? I don't think so...

bioweek2• 16 years ago

A nuclear reactor uses fission. My idea uses fusion triggered by fission (look up how hydrogen bombs work). Fusion is much more efficient that fission which is why my idea has merit.

blasdel• 16 years ago

Guess what? That's exactly what the NIF plant in question is: http://wingolog.org/archives/2010/01/31/nukular

Fusion energy hurdle swept aside

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