US lab behind fusion breakthrough reaches ignition again

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-06/us-lab-behind-fusion-breakthrough-reaches-ignition-again

by saeedjabbar • 3 years ago

42 29 3 years ago

bloomberg.com

ArtemZ• 3 years ago

https://archive.vn/z5zYl

pstuart• 3 years ago

My understanding is that the NIF was primarily to explore weapons research in the guise of fusion research.

We could use some nuclear miracles to help out with decarbonizing and it seems like we'd be better served investing in something that could possibly become viable (especially with the recent superconductor news).

aradox663• 3 years ago

What's the weapons angle for sustained fusion research? We've had the tech to reliably turn heavy water into 100 million casualties per warhead for >50 years.

supertrope• 3 years ago

No fission primary stage.

emkoemko• 3 years ago

probably because they can't test nuclear bombs anymore so this is alternative to gain any any new knowledge that puts US ahead of the rest? just look up NIF its a facility for weapons research

"It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions"

deagle50• 3 years ago

Pretty much zero afaik. If anything goes wrong the reactor just fizzles out.

oldgradstudent• 3 years ago

100 million casualties per warhead for >50 years.

How did you reach 100M?

The blast radius is huge, but not that huge.

dotnet00• 3 years ago

Sure its primary purpose is to gather data on nuclear fusion to help ensure that the nuclear stockpile is reliable without having to test it, but it isn't like them probing the conditions and behaviors of fusion ignition isn't meaningful for fusion reactors as well.

RF_Savage• 3 years ago

Yep. There needs to be a way to verify that the simulations run on all of those Department of Energy supercomputers actually translate to reality.

jjk1662• 3 years ago

It's purpose is physics research, which benefits both weapons and fusion for power production, and other fields besides. Being able to study a burning plasma in a lab environment, allowing us to validate our computer models, is valuable even the power reactors we build using those models wind up looking very different.

moomoo11• 3 years ago

It would be kind of cool if by accident scientists can create some wormhole. We can dump all our trash through it into Saturn or something.

iancmceachern• 3 years ago

Totally, or something like infinite probability drive from Hitchhiker's that would just send our trash to random other universes and timelines.

Which makes me wonder, are other universes and timelines sending us stuff? Is that where platypus' come from?

P.S. I'm not trying to say platypus' are trash, just that the don't fit in with our indigenous fauna and maybe another timeline thought they were and sent them to us.

adhesive_wombat• 3 years ago

Reminds me also of Aorist Rods.

The description of which in the book shows that not a lot has changed since Young Zaphod Plays It Safe was published in 1986.

https://alienencyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Aorist_Rod

Already__Taken• 3 years ago

isn't this the idea for The Witcher?

richard_rainbow• 3 years ago

Smart people like that would do dumb things. Why not park the other end of the wormhole in the core of the sun for dumping trash. Test it first? Nah, surely this thing is one way of course.

user67233• 3 years ago

I know the cognitive dissonance is a bit heavy for some people on this topic but we already have fusion. Safire plasma can run for days uninterrupted on less than 300 watts of continuous input.

https://rumble.com/vbtfff-safire-project-update-2017-and-201...

function_seven• 3 years ago

This is crackpottery, right? All the links on that page point to other theories “debunking” general relativity and some “Electric Universe” fanfic.

boeingUH60• 3 years ago

Rumble is a haven for crackpots and frauds…not surprising.

user67233• 3 years ago

Wrong.

The "other links" have fuck all to do with the plasma chamber. This method for sustained plasma had already been around for about two years, with earlier experiments going back to year 2010.

The raw video of the lit plasma is raw video, not CGI.

Teams at LLNL were involved.

US lab behind fusion breakthrough reaches ignition again

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