Fusion Ignition

Can't answer your question, but they do omit one thing in this quote;
"LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). "
What's not mentioned in the quote is the 300mj Laser required to put 2.05MJ into the experiment
 
Hang 4 said:
Can't answer your question, but they do omit one thing in this quote "LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). "
What's not mentioned in the quote is the 300mj Laser required to put 2.05MJ into the experiment
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I don't mean to diminish the achievement since it is truly an amazing accomplishment but yeah, this is somewhat analogous to striking a flint and getting a tiny piece of kindling lit up. Getting the campfire going is going to take a lot more figuring out.
 
Piperonca said:
How about power, instead?
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I don't know of any wars off the top of my head that were about just offing your enemy and NOT taking over their land (energy source).
 
EdFred said:
I don't know of any wars off the top of my head that were about just offing your enemy and NOT taking over their land (energy source).
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Maybe debatably but most civil wars wouldn’t be about land or even energy. And most of the religious wars in Europe were more about religion and political power than land or energy, I think.
 
Is it just me or do we hear about something just like this about every 6mo or so?
 
cowman said:
Is it just me or do we hear about something just like this about every 6mo or so?
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Yup, just you. It's taken a 25 years, and *TONS* of hard work and money, to get this result. It will not lead to fusion power anytime soon, but it really is an unprecedented result.
 
Hey guys, tiny brained pilot here, English please!
 
EdFred said:
I don't know of any wars off the top of my head that were about just offing your enemy and NOT taking over their land (energy source).
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It was a play on words. A power play, if you will.
 
172andyou said:
Yup, just you. It's taken a 25 years, and *TONS* of hard work and money, to get this result. It will not lead to fusion power anytime soon, but it really is an unprecedented result.
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So, another 30 years off? ;)
 
Piperonca said:
How about power, instead?
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Yep. Fusion power, baby. Dust off the Delorean.

The big deal is being able to harness fusion energy without having to resort to a full scale thermonuclear explosion.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Yep. Fusion power, baby. Dust off the Delorean.

The big deal is being able to harness fusion energy without having to resort to a full scale thermonuclear explosion.
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It's a hell of a runaway reaction when all of the Hydrogen is available.
 
EdFred said:
So, another 30 years off? ;)
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At least. I think that there is a very good chance no one alive today sees it happen. I think there is also a very good chance that we never want to use it, because better power storage means that solar/wind become the winners. They are already the cheapest, we just need better ways to store power and they become the winners. So it's very likely the race is between fusion and better storage and there are research batteries today that have a lot of potential (see what I did there...).
 
EdFred said:
So, another 30 years off? ;)
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If we're lucky. First transistor was in 1947, 30 years later got us to the 8085, 30 years after that got us to the Core2.

Aside from transistors, lasers, MRI, GPS.. what has physics research done for us? :)
 
172andyou said:
At least. I think that there is a very good chance no one alive today sees it happen. I think there is also a very good chance that we never want to use it, because better power storage means that solar/wind become the winners. They are already the cheapest, we just need better ways to store power and they become the winners. So it's very likely the race is between fusion and better storage and there are research batteries today that have a lot of potential (see what I did there...).
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It was a joke because Fusion Power has always been 30 years in the future.

Solar doesn't work so well in a lot of places. Like where I am we can go 45+ days without seeing the sun.
 
Hang 4 said:
Can't answer your question, but they do omit one thing in this quote;
"LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). "
What's not mentioned in the quote is the 300mj Laser required to put 2.05MJ into the experiment
Click to expand...
300 mj (milliJoule) isn't very much. Trivial compared to the 2.05 MJ (megaJoule)

Actually, they achieved ignition back in August (https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.106.025202 ) but wanted to see if they could do so more than once. The energy input includes those lasers used.
 
I surmise that this breakthrough will give the private sector some technical data they need to proceed - it’s more about the ignition enclosure than the lasers. The private sector has been on fusion for awhile, mostly utilizing magnetic field power input.
 
EdFred said:
It was a joke because Fusion Power has always been 30 years in the future.

Solar doesn't work so well in a lot of places. Like where I am we can go 45+ days without seeing the sun.
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Oh, I got the joke. :)

Should have made that more obvious. Same with AI. We were ten years from useful AI since the 1960's. Just got some usefully cool stuff in the past 3-5 years finally.

"Solar doesn't work so well in a lot of places. Like where I am we can go 45+ days without seeing the sun."

Fortunately we can move power from sunny places to un-sunny places with transmission lines. We already do that quite a bit. We could do more...

power copy.jpg
 
Unfortunately, this was a demonstration of the fusion inertial containment technology. Despite its depiction in The Expanse, inertial containment will NEVER scale up to commercial size (IMHO). Fuel pellet cost is too high, their composition is too exotic, and the required repetition rate too high. OTOH, if those issues can be overcome, inertial containment avoids all the plasma containment falderal. The most promising inertial containment tech may be based on the Pistol Shrimp.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/first-light-nuclear-fusion-pistol-shrimp

There are a number of other promising approaches. However, many of them may simply be ways to separate investors from their cash. Lockheed Skunk Works was active some years ago in compact fusion, then went silent. There are tokamaks, stellarators, magnetic containment, electrostatic containment, and more. I suspect we will need higher temp superconductors before real progress is made. And after that, I suspect we will discover smaller technologies are an easier path.
 
Tools said:
Hey guys, tiny brained pilot here, English please!
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A power plant needs to produce more power than it takes to run it. That milestone has now been achieved in a very small quantity, but there are a lot more milestones to be achieved before a useful amount of power can be produced.
 
Perpetual motion?!! Whoa….
 
Oooh, basically unlocking a bunch of potential we could not before?
 
Tools said:
Oooh, basically unlocking a bunch of potential we could not before?
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I would describe it as a necessary condition for that goal, but not sufficient by itself.
 
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