An important milestone for fusion
- Thread starter Phil Graham
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Silas Pradetto
Graduate Student
Re: An important milestone for fusion
I guess this means that practical fusion power generation is just over the horizon (still).
I want a Mr. Fusion for my car.
JR
I guess this means that practical fusion power generation is just over the horizon (still).
I want a Mr. Fusion for my car.
JR
Re: An important milestone for fusion
They still have a ways to go to release the amount of energy required to fire the laser. Then there's the whole problem of making money at it.
Still, a significant milestone.
They still have a ways to go to release the amount of energy required to fire the laser. Then there's the whole problem of making money at it.
Still, a significant milestone.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Hey Phil, me not being a scientist and all, does it really say that (in the future) I can put 50 gallons of goo in my vans "gas" tank, drive it 200 miles, then offload 40 gallons of goo to my other truck, and still have the 50 gallons that I started with ??
....Ya right. I know a few corporations (and governments) that will never allow that to happen......
Hey Phil, me not being a scientist and all, does it really say that (in the future) I can put 50 gallons of goo in my vans "gas" tank, drive it 200 miles, then offload 40 gallons of goo to my other truck, and still have the 50 gallons that I started with ??
....Ya right. I know a few corporations (and governments) that will never allow that to happen......
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Jeff,
This misunderstands the purpose of the NIF. Its not intended to be a power generating source, though it is supposed to (eventually) generate enough fusion to satisfy the Lawson criterion. They're still 3 orders of magnitude off from that point, according to the paper.
NIF's purpose was to experiment with the very, very low end of the energy scale for initiating fusion via radiation (e.g. light, x-rays, gamma rays) implosion. The radiation implosion method forms the basis for the nuclear weapons arsenals around the world. In nuclear weapons, the radiation source is a smaller nuclear (fission) device. NIF seeks to replace the fission radiation "primary" source for implosion with a collection of high power lasers that operate with many orders lower intensity than the primary in a weapon.
NIF has been a giant money pit until recently. This result is a good first step to getting useful science out of the installation. Probing the physics of very small amounts of fusion is an extremely useful endeavor if we are ever going to be able to generate electricity from (comparatively) small amounts of fusion energy.
P.S. If you want to see company trying to fast track fusion as a power source, check out:
General Fusion - http://www.generalfusion.com/
Tri Alpha Energy: http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/int_12_3/People/Weller_H/Weller.pdf
Helion Energy: http://helionenergy.com/
Jeff,
This misunderstands the purpose of the NIF. Its not intended to be a power generating source, though it is supposed to (eventually) generate enough fusion to satisfy the Lawson criterion. They're still 3 orders of magnitude off from that point, according to the paper.
NIF's purpose was to experiment with the very, very low end of the energy scale for initiating fusion via radiation (e.g. light, x-rays, gamma rays) implosion. The radiation implosion method forms the basis for the nuclear weapons arsenals around the world. In nuclear weapons, the radiation source is a smaller nuclear (fission) device. NIF seeks to replace the fission radiation "primary" source for implosion with a collection of high power lasers that operate with many orders lower intensity than the primary in a weapon.
NIF has been a giant money pit until recently. This result is a good first step to getting useful science out of the installation. Probing the physics of very small amounts of fusion is an extremely useful endeavor if we are ever going to be able to generate electricity from (comparatively) small amounts of fusion energy.
P.S. If you want to see company trying to fast track fusion as a power source, check out:
General Fusion - http://www.generalfusion.com/
Tri Alpha Energy: http://www.int.washington.edu/talks/WorkShops/int_12_3/People/Weller_H/Weller.pdf
Helion Energy: http://helionenergy.com/
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Re: An important milestone for fusion
According to other sources I have read, the total gain they achieved (energy output/total energy input to the system) is less than 1%!
In the late 70's my bosses wife was a PhD physicist working at KMS fusion in Ann Arbor. In 1974, they achieved the worlds first laser fusion, no doubt with an exceedingly small gain.
KMS Fusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So it has taken 40 years to get this far. A very tough nut to crack!
According to other sources I have read, the total gain they achieved (energy output/total energy input to the system) is less than 1%!
In the late 70's my bosses wife was a PhD physicist working at KMS fusion in Ann Arbor. In 1974, they achieved the worlds first laser fusion, no doubt with an exceedingly small gain.
KMS Fusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So it has taken 40 years to get this far. A very tough nut to crack!
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Chris,
It says nothing of the sort. There's no method of fusion production that I've ever seen that would even have the slightest potential of being portable in the context of a car-like vehicle. At best it would mean the future ability to synthesize in bulk high energy density fuel sources (e.g. hydrogen or natural gas) using an energy input other than solar radiation or the nuclear decay of the earth's core. The vehicles operating on said fuel would not be that different than the cars of today, in my estimation.
You don't need to be tinfoil hat about the lack of existence of ubiquitous fission or fusion power sources, physics throws up more than enough real roadblocks.
The biggest advantages of the fuel sources we use now is that they are already here, and long ago trapped the heat energy of the sun and earth's core in a convenient form.
Chris,
It says nothing of the sort. There's no method of fusion production that I've ever seen that would even have the slightest potential of being portable in the context of a car-like vehicle. At best it would mean the future ability to synthesize in bulk high energy density fuel sources (e.g. hydrogen or natural gas) using an energy input other than solar radiation or the nuclear decay of the earth's core. The vehicles operating on said fuel would not be that different than the cars of today, in my estimation.
You don't need to be tinfoil hat about the lack of existence of ubiquitous fission or fusion power sources, physics throws up more than enough real roadblocks.
The biggest advantages of the fuel sources we use now is that they are already here, and long ago trapped the heat energy of the sun and earth's core in a convenient form.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
That would be the fine perpetual motion machine.
tin-foil aside, I think there are many that would not be "excited" about that knowledge getting out in the wild....
Me, I'd be all for it !
Your explanation seems to mean a way to synthesyse new fuel sources, without using up un-renewable sources. This is good, but obviously not as good as perpetual motion !
Thanks for clearing that up a bit for me. My first take-away from a quick read seemed to suggest energy in + reaction = more energy out.
That would be the fine perpetual motion machine.
tin-foil aside, I think there are many that would not be "excited" about that knowledge getting out in the wild....
Me, I'd be all for it !
Your explanation seems to mean a way to synthesyse new fuel sources, without using up un-renewable sources. This is good, but obviously not as good as perpetual motion !
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Interesting link to General Fusion, thanks.
I've been sort-of keeping up on the NIF as news goes by in Physics Today or various other scientific news sources---my discipline in my day job is atomic/molecular/optical physics ("atomic" here does not mean nuclear) so I have some passing familiarity with the physics (and efficiency!) of the lasers involved in the effort. I primarily wanted to point out the large discrepancy between the energy delivered to the target and the energy required to create the pulse---I'm not at all surprised that they're three orders of magnitude apart.
NIF has definitely been a money pit--I've seen a lot of editorials lamenting the lack of US funding for other approaches to fusion reactors, such as tokamaks or stellerators. Again, I'm not close enough to that field to really judge how much of a problem that is, except that it seems to me that if we research along three or four different lines it's more likely that one of them will work.
Interesting link to General Fusion, thanks.
I've been sort-of keeping up on the NIF as news goes by in Physics Today or various other scientific news sources---my discipline in my day job is atomic/molecular/optical physics ("atomic" here does not mean nuclear) so I have some passing familiarity with the physics (and efficiency!) of the lasers involved in the effort. I primarily wanted to point out the large discrepancy between the energy delivered to the target and the energy required to create the pulse---I'm not at all surprised that they're three orders of magnitude apart.
NIF has definitely been a money pit--I've seen a lot of editorials lamenting the lack of US funding for other approaches to fusion reactors, such as tokamaks or stellerators. Again, I'm not close enough to that field to really judge how much of a problem that is, except that it seems to me that if we research along three or four different lines it's more likely that one of them will work.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
So, it should be only, what? Another 50 or 85 years until we have a working fusion reactor?
So, it should be only, what? Another 50 or 85 years until we have a working fusion reactor?
Re: An important milestone for fusion
They're 3 orders of magnitude away from ignition, in terms of neutron yield. I don't know how many orders of magnitude they are from break even, relative to initial energy input.
I've not read any of those articles, but hopefully they keep in mind the original, and ongoing purpose of NIF. Namely the stimulation of fusion via radiation implosion, the same method in the world's weapons stockpiles. We should have no illusions about NIF's goal to understand radiation implosion physics, and almost assuredly in the context of weapons behavior. Weapon's behavior in an era that has banned nuclear testing is going to be the driving force for the investment in this project.
Power generation has obviously looked to other methods of initiating fusion, with (hopefully) lower barriers of entry.
P.S. What sorts of optics? Years ago I interned in a couple of nonlinear optics labs.
They're 3 orders of magnitude away from ignition, in terms of neutron yield. I don't know how many orders of magnitude they are from break even, relative to initial energy input.
I've not read any of those articles, but hopefully they keep in mind the original, and ongoing purpose of NIF. Namely the stimulation of fusion via radiation implosion, the same method in the world's weapons stockpiles. We should have no illusions about NIF's goal to understand radiation implosion physics, and almost assuredly in the context of weapons behavior. Weapon's behavior in an era that has banned nuclear testing is going to be the driving force for the investment in this project.
Power generation has obviously looked to other methods of initiating fusion, with (hopefully) lower barriers of entry.
P.S. What sorts of optics? Years ago I interned in a couple of nonlinear optics labs.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Chris,
I think you're still missing the nature of this, which means I've failed to communicate clearly. Let me see if I can clear it up:
Energy is lost at each of these processes, so only a small fraction of the energy that fired the lasers make it to the fusion target. But now we have caused some fusion, and here is the big news:
Think of this like turning the key on your car and getting it to turn over. Ignition, by the Lawson criterion, would be like having the engine run continuously on fuel you supply to it.
Again, there's been no attempt to suppress any of this, nor is any of it new. The result was published in the Journal Nature, which is the scientific world's equivalent of having a feature story on page 1 of the New York Times. The core ideas behind driving fusion in this way have been worked on for 40 years. The history of this fusion work is readily accessible in the scientific literature.
There is no practical application at present. Down the road, though, when we run out of existing fuel sources, we will need to make our own fuels. I use the term fuel in the sense of any energy transporting medium or means. Our current fuel supplies were also made, captured out energy from the sun, made of matter from stars that preceded the sun, and baked in the bowels of the earth by nuclear decay heat from the core of our planet (which itself is composed of elements from other stars).
Chris,
I think you're still missing the nature of this, which means I've failed to communicate clearly. Let me see if I can clear it up:
- 192 lasers use a bunch of power to make beams in infrared
- These beams are focused precisely
- The infrared light is converted into x-rays
- The x-rays initiate the implosion
- Implosion starts fusion
Energy is lost at each of these processes, so only a small fraction of the energy that fired the lasers make it to the fusion target. But now we have caused some fusion, and here is the big news:
- A few kJ of energy eventually gets dumped into the pellet
- This triggers about 5e15 fusion events
- These fusions release a net positive amount of energy (i.e. more than the initial kJ of input)
Think of this like turning the key on your car and getting it to turn over. Ignition, by the Lawson criterion, would be like having the engine run continuously on fuel you supply to it.
Again, there's been no attempt to suppress any of this, nor is any of it new. The result was published in the Journal Nature, which is the scientific world's equivalent of having a feature story on page 1 of the New York Times. The core ideas behind driving fusion in this way have been worked on for 40 years. The history of this fusion work is readily accessible in the scientific literature.
There is no practical application at present. Down the road, though, when we run out of existing fuel sources, we will need to make our own fuels. I use the term fuel in the sense of any energy transporting medium or means. Our current fuel supplies were also made, captured out energy from the sun, made of matter from stars that preceded the sun, and baked in the bowels of the earth by nuclear decay heat from the core of our planet (which itself is composed of elements from other stars).
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Laser cooling, magneto/optical trapping, and exciting electrons to loosely bound (Rydberg) states that are very sensitive to electric field. My PhD project involved using Rydberg atoms to measure electric fields close to the metal surface of an "atom chip" used to create magnetic field gradients to trap cold atoms.
All of our work was with CW lasers but we did use nonlinear optics in a frequency doubler for the Rydberg excitation. Most of our systems were 780 nm diodes (yes, that's the same wavelength as CD players) for cooling and trapping rubidium. There is an ultrafast/nonlinear group across the hall so I'm familiar with some of their work from talking with group members, usually with a pitcher of beer in the middle of the table.
I wrapped up the PhD in May, finished off one more paper in the group, and am currently a "recovering academic" looking for an industry R&D position of some kind.
Laser cooling, magneto/optical trapping, and exciting electrons to loosely bound (Rydberg) states that are very sensitive to electric field. My PhD project involved using Rydberg atoms to measure electric fields close to the metal surface of an "atom chip" used to create magnetic field gradients to trap cold atoms.
All of our work was with CW lasers but we did use nonlinear optics in a frequency doubler for the Rydberg excitation. Most of our systems were 780 nm diodes (yes, that's the same wavelength as CD players) for cooling and trapping rubidium. There is an ultrafast/nonlinear group across the hall so I'm familiar with some of their work from talking with group members, usually with a pitcher of beer in the middle of the table.
I wrapped up the PhD in May, finished off one more paper in the group, and am currently a "recovering academic" looking for an industry R&D position of some kind.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Wow talk about digging up history. I worked for a company in Princeton back in the late '70's and I was developing PGT SYSTEM III an EDS tool. I managed to recruit 2 very sharp PhD's from that Tokamak PPPL competition. They were on the alternate method of starting fusion team. Guess who was funding a lot of the research, the Saudi's. The Tokamak is still probably the best shot at getting energy it's not only about starting it's also about containment and sustaining the reaction.
Wow talk about digging up history. I worked for a company in Princeton back in the late '70's and I was developing PGT SYSTEM III an EDS tool. I managed to recruit 2 very sharp PhD's from that Tokamak PPPL competition. They were on the alternate method of starting fusion team. Guess who was funding a lot of the research, the Saudi's. The Tokamak is still probably the best shot at getting energy it's not only about starting it's also about containment and sustaining the reaction.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
If it works, there's no reason to hate on the time it takes.
If it works, there's no reason to hate on the time it takes.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
I have nothing to contribute, but I just wanted to say... I love you guys. What a cool thread.
I have nothing to contribute, but I just wanted to say... I love you guys. What a cool thread.
Re: An important milestone for fusion
Phil, I understand that both the LL and Sandia missions are primarily concerned with the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but why is the development of an alternative bomb ignition trigger device given such a high priority with the dedicated research funds? Are there significant failure drawbacks to the existing fission trigger devices?
Phil, I understand that both the LL and Sandia missions are primarily concerned with the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but why is the development of an alternative bomb ignition trigger device given such a high priority with the dedicated research funds? Are there significant failure drawbacks to the existing fission trigger devices?