• One big leap for Fusion Research - NIF Discovers Over-Unity Fusion Implosion (Net Energy Gain)
    12 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Though it is still a long way off, a new breakthrough has occurred where researchers actually saw a net gain in energy following a fusion reaction. The announcement comes from lead author Omar Hurricane from the[URL="https://lasers.llnl.gov/"]National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[/URL] and was published in [URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13008.html"][I]Nature[/I][/URL]. A step toward nuclear fusion came within the [URL="http://www.nature.com/news/laser-fusion-experiment-extracts-net-energy-from-fuel-1.14710"]last few months of research at NIF[/URL] when their reactions actually produced more energy than it took to start it. Of course, this is still on a very small scale. The paper published in [I]Nature[/I] reported results of 1.7 times more energy going out of the reaction than went into it, though the team announced they hit a net gain of 2.6 times the input energy. While this is great news, it is very important to note that the reported net gain is from the energy that actually made it into the reaction; the lasers produced exponentially more energy than what was used and calculated into the findings. [/QUOTE] Nuclear power will definitely be one of the be sources in the future, the fact that we aren't already using technologies like LFTR until Fusion is commercial is beyond me.[URL="http://www.iflscience.com/physics/nuclear-fusion-reactions-see-net-gain-energy"] IFLS Source[/URL] [URL="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13008.html"]Nature Journal Source[/URL] [IMG]http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-science.gif[/IMG]
Firstly, this is is actually a few monts old, but it's obvious why it's being reported now: the Nature article is just now being published. Secondly, having discussed this a while back with a friend in my physics department who has interned and worked in fusion labs (I forget which, a tokamak not intertial confinement) and he told me that this claim is very, very misleading. Having looked into it, that seems to be true. They're still orders of magnitude off from actually gaining energy with the reaction: [url]http://www.fusenet.eu/node/585[/url]
Forgive my ignorance on the subject, thanks for the heads up Johnny.
I'm just glad there are people out there researching it, I hope I'm alive the day fusion becomes a real possibility.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43905205](I forget which, a tokamak not intertial confinement)[/QUOTE] Stellarators are way cooler
now if fusion ever does become commercial we will need the moons helium 3 supply or else we will burn up the current world's supply in ooh 3-5 days
[QUOTE=JohanGS;43913350]Stellarators are way cooler[/QUOTE] Wendelstein 7-X. Is due for completion in 2015, with full upgrades not long after. The post-completion upgrades will allow for 30 minutes of plasma being maintained. Way the fuck ahead of ITER's expected 500 seconds expected by 2040. Only issue being that stellarators are expensive as fuck and extremely complex. Polywell is more feasible, but isn't scalable, get above a certain size and it just explodes. Get below it, and not much power generated.
[QUOTE=Sableye;43913605]now if fusion ever does become commercial we will need the moons helium 3 supply or else we will burn up the current world's supply in ooh 3-5 days[/QUOTE] Or we could use deuterium only fusion and the world's current supply will last ohh 150 billion years.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43913666]Or we could use deuterium only fusion and the world's current supply will last ohh 150 billion years.[/QUOTE] D-D fusion releases too many neutrons to be a long term option. He3-D fusion is considered aneutronic and irradiation of the reactor walls will be low, meaning pretty much no radioactive waste.
[QUOTE=zombini;43913713]D-D fusion releases too many neutrons to be a long term option. He3-D fusion is considered aneutronic and irradiation of the reactor walls will be low, meaning pretty much no radioactive waste.[/QUOTE] Still comparable to fission and I'll take working fusion with an inefficient, abundant fuel over trying to develop our ideal fusion reactor with moon mining quickly becoming necessary.
[QUOTE=zombini;43913651]Only issue being that stellarators are expensive as fuck and extremely complex.[/QUOTE] To quote my lecturer - "It's an engineer's worst nightmare",
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;43913846]Still comparable to fission and I'll take working fusion with an inefficient, abundant fuel over trying to develop our ideal fusion reactor with moon mining quickly becoming necessary.[/QUOTE] I don't know, maybe being a bit inefficient to get humanity on the fast track in intersolar mining operations would be worth it? Because I can't see us lasting forever with just the resources on earth.
[QUOTE=lifehole;43914337]I don't know, maybe being a bit inefficient to get humanity on the fast track in intersolar mining operations would be worth it? Because I can't see us lasting forever with just the resources on earth.[/QUOTE] It's likely that the way fusion is going to advance is D-T then He3-D, skipping D-D entirely. It's most likely that by the time we have a mining colony on the moon, most of our power will be coming from thorium though, with fusion being a niche generation system like nuclear is right now.
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