Huge Laser aims to Create star on Earth that can Produce Nearly Limitless Energy - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Karlos;21609554]Reminds me of [img]http://mimg.ugo.com/200803/4056/Watchmen_OzymandiasFull.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Who's that, batman?

I hope it will work. Fusion plants are the future.

i think that the worst case scenario would be that something made the office walls break and the laser went through them and fried a lot of people

What the hell, they finnaly talk about it when they are about to do it? I heard about it on pbs a year ago!

[QUOTE=ThePuska;21610021]I don't think it's about sustaining fusion, but rather achieving the temperatures required for it. ITER uses a particle accelerator, whereas these guys want to do it with lasers only.[/QUOTE] That's why it's pointless, and also has been done before. The energy impulse which the fusing pellet creates is barely stronger than the pulse needed for the combustion and collecting the energy afterward is very difficult. ITER is based on constant fusion inside of a Tokamac, where the fuel is hold inside magnetic field in plasma state.

Black mesa?

[QUOTE=demoguy08;21609502]Can't get more energy out than you put in. Article author has probably misunderstood the experiment.[/QUOTE] Don't you know what Fusion is?

This is... Awesome. :eek:

If this works, we can start building those big ass spaceships we always wanted.

They're late. "Snowflake in Hell" reactor already does fusion. It's sort of an inside-out tokamak. It can run fusion on hydrogen isotopes and unlike conventional tokamaks, it doesn't need overcomplicated equipment to keep the plasma at bay - in this one, any disturbance in the plasma flow creates a force that stabilizes it back again. Google it up.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;21610143]That's why it's pointless, and also has been done before. The energy impulse which the fusing pellet creates is barely stronger than the pulse needed for the combustion and collecting the energy afterward is very difficult. ITER is based on constant fusion inside of a Tokamac, where the fuel is hold inside magnetic field in plasma state.[/QUOTE] They're test-firing the pellets to prove that it has net gain. After that they'll use the pellets to start a continuous reaction, which I can only assume takes place in a torus. They need to contain it anyway. The difference to ITER is the aforementioned particle acceleration. ITER heats the entire torus to a high temperature to start the reaction because they're initially heating it by spewing accelerated particles into the plasma. These guys just heat one spot to the desired temperature after which the reaction is supposed to propagate.

Worst news report ever, a star is on average much larger than the sun so good job there CNN

The problem is you have to have a continuous stream of pellets continually being swapped out before you can use it as a large scale power source.

[QUOTE=Kondor;21610594]Worst news report ever, a star is on average much larger than the sun so good job there CNN[/QUOTE] I think the definition of a star also somehow incorporates the notion that the gas required for the fusion is contained by gravity

[QUOTE=Someoneuduno;21607786]Fucking cooool. How the shit are they going to contain the heat generated though?[/QUOTE] Magnetic field keep the plasma (Ions) inside the reaction chamber, sometimes it's a torus to keep the plasma running in a circle. [editline]08:28PM[/editline] [QUOTE=KKram16;21607853]This sounds like a REALLY bad idea[/QUOTE] If someone, all the magnets that hold it together mysteriously disappeared, along with the walls, the laser, and the containment equipment, it would not cause harm. The whole thing will just be a rapidly-expanding cloud of nova-hot plasma, in a few seconds its pressure will equal the one outside and the temperature will drop as all the heat is absorbed and distributed. That's why plasma guns wouldn't work IRL, it's like shooting steam.

yeah that sounds really fucking safe

[QUOTE=Diarrhea;21610932]yeah that sounds really fucking safe[/QUOTE] Read above. Nothing bad will happen even if all the containment measures are disabled. All the magnets are tested repeatedly to make sure none of them are "leaky", and they probably have mirror magnets around the torus just for the kicks.

[QUOTE=Nikita;21610492]They're late. "Snowflake in Hell" reactor already does fusion. It's sort of an inside-out tokamak. It can run fusion on hydrogen isotopes and unlike conventional tokamaks, it doesn't need overcomplicated equipment to keep the plasma at bay - in this one, any disturbance in the plasma flow creates a force that stabilizes it back again. Google it up.[/QUOTE] It's not that we haven't got ways of making fusion happen, it's just we haven't got energy out of it yet. We always seem to need to put in vast amounts of energy for it to work.

Hold on a second. Is OP's avatar plasma or something?

[QUOTE=Eudoxia;21611016]All the magnets are tested repeatedly to make sure none of them are "leaky", and they probably have mirror magnets around the torus just for the kicks.[/QUOTE] magnets? how the fuck do those work?

hot

[QUOTE=Diarrhea;21611298]magnets? how the fuck do those work?[/QUOTE] They just do :pseudo:

[QUOTE=Eudoxia;21611267]Hold on a second. Is OP's avatar plasma or something?[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/images/06PHY006_YtterLaserCool_HR.jpg[/IMG] [tab]NIST's new optical atomic clock uses two magnetic coils (red rings) and an optical lattice (red laser beam), as well as intersecting violet lasers to cool ytterbium atoms, slowing their motion. [/tab]

I'm skeptical about this, probably won't work [editline]06:58PM[/editline] And why create another sun if we have one already ? All we need is lots of solar panels

[QUOTE=Smasher 006;21611145]It's not that we haven't got ways of making fusion happen, it's just we haven't got energy out of it yet. We always seem to need to put in vast amounts of energy for it to work.[/QUOTE] We're getting about even now. If I remember correctly the Koreans have built a fusion generator which does 1:1. They can't keep the output up for long though, so we still have along way to go.

[QUOTE=Laserbeams;21611406]I'm skeptical about this, probably won't work [editline]06:58PM[/editline] And why create another sun if we have one already ? All we need is lots of solar panels[/QUOTE] That's just publicity. They say it's a star because it uses fusion like the Sun (Disregard that the Sun uses a completely different cycle and achieves fusion through completely different means).

[QUOTE=Laserbeams;21611406]All we need is lots of solar panels[/QUOTE] The point is to harness the heat, of the "mini star". Solar panels are vastly inefficient, not to mention expensive and space consuming.

[QUOTE=starpluck;21611391][IMG]http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/images/06PHY006_YtterLaserCool_HR.jpg[/IMG] [tab]NIST's new optical atomic clock uses two magnetic coils (red rings) and an optical lattice (red laser beam), as well as intersecting violet lasers to cool ytterbium atoms, slowing their motion. [/tab][/QUOTE] I see. From the thumbnail it looked like plasma between two magnetic coils.

[QUOTE=Laserbeams;21611406]And why create another sun if we have one already ? All we need is lots of solar panels[/QUOTE] Fusion doesn't necessarily mean star, there's other criteria. And there's a reason we don't use solar panels as our main means of energy.

[QUOTE=Diarrhea;21611298]magnets? how the fuck do those work?[/QUOTE] [img]http://i44.tinypic.com/4jp4jr.jpg[/img] Sorry, had to.