Article

2010-01-29 Science & Technology

Laser Fusion Ignition is: "It's going to happen this year." (Progress is Very Good)!

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Posted by 3dc 2010-01-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ] Top

#1 FTA: "Before those experiments can even begin, however, the target chamber must be prepared with shields that can block the copious neutrons that a fusion reaction would produce."

My ignorance know no bounds but this also sounds like another way to do a neutron bomb. They better be really good with that shielding.

Posted by tipover 2010-01-29 00:47|| 2010-01-29 00:47|| Front Page Top

#2 I really do hope they can get fusion working.

Talk about the ultimate green fuel. Cheap, abundant and clean. I would love to be able to tell the Arabs to go pound sand and they can eat their oil.

Posted by DarthVader 2010-01-29 07:15|| 2010-01-29 07:15|| Front Page Top

#3 The main problem is the waste gas it produces. Helium will cause everyone to talk in a funny high voice. When the pres gives a speech everyone will laugh, not just me.

Posted by BrerRabbit 2010-01-29 07:36|| 2010-01-29 07:36|| Front Page Top

#4 The main problem is the waste gas it produces. Helium will cause everyone to talk in a funny high voice. When the pres gives a speech everyone will laugh, not just me.

Helium will escape to high atmosphere and, in fact from distant memories, it is like hydrogen too light to stay there for long and will escape into outer space. Of course we will have a green movement telling that we are polluting the solar system and predicting gloom, doom and disappearance of doritos due to the helium in space.

Posted by JFM 2010-01-29 07:47|| 2010-01-29 07:47|| Front Page Top

#5 I don't fully understand this but I understand enough to suspect that a practical and economically viable inertial confinement fusion plant along the lines of this device is a long, long, way off.

The specialized systems in this experimental device would be incredibly difficult to mass produce.

Posted by lord garth 2010-01-29 08:28|| 2010-01-29 08:28|| Front Page Top

#6 lord garth - it's an R&D device. It's gathering data. That's it. But, if it achieves fusion in the process that's more than they hoped for.
Everybody expected it to fail.

Posted by 3dc 2010-01-29 08:35|| 2010-01-29 08:35|| Front Page Top

#7 I worked next to this behemoth for two years, and got a few tours noting its progress. A very complex system. Howard Patton many years ago worked on its predecessors, Shiva and Shiva Nova. This is more like the death star in complexity. It is and always was intended solely as a proof of concept, as it is incapable of taking the next step; actually using the neutrons produced. I think it is one of the worst examples of big box physics, a kind of welfare for physicists. That said, the outcome was hardly in doubt. It was a matter of scaling.

Posted by Whiskey Mike 2010-01-29 08:52|| 2010-01-29 08:52|| Front Page Top

#8 That's mutatis mutandis what the fusion people been saying as long as I can remember.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2010-01-29 09:22|| 2010-01-29 09:22|| Front Page Top

#9 A. Fusion is only 50 years away.

B. I've heard this before

C. If it does work it will be interesting to hear why the current administration considers it to be unsafe.

D. If it does work it will be interesting to hear why the serria club considers it to be too dangerous to build in anyone's back yard

Posted by Kelly 2010-01-29 09:25|| 2010-01-29 09:25|| Front Page Top

#10 JFM BrerRabbit was being snarky. Trust me. I've known him a long time and it's difficult to take him seriously.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2010-01-29 09:29|| 2010-01-29 09:29|| Front Page Top

#11 Deacon Blues.

I was deadly serious when I told about the green movement.

Posted by JFM 2010-01-29 11:08|| 2010-01-29 11:08|| Front Page Top

#12 The main problem is the waste gas it produces. Helium will cause everyone to talk in a funny high voice. When the pres gives a speech everyone will laugh, not just me.

It could always be diverted into several very large dirigibles secreted away under the wh and the congress.

Posted by Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 2010-01-29 11:15|| 2010-01-29 11:15|| Front Page Top

#13 Correct me if I'm wrong, my ignorance of the real world by-product of this process, but could the Helium be harvested from the reaction?

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-01-29 11:17|| 2010-01-29 11:17|| Front Page Top

#14 Correct me if I'm wrong, my ignorance of the real world by-product of this process, but could the Helium be harvested from the reaction?

I, too, am ignorant of the real-world processes, but I did love the Jetson's and this thought evoked images of a lighter-than-air green vehicle tooling around above the snarling traffic backed up on the freeway.

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2010-01-29 12:14|| 2010-01-29 12:14|| Front Page Top

#15 I was deadly serious when I told about the green movement.

Whatever. All I want to know is if you were serious about the Doritos or not.

Posted by gorb 2010-01-29 12:47|| 2010-01-29 12:47|| Front Page Top

#16 My Dad, (A Civil Engineer) Answered the same question about 35 Years ago
He said "Airborne vehicles like the Jetsons give FAA Nightmares"
this was before computers but still?

Posted by Redneck Jim 2010-01-29 12:48|| 2010-01-29 12:48|| Front Page Top

#17 Saw ashow the other evening about the rift valley in Arizona, NM, etc.

Lots of little hot-springs all bubbling with helium. Wonder if anyone captures it?

Posted by AlanC 2010-01-29 15:23|| 2010-01-29 15:23|| Front Page Top

#18 I do not know what the bruhaha is all about. We've had portable fusion power for decades, witness Mr. Fusion:

Posted by Alaska Paul 2010-01-29 16:28|| 2010-01-29 16:28|| Front Page Top

#19 Wait til the Watermelons learn this process creates miniature hydrogen bombs. The deuterium-tritium reaction is the easiest and most efficient. And this tritium "Green fuel" is made in fission reactors.

Posted by ed 2010-01-29 16:46|| 2010-01-29 16:46|| Front Page Top

#20 If helium 3, then it will be useful. If helium 4, less so. Depends on the reaction that takes place.

Posted by Whiskey Mike 2010-01-29 16:49|| 2010-01-29 16:49|| Front Page Top

#21 The nice thing about this approach is that semiconductor-based lasers have been making incredible progress over the past decade or so. The driver system for whatever they decide to build based on this technology will continue to get better regardless of whether it receives a boatload of money or not.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-01-29 19:20|| 2010-01-29 19:20|| Front Page Top

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