Fusion, FUSION!!!

[Cain]

https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2010/NR-10-01-06.html

LIVERMORE, Calif. — The first experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) have demonstrated a unique physics effect that bodes well for NIF's success in generating a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction.

In inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments on NIF, the energy of 192 powerful laser beams is fired into a pencil-eraser-sized cylinder called a hohlraum, which contains a tiny spherical target filled with deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen. Rocket-like compression of the fuel capsule forces the hydrogen nuclei to combine, or fuse, releasing many times more energy than the laser energy that was required to spark the reaction. Fusion energy is what powers the sun and stars.

The interplay between NIF's high-energy laser beams and the hot plasma in NIF fusion targets, known as laser-plasma interactions, or LPI, has long been regarded as a major challenge in ICF research because of the tendency to scatter the laser beams and dissipate their energy. But during a series of test shots using helium- and hydrogen-filled targets last fall, NIF researchers were able to use LPI effects to their advantage to adjust the energy distribution of NIF's laser beams.

The experiments, described in an article in today's edition of Science Express, the online version of the journal Science, resulted in highly symmetrical compression of simulated fuel capsules – a requirement for NIF to achieve its goal of fusion ignition and energy gain when ignition experiments begin later this year.

I know even if it does work (which is not a given) commercial use will probably be decades away, but oh man, fusion would solve so many problems right now.

[Jasper]

Exciting!!  I had heard a while back that some people had figured that the math for this sort of thing works, but since then I'd heard no word on practical replications!

This is brilliant!

[Captain Utopia]

I know it's irrational, but what excites me the most is that it requires 192 lasers!  It's a neat computer sciencey number too, (128 + 64).

But back on topic - assuming a best case scenario -- these things work, and can be replicated (relatively) easily enough such that energy basically becomes a cheap/limitless resource.  What happens then?  I mean - if the oil economy in the middle east basically tanks - is that a good thing?  It sounds like it could be a tad destabilising.

[Requia ☣]

I don't see these as being hugely more useful  than fission in terms of overall energy produced (unless it turns out to be really cheap or something), but they'd be damned useful for say, getting Iran more power without them needing uranium enrichment.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, this is a BIT of the future we were promised.

[The Wizard]

Too little too late.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

lol, fusion. expect this story to be buried within 3 months and all references to it deleted from reality.

[Requia ☣]

This actually is pretty important, they've never (as of when I stopped paying attention to fusion research) gotten a controlled (read, not a bomb) fusion reaction without putting more energy into the system than gets put out.

Whether or not this is stable and scalable is a different matter.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

make it fit in my laptop and provide at least 25,000 years of battery life so i can blag from anywhere, and i will consider it a success.

[Triple Zero]

make me a sandwich and I will consider it.

[Jasper]

I'm not so sure it's "decades" away.  Barring the collapse of society, this seems to be moving at a good pace.

[Igor]

The more boring and straightforward way of doing fusion (ie: heating stuff up to the temperature of the sun and trying to contain it with magnetic fields) seems to be lagging behind these newer methods, which is interesting. ITER is still just "under construction", but is expected to be producing more power than it consumes by 2050.

Speaking of which:

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Science: paving the way for peak hydrogen-isotope!

[Reginald Ret]

Science: paving the way for peak hydrogen-isotope!

HAH!