The greatest scientific breakthrough of the century could spell the end of all life on Earth

They managed to get about enough energy out of the experiment to boil 5 kettles in a few nano-seconds, so not a lot to worry about just yet.

Enough for a good few brews though! The biggest tea making device the world has ever seen!!

... really, its like people never heard of thermonuclear bombs, which uses fusion to create larger explosions, but requires uranium, fusion reactors just use tritium and deuterium, there is nothing to cause a boom in a fusion reactors, if such a reactor was sabotaged or malfunctioned the heated gas would just cool down and get stuff wet.

I went and did some more reading, and have found that the headlines announcing a fusion "breakeven" are more-or-less clickbait because they don't tell the whole story. Essentially what happened was that the reaction released a little over 3 MJ of energy after the target absorbed 2 MJ of laser energy, which by itself would indicate an energy surplus that could be used for power generation. The problem is that it takes almost 500 MJ to charge up the lasers to begin with, so we're actually losing that energy minus the ~3 MJ the reaction released.

In short, while this is an interesting development, we're still a long way from working fusion power. (Also, assuming we do get a working fusion plant. would it even be economical to build and operate compared to a fission plant, assuming no cost overruns caused by lunatic activists and their lawfare?)

originally posted by: Proterozoic
I went and did some more reading, and have found that the headlines announcing a fusion "breakeven" are more-or-less clickbait because they don't tell the whole story. Essentially what happened was that the reaction released a little over 3 MJ of energy after the target absorbed 2 MJ of laser energy, which by itself would indicate an energy surplus that could be used for power generation. The problem is that it takes almost 500 MJ to charge up the lasers to begin with, so we're actually losing that energy minus the ~3 MJ the reaction released.

In short, while this is an interesting development, we're still a long way from working fusion power. (Also, assuming we do get a working fusion plant. would it even be economical to build and operate compared to a fission plant, assuming no cost overruns caused by lunatic activists and their lawfare?)

Where'd you read that? That should really piss off the "the world is changed!" crowd.

a reply to: face23785

400 MJ instead of 500, but the power system is described here, straight from the source: lasers.llnl.gov...

originally posted by: Proterozoic
a reply to: face23785

400 MJ instead of 500, but the power system is described here, straight from the source: lasers.llnl.gov...

Thanks.

originally posted by: Proterozoic
I went and did some more reading, and have found that the headlines announcing a fusion "breakeven" are more-or-less clickbait because they don't tell the whole story. Essentially what happened was that the reaction released a little over 3 MJ of energy after the target absorbed 2 MJ of laser energy, which by itself would indicate an energy surplus that could be used for power generation. The problem is that it takes almost 500 MJ to charge up the lasers to begin with, so we're actually losing that energy minus the ~3 MJ the reaction released.

In short, while this is an interesting development, we're still a long way from working fusion power. (Also, assuming we do get a working fusion plant. would it even be economical to build and operate compared to a fission plant, assuming no cost overruns caused by lunatic activists and their lawfare?)

yes it would be economical, even more so than fission power plants, wouldn't require thick walls to block radiation or cooling pools for fuel rods, or alot of things that cost money. plus it would create more tritium to start and refuel reactors, and give us a way to produce helium, it'll be quite profitable.

a reply to: namehere

Fusion reactors would require heavy shielding due to the flood of neutrons and very high energy photons released from the plasma, and because there is a hard vacuum between the plasma and the reactor walls, you would see a much higher radiation flux at the reactor wall than you would with a fission reactor because the fission reactor's coolant absorbs a lot of it before it even reaches the walls. (The fusor.net forums have a lot of useful information on this subject, and while these are very low powered amateur devices, they still put out enough radiation to be dangerous and cause significant neutron activation/)

a reply to ADAMandEVIL


Why are we still relying on archaic heat, steam, and explosion technologies for electrical energy anyways, how primative! The human species doesn't deserve better anyways, if only we weren't so evil and untrustworthy beings that totally rely on the seven deadly sins for survival!
💥

a reply to: DoomsdayDude

I’ve been cheerleading for supercritical CO2 turbines for a while!

And I say, why don’t we suck the half burned petrol from the atmosphere to power our sleek ceramic lined turbine engines to generate power??

Even the burning of natural gas in pure oxygen is better than heating water for steam!

And we have the technology, the data from studies, and idiots like me screaming for anything better than the wasteful way we are slowly suffocating our own planet!

But what do expect from some “conspiracy theory” website member??

Not like we here could create a conspiracy of our own where we spend less money, make cheaper energy, and save the planet at the same time!!

That would be crazy!!

They used 100x more energy input than output, so 1 percent efficiency. They can only fire the lazer 1 time a day. They would need to fire 100thousand to 1 million times a day to be commercially viable, assuming they have more efficient lazers.

Not the grandslam, but progress I suppose.

To make a bomb from it, is it really possible>

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

And we have the technology, the data from studies, and idiots like me screaming for anything better than the wasteful way we are slowly suffocating our own planet!

I hope that's sarcasm. We are not suffocating the planet and it doesn't need saving from us.

a reply to: face23785

It is not “sarcasm” as I am being serious.

The tons of “waste CO2” pumped into the atmosphere is ridiculous!

To not even acknowledge that is suicidal… from a sane person’s point of view.

And it is “free” just floating around. So why not harness it as the working fluid in a turbine generator?? It only makes sense.

The part that you quoted is also true. We have a spray on coating process to pipes that when heated creates a thin layer of a ceramic coating. A professor at Kansas State figured it out! And that be applied to things like water pipes or gas pipes, which is just the start of this tech. And 7 Rivers is already deploying a SCO2 turbine generator power station before the POC test even completed!

What is so “liberal” about cleaning up our own mess??

No, it’s anger. Definitely not sarcasm.

There are proposed fission designs that do some neat things like use supercritical water or CO2 for power generation, as well as fast neutron reactor designs that burn up most of the actinides leaving the much more radioactive but proportionally shorter-lived isotopes behind which have uses of their own. Additionally, if you're using gases like CO2 for cooling, you could even use that heat to do things like run desalination/water purification facilities, hydrocarbon cracking, or other industrial processes. Fusion could do some of these things, but we don't have any viable fusion power plants, and if some stuff I've been seeing turns out to be correct, we might not be able to build a successful one outside of Project PACER unless we somehow managed to design a muon-catalyzed reactor capable of powering the accelerator complex needed to make the muons needed to run it. The issue here is that a magnetically confined plasma might not be able to contain more energy than the magnetic field holding it in place, as it would escape if it did. Muon-catalyzed fusion and Project PACER sidestep this by not needing a magnetically confined plasma to begin with.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

You might want to pick up an actual science book and stop listening to Al Gore.

Current CO2 levels are among the lowest they've ever been in our planet's history. (Since you don't appear to be very well informed on the subject, the planet is over 4.5 BILLION years old. That's a very, very long time that the planet had higher CO2 levels than today and didn't "suffocate.") The fossil record and contemporary experiments also tell us that life generally prefers higher CO2 levels than are currently present and that the planet used to be able to support more life when CO2 levels were higher.

You've been brainwashed to think CO2 is some kind of pollutant and if it increases beyond current levels it will be harmful to life. The truth is the exact opposite to what you've been told to believe. In fact, biologists predict that the extinction of life on Earth will occur because of too little CO2 in the future, not too much.

a reply to: ADAMandEVIL

I find "cold fusion" to be more interesting than hot fusion. I'm a believer in its possibility. Though I think it may be risky because it would make gamma radiation.

The amount of energy needed to power a hot fusion reaction will always be impractical. Never going to be useful for anything other than a science experiment.

a reply to: Terpene
Nice graphic. Unfortunately the US ended up with the evil mad scientists of Nazi era, and France kept doing nuclear while the US engaged the nuclear freeze movement. Seems like the communists have succeeded in destroying all of the US capabilities even now coal gas and oil(Obiden).
The PTB sure hate America
My dad tried to explain to me the difference between fusion and fission over the lunch table in the mid nineties. He also had pages of diagrams how to build a shelter in your basement, as he was in charge of civil defense for our neighborhood in the late 50’s early 60’s around that time. I still have one of his books that has the stamp of the Atomic Energy Commission on the inside. It has since been disbanded but involved civil defense.
I’m thinking my dad would have been better at this stuff than that goofball with red lipstick stealing people’s luggage.