Breakthrough: Ignition confirmed at California
fusion reactor
Hot Air,
by
Jazz Shaw
Original Article
Posted By: Mauigirl,
8/13/2022 6:39:53 PM
Without bogging us down in too many technical details, suffice it to say that this is a big deal. Or at least it might be at some point. Scientists and engineers have been working on a way to build a workable fusion reactor for decades. A fusion reactor is quite different than the fission nuclear reactors you see around the world today. But there are enormous challenges involved in taking the fusion process from the hypothetical realm and creating a functional reactor capable of producing electricity for our energy grid.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Vesicant 8/13/2022 6:56:47 PM (No. 1247348)
Guess what you need to get hydrogen for fusion? Electricity to split water, or gases from oil wells. The green whackos will be against fusion reactors too.
9 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
brownshoepogue 8/13/2022 6:57:53 PM (No. 1247349)
Guardedly hopeful that they did it. I heard similar announcements through the years and was left disappointed. Lets wait and see before we breakout the party hats and balloons.
11 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 8/13/2022 7:10:26 PM (No. 1247353)
Looking forward to my hydrogen-powered car. If I am still here, that is.
5 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
thomthomp 8/13/2022 7:23:30 PM (No. 1247361)
Environmental wackos picketing and complaining in 3...2...
8 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Quigley 8/13/2022 7:35:50 PM (No. 1247373)
The hydrogen powered car is available. Not fusion but hydrogen fuel cell.
Now we can shut down the oil and gas industry and ride around in unicorns or unicars.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Gnana1 8/13/2022 7:41:08 PM (No. 1247381)
So, now tell me that all this was powered by solar and/or wind.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Jesuslover54 8/13/2022 7:41:38 PM (No. 1247382)
A decade away, as always.
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
joew9 8/13/2022 7:58:58 PM (No. 1247393)
Beware the nonsense from those getting large government grants. In 1970 they said they would have fusion power in 20 years. In 1980 still, "in 20 years". In 1990, same again and again. But at least now they have moved the timeline out to 50 years. Which would put it close to a century after their initial prediction.
Sabine Hossenfelder reports in a video a few months ago about how the fusion scientists try to trick people in their headlines by not distinguishing between plasma power ratio and whole reactor power ratio. These tricks are to insure continued funding from gullible government leaders. I would like to see her take on this latest announcement.
Another fiction. "No danger of radiation." The high neutron flux causes the fusion reactor container walls to become highly radioactive and would present a hazardous waste disposal problem. Where have we heard that before?
Also notice the statement, "most of the current debates over energy policy will go out the window in a generation."
When cold fusion was thought to be discovered the environmentalist went crazy about how bad this was going to be to have cheap clean energy. So they came out against cold fusion.
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Ashley Brenton 8/13/2022 8:08:38 PM (No. 1247399)
I imagine the "green new deal" crowd is ecstatic over this development.
No. I'm being facetious. They don't want this. Workable fusion reactors would require no change in our lifestyle. No control or oversight. And none of the "correct" people have invested on the ground floor, anticipating government to put its thumb on the scales, like with wind and solar and electric cars.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Safari Man 8/13/2022 8:21:46 PM (No. 1247408)
They waited a year to announce the results... I am suspicious that they were waiting for a HUGE tranche of money to be available from the Green New Deal so they could get their slice of the pie while its fresh. Is it a dream come true, or just nocturnal ignition?
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Zeek Wolfe 8/13/2022 9:02:24 PM (No. 1247445)
This rubbish and a grab for more money. Fusion is a dead end...is now and always will be.
1 person likes this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 8/13/2022 9:28:12 PM (No. 1247469)
Years ago I did some engineering in peripheral equipment which supported the NIF.
IIRC, the NIF was planned to use several hundred extremely powerful lasers firing at the center target, a tiny capsule of tritium. Huge capacitor banks were charged up for a long period of time, I forget whether it was hours or longer, and then discharged thru the hundreds of lasers in a nanosecond or similar ultra short time.
They hoped to put in something like 100 terrawatt-seconds of power and get back 100.000000001 terrawatt-seconds of power.
A miniscule, barely detectable gain in power....but a gain. All previous attempts put in immense amounts of power and got LESS power out.
Don't hold your breath for your Mr. Fusion. A generation away or more, and may never be possible on a small scale.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 8/13/2022 10:24:35 PM (No. 1247508)
If true this would be a step up. If it were to work out the windmill and solar parasites will kill it quickly.
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Californian 8/14/2022 8:29:17 AM (No. 1247706)
Ignition is not the hard part.
Sustaining the event / containment are proving impossible so far. Then next step is getting more energy out while feeding in hydrogen.
Like 2 others here I have some knowledge of NIF. I wish them the best but not holding out much hope.
2 people like this.
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Been waiting for this one.