Closer to Fusion at NIF

[Curiously_Coherent]

Looks like they've passed a big milestone at the National Ignition Facility fusion test-bed.

Plasma is a lot less problem than anticipated and they've more than 20 times increased the power delivered to the pellet. (669 kilojoules in 10 billionths of a sec.) They have a neat explanation of that because that's just about enough power to boil a kettle twice. However they then point out that "By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second." Pretty impressive.

"They now report an energy of one megajoule on target - 50% higher than the amount reported in Science. The current calculations show that about 1.2 megajoules of energy will be enough for ignition, and currently Nif can run as high as 1.8 megajoules."

So once they shield the container and can run with tritium and deuterium mix, they have a chance to generate full fusion. This year they are hoping.

That will change everything. And it all starts with big-ass lasers!

See where this hobby could lead you?

Here's the BBC article BBC News - Laser fusion test results raise energy hopes

Cheers, CC

 

[Chicxulub]

I really love seeing the things we're doing with technology now days.

 

[Raybo]

I just hope that I will see it come to fruition in my life time. :wave:

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

Lighting the fire is now easy but containing the genie in a bottle remains the problem.
We have yet to produce more power than input. When that little bit of mass fuses, the containment bottle quenches the fire.
SOMEDAY ------ maybe------

HMike

 

[jwc]

I took a tour of my school's Tokamak once. It was especially amazing because it was undergoing renovations and so parts of it had been disassembled.

The ITER facility will be pretty amazing if it's ever completed. It will be able to produce more output power than it inputs after starting up, so it will be capable of longish term experiments that hope to pave the way for sustainable fusion power in the far future.

Perhaps the old perpetual saying "fusion power is just 50 years away" will finally come to a close soon.

 

[The Knight Who Said Ni]

Yes, I saw this as well. But I agree, we still ahven't gotten more output than input. When that happens, I will flip out.