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So for a Physics class I'm currently taking I had to pick a topic of energy generation to do a report/presentation on. Of course, even though I knew next to nothing about the topic, I chose fusion via lasers :drool:
My professor was skeptical. Fusion, he said, was far off and especially with lasers is very unlikely to be a viable source of energy (he also kind of wanted us to do something in the "already been done" area). Of course me being the stubborn, laser-happy person I am pressed the issue and finally he relented.
Upon researching this topic, I found things that surprised me incredibly and I thought I might share (and also ask for comments/corrections/anything from people who may happen to know a lot about this subject)! For the record I've only really researched LIFE/NIF (not HiPER) and as such all the following will be about that. Wikipedia was no help--all the information was out of date from the information I got from contact with the facility.
First, we have already created/demonstrated fusion (?!). I didn't know this. By training 192 lasers (over a petawatt total) onto a ~2mm sphere of deuterium and tritium and thereby heating the sphere to close to 10 million degrees Fahrenheit (in less than 20 billionths of a second), NIF created "partial" fusion (this is ~September of last year).
It was called partial because not the entire sphere went through fusion. They did achieve a high energy neutron yield of 300 trillion, which was a world record (apparently). For those who don't know, fusion creates a high energy neutron when deuterium/tritium fuse
"Full" fusion, or "ignition," or a self-sustaining reaction, is basically when the whole sphere undergoes fusion (neutron yield of around 10^17). This is difficult partially because the reaction has to do with pressurizing the sphere of fuel via heat/x-rays and therefore all 192 laser beams have to hit the fuel cell simultaneously. Ignition coupled with more efficient lasers can create energy gains of 70-100x.
Second, NIF was recently (a month or two or three ago?) given the green light for high(er) energy tests that may yield "ignition," or a full fusion burn and therefore a way to achieve huge net gains of energy. I contacted NIF and asked a few questions (this one included). I got the answer that the tests will commence soon and *hopefully* "ignition" will be demonstrated this or next year (wow?).
Third, they've been designing a possible power plant for fusion, and I thought the design sounded crazily cool. So, right now, NIF won't achieve net energy gain because the laser system is super inefficient (built in the 1980s..?). It takes too much energy to fire the lasers Also, the lasers can fire only 2 or 3 times a day. For the power plant, they need lasers of the same power that can fire 10-20 times a second. Some company (I forgot the name) has already created lasers for this that can do just that (lifetime of 15 years or something for these behemoths).
Now comes the cool part. In this fusion chamber, they need 10-20 fusion reactions per second, and to do this they came up with the following: using a gas gun or similar apparatus, they are planning to launch the fuel spheres across the chamber and have the lasers track and effectively shoot the sphere causing a fusion reaction, and subsequently move to the next one. Crazy??? From preliminary tests they say the system is working well (wow).
The timeline they have:
- Create fusion (done in 2009)
- Demonstrate ignition (planned for this year or the next)
- Assuming ^^^ is achieved, Design/build/test/commercialize a power plant (2020s)
Power plant is the *hard* part. You have to build a pretty huge facility and test it (as it is the first of its kind), figure out how to integrate it with the grid, safety check it, etc. That'll take some time.
What do you guys think?? I thought it was all pretty crazy...
Feel free to post questions. There's a ton of information I've taken in/learned in the past few days and I probably missed a ton!
My professor was skeptical. Fusion, he said, was far off and especially with lasers is very unlikely to be a viable source of energy (he also kind of wanted us to do something in the "already been done" area). Of course me being the stubborn, laser-happy person I am pressed the issue and finally he relented.
Upon researching this topic, I found things that surprised me incredibly and I thought I might share (and also ask for comments/corrections/anything from people who may happen to know a lot about this subject)! For the record I've only really researched LIFE/NIF (not HiPER) and as such all the following will be about that. Wikipedia was no help--all the information was out of date from the information I got from contact with the facility.
First, we have already created/demonstrated fusion (?!). I didn't know this. By training 192 lasers (over a petawatt total) onto a ~2mm sphere of deuterium and tritium and thereby heating the sphere to close to 10 million degrees Fahrenheit (in less than 20 billionths of a second), NIF created "partial" fusion (this is ~September of last year).
It was called partial because not the entire sphere went through fusion. They did achieve a high energy neutron yield of 300 trillion, which was a world record (apparently). For those who don't know, fusion creates a high energy neutron when deuterium/tritium fuse
"Full" fusion, or "ignition," or a self-sustaining reaction, is basically when the whole sphere undergoes fusion (neutron yield of around 10^17). This is difficult partially because the reaction has to do with pressurizing the sphere of fuel via heat/x-rays and therefore all 192 laser beams have to hit the fuel cell simultaneously. Ignition coupled with more efficient lasers can create energy gains of 70-100x.
Second, NIF was recently (a month or two or three ago?) given the green light for high(er) energy tests that may yield "ignition," or a full fusion burn and therefore a way to achieve huge net gains of energy. I contacted NIF and asked a few questions (this one included). I got the answer that the tests will commence soon and *hopefully* "ignition" will be demonstrated this or next year (wow?).
Third, they've been designing a possible power plant for fusion, and I thought the design sounded crazily cool. So, right now, NIF won't achieve net energy gain because the laser system is super inefficient (built in the 1980s..?). It takes too much energy to fire the lasers Also, the lasers can fire only 2 or 3 times a day. For the power plant, they need lasers of the same power that can fire 10-20 times a second. Some company (I forgot the name) has already created lasers for this that can do just that (lifetime of 15 years or something for these behemoths).
Now comes the cool part. In this fusion chamber, they need 10-20 fusion reactions per second, and to do this they came up with the following: using a gas gun or similar apparatus, they are planning to launch the fuel spheres across the chamber and have the lasers track and effectively shoot the sphere causing a fusion reaction, and subsequently move to the next one. Crazy??? From preliminary tests they say the system is working well (wow).
The timeline they have:
- Create fusion (done in 2009)
- Demonstrate ignition (planned for this year or the next)
- Assuming ^^^ is achieved, Design/build/test/commercialize a power plant (2020s)
Power plant is the *hard* part. You have to build a pretty huge facility and test it (as it is the first of its kind), figure out how to integrate it with the grid, safety check it, etc. That'll take some time.
What do you guys think?? I thought it was all pretty crazy...
Feel free to post questions. There's a ton of information I've taken in/learned in the past few days and I probably missed a ton!
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