Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Confirmed: California Team Achieved Ignition

[Circe]

fusion does not power the war drive of the Enterprise.

Matter/Antimatter annihilation does. Which is an order of magnitude (or more) more powerful than mere fusion power.

Darn, could we just skip to that?

 

[toobfreak]

Yep. Trying to CONTAIN 100 million degree plasma in a magnetic "bottle" for more than milliseconds has eluded scientists for decades.
Many are now trying different approaches, such as MICRO nuclear explosions using powerful lasers.
Who knows what approach will finally succeed.

Real hard to create in a laboratory in a room in a building on a street in a city a process that normally takes a ball of gas over a million times the size of the whole Earth to create enough heat and downward pressure to succeed!

 

[Dayton3]

Darn, could we just skip to that?

The main problem is the cost-effective production of antimatter.

 

[Circe]

The main problem is the cost-effective production of antimatter.

And probably the fact that it is a little dangerous.

Like blowing up your universe.

 

[Dayton3]

And probably the fact that it is a little dangerous.

Like blowing up your universe.

Actually it isn't as remotely as dangerous as portrayed in science fiction.

 

[Circe]

Actually it isn't as remotely as dangerous as portrayed in science fiction.

Well, as long as you're sure ------------

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Real hard to create in a laboratory in a room in a building on a street in a city a process that normally takes a ball of gas over a million times the size of the whole Earth to create enough heat and downward pressure to succeed!

Yep. The sun uses gravity to compress hydrogen enough for a stable fusion reaction.

I honestly believe we'll get there, but it ain't that easy. Worth it though!

 

[Dayton3]

Well, as long as you're sure ------------

I know basic physics. I'm sure.

 

[toobfreak]

Yep. The sun uses gravity to compress hydrogen enough for a stable fusion reaction.

I honestly believe we'll get there, but it ain't that easy. Worth it though!

Yep, but I think we are a long way off. We are playing around with pellets and stuff, once you ignite that and cause a fusion reaction, you need a continuous source of fuel and energy able to keep the process going ON ITS OWN.

I don't see that happening on a laboratory scale without a huge input of external energy because all they are doing now is creating the conditions for a split second to fuse a tiny pinhead of fuel, and then it is done.

But I try to be optimistic as they've been working on this since the 1970s or 80s with various tokamaks and we really need it, it would be a beautiful thing to see science create.

A real working fusion reactor will cost hundreds of billions and be more on the scale of the LHC.

But these days I doubt that government has the good will towards its people to put this to the best use possible and instead will try to develop it into a new weapon.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Yep, but I think we are a long way off. We are playing around with pellets and stuff, once you ignite that and cause a fusion reaction, you need a continuous source of fuel and energy able to keep the process going ON ITS OWN.

I don't see that happening on a laboratory scale without a huge input of external energy because all they are doing now is creating the conditions for a split second to fuse a tiny pinhead of fuel, and then it is done.

But I try to be optimistic as they've been working on this since the 1970s or 80s with various tokamaks and we really need it, it would be a beautiful thing to see science create.

A real working fusion reactor will cost hundreds of billions and be more on the scale of the LHC.

But these days I doubt that government has the good will towards its people to put this to the best use possible and instead will try to develop it into a new weapon.

The process I'm talking about uses continuous laser pulses hitting tiny pellets. The Shockwave and high temperature from the laser pulses causes fusion in the form of micro explosions. The heat generated turns q traditional turbine to generate electricity. This process isn't "self sustaining though without the lasers. They're only looking for more energy out than what they put it to fuel the lasers

 

[Circe]

Yep, but I think we are a long way off. We are playing around with pellets and stuff, once you ignite that and cause a fusion reaction, you need a continuous source of fuel and energy able to keep the process going ON ITS OWN.

I don't see that happening on a laboratory scale without a huge input of external energy because all they are doing now is creating the conditions for a split second to fuse a tiny pinhead of fuel, and then it is done.

But I try to be optimistic as they've been working on this since the 1970s or 80s with various tokamaks and we really need it, it would be a beautiful thing to see science create.

A real working fusion reactor will cost hundreds of billions and be more on the scale of the LHC.

But these days I doubt that government has the good will towards its people to put this to the best use possible and instead will try to develop it into a new weapon.

Well, duh, of course a new weapon. That first, everything. If they found a new way to smoke HAMS, they'd first rule out whether it could be a weapon.

Tokomaks! Remember Tokomaks, and Princeton?? What a botch. Nothing ever worked.

As for cold fusion, that was a lot of fun.


For about two weeks.

 

[Dayton3]

But these days I doubt that government has the good will towards its people to put this to the best use possible and instead will try to develop it into a new weapon.

We already have sophisticated fusion weapons.

 

[toobfreak]

We already have sophisticated fusion weapons.

Really? Name one.

 

[toobfreak]

The process I'm talking about uses continuous laser pulses hitting tiny pellets. The Shockwave and high temperature from the laser pulses causes fusion in the form of micro explosions. The heat generated turns q traditional turbine to generate electricity. This process isn't "self sustaining though without the lasers. They're only looking for more energy out than what they put it to fuel the lasers

Right. I see a big problem with that realizing they are only in the experimental stage; they would need to be able to continuously resupply new pellets which of course they can't do with roughly 27 million degree heat, and while that heat might ignite the next pellet, by the time the last one is gone to replace with a new one, that heat is gone.

Then there is the matter of the pressure. Right now they are synthesizing it with laser bombardment.

They need to start a fusion process whose heat then is enough to keep igniting new fuel so that they don't need to keep continuously pumping energy into the process to replace the roughly 2.5 X 10^27 tons of gas they don't have to do it for them.

Much as I hate to say it, I think that is a LONG way off, many decades at least. Maybe a century to never unless mankind learns to grow up and stop fighting among itself to unite to tackle our real problems.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Really? Name one.

Really? Name one.

1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

Russia's Tsar Bomba 50 megatons

 

[Dayton3]

Really? Name one.

W88 the most powerful U.S. nuclear weapon widely deployed at 475 kilotons. About 400 deployed aboard U.S. ballistic missile submarines.

W76 the most numerous U.S. nuclear weapon deployed at around 1,000 aboard U.S. ballistic missile submarines (100 kiloton yield).

 

[Dayton3]

Russia's Tsar Bomba 50 megatons

Tsar Bomba was never built as a useable weapon.

 

[toobfreak]

1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima

Well yes, but keep in mind these are still not pure fusion devices, they actually rely on a fissile explosion as the trigger for initiating the fusion process and even some of the fusion explosion actually comes back as increased fission.

Contrarily, many of our atomic "fissile" bombs actually use a bit of fusion in the detonation. They call it "boosting" by inserting a bit of fusible gas products like Tritium, at the center of the fissile explosion to be "fused" thus adding to the output.

But Castle Bravo was a clusterfuck in that the scientists at Los Alamos failed to realize that much of the "inert" lithium-7 product in the bomb actually would add to the conversion process, ending up tripling the expected detonation far beyond what they were prepared for or had warned the surrounding international community to expect.

What I was talking about was a pure fusion process utilized as a weapon.

To date, every fusion device we have created is really just a staged fissile device whose final stage results in some fusion as well to increase the final yield.

 

[toobfreak]

W88 the most powerful U.S. nuclear weapon widely deployed at 475 kilotons. About 400 deployed aboard U.S. ballistic missile submarines.

W76 the most numerous U.S. nuclear weapon deployed at around 1,000 aboard U.S. ballistic missile submarines (100 kiloton yield).

Yes, all fine and good but again as in my above post, these are tritium-boosted fissile bombs only BOOSTED by fusion products, which depend on fission. All nice and good but I'm talking about us creating a purely fusion weapon device. Hasn't been done yet. If we could, we'd have nuclear fusion power.