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UK joins laser nuclear fusion project
- arethuza 15y agoWhich AWE are they talking about? I suspect it's this one: http://www.awe.co.uk/ http://www.awe.co.uk/ I suppose it's a good thing to have them diversifying away from their main product lines!
- cstross 15y agoNo, I'm pretty sure it's entirely about the Atomic Weapons Establishment's main product line. The NIF isn't actually a practical fusion reactor design -- the output energy from one of its fuel capsules is an order of magnitude less than the input energy that powers the laser, whereas a viable reactor would need to produce an order of magnitude more energy ... at least once a second, rather than once every few months, and using fuel pellets costing at most a couple of dollars, rather than several hundred thousand. What the NIF is good for is weapons research -- it's critically important to the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_Stewardship_and_Management_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_Stewardship_and_Manag... ). And of course the AWE faces much the same issues in maintaining the British strategic nuclear deterrent as the NNSA does in maintaining the US warhead stockpile ... If they wanted to back fusion research for electricity they'd be pumping money into ITER (the conservative option) or taking a flutter on pollywell devices (the hopeful long shot that might deliver a shortcut).
- berntb 15y agoIt seems likely that the energy angle of NIF is mostly PR for a nuclear weapons research program. But it is hardly serious to dismiss a research project because of test costs and that tests can only be run once a month. For instance, the Polywell WB-8 isn't exactly outputting more energy than is needed to run it, either. High energy laser costs seems to be going down fast; maybe they really can make that pig fly...
- arethuza 15y ago"they'd be pumping money into ITER" Isn't the EU paying for 4/11ths of ITER? I hope the UK is paying our fair share of that.
- VladRussian 15y agothere is also Sandia Z machine - has reached fusion conditions 10 years ago [ and personally i think it is most promising way to get fusion at small and large scales ]. It seems though that weapons research doesn't let the energy program there to move significantly ahead.
- danmaz74 15y agoThis is promising news. I wonder, though, what is the energy cost of extracting Deuterium and Tritium, which for sure is not null, and if in the balance they are already counting that and the conversion efficiency of the heat generated by the reaction.
- colinhowe 15y agoIf fusion ever becomes feasible they should drop the word "nuclear". Given the current level of fear around nuclear power the possibility of people exploiting the naming similarity is worrying.
- TeMPOraL 15y agoJust like you get a MRI, not an NMR imaging - I read in few places that it got renamed to get rid of the "Nuclear" word, because it scared people.
- jessedhillon 15y agoA physics prof of mine used to say "fusion power is twenty years away, and always has been." This article doesn't seem to do much to change that perception, can anyone else shed light on the current likelihood of a sustained, surplus-generating reaction?
- arethuza 15y ago"The ITER fusion reactor itself has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of output power for 50 megawatts of input power, or ten times the amount of energy put in." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER However, this isn't for a sustained period of time - "up to 1,000 seconds". The follow on DEMO plant would aim to produce 2000MW continuously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO
- gaius 15y agoFusion is always 1 year further away than the speaker's retirement date.
- ck2 15y agoI thought the claim of NIF was for fusion research was just a huge front for nuclear weapons research? Isn't that well documented at this point?
- binarymax 15y agoTritium isn't exactly easy to come by, yet the reactor would require approx 1 million "pellets" per day to keep alive? If they do reach ignition how do they intend on sustaining the reaction with so little fuel available?
- pieter 15y agoI think they can produce them within the reactor, by using a mantle of Lithium, just like fission reactors can use mantles of heavier elements.