4 ms·

Yes, they have been working on this for years and making progress, what's your point?

• riku_iki 4y ago
  the point is that "first time" happened several times before already according to references.
  • sgc 4y ago
    Well, if the definition of "net energy" keeps expanding to include more of the experimental infrastructure, that is progress and we are just splitting hairs about wording - which is a real waste, considering they are one of the few groups with consistent tangible experimental improvements. In 2021, that was 1.3 megajoules, or net in comparison to the energy absorbed by the fuel. This is a bigger milestone at 2.5 megajoules, since it is in reference to the energy in the lasers themselves.
    • riku_iki 4y ago
      > that is progress and we are just splitting hairs about wording - which is a real waste we (those who don't have deep expertise) trying to understand what is "breakthrough" and "net energy" in this case comparing to previous claims. Your explanation added some value on this, thank you.
      • sgc 4y ago
        I have been following this work for a few years but I am no expert. Both numbers, and both explanations as to their significance, are from the articles linked in this thread. The next step will likely be net energy in respect to the entire system - or unqualified net energy. From there it is work on improving efficiency and scaling to commercial usefulness, which of course might be just as hard.
  • FBISurveillance 4y ago
    This is just popular scientific journalism/clickbaiting, they also claim it "provides unlimited, cheap, clean power" which is also not true precisely speaking.
• hindsightbias 4y ago
  NIF will suck research dollars from programs more likely become powerplant platforms. Click-bait wins. Not that it really matters, it will always be 30 years away.
  • killjoywashere 4y ago
    NIF is not for power plant research. It's an end run around the nuclear test ban treaty. The US signed a treaty promising to not conduct any nuclear weapons tests. So the NIF creates a functional equivalent by smashing energy from 192 high energy lasers into a very small space, the interior of a hohlraum. At the center of the hohlraum is a tiny capsule of deuterium and tritium. And under all that energy, for a brief moment, some of the tritium and deuterium fuse.
    • salawat 4y ago
      ...you realize that has nothing to do with conventional nuclear weapons other than being a neutron source for more complete fission of a fissile primary right? Most of the energy in "fusion" weapon is all fission based. You aren't going to turn a hohlraum into the basis of a bomb.