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Why are they using these "flash pumped" lasers if more efficient ones are available?
by worik 4y ago
Why are they using these "flash pumped" lasers if more efficient ones are available?
- jcarreiro 4y agoBecause they are researching inertial confinement fusion, not trying to build a working power plant. The efficiency of the lasers doesn't matter, since it doesn't affect their research.
- Aeolun 4y agoIs energy on the order of 300MJ so cheap? You’d think that cutting it down to 150MJ would allow them to do more experiments.
- nrki 4y ago300MJ ~= 83kWh which is like, $2000 in CA
- kragen 4y ago300 megajoules is 83 kilowatt hours a typical power price at trading hubs is US$40 per megawatt hour, though this varies considerably depending on many factors and is sometimes actually negative a typical retail price is US$120 per megawatt hour so this is about US$10 worth of electrical energy
- beowulfey 4y agoIt’s a proof of concept. Upgrading lasers that already work is not necessarily the best use of limited funds.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThey could get higher power out of more efficient lasers, enabling research at higher energies or bigger targets
- 988747 4y agoNot to mention the money they would save on electricity bills.
- belltaco 4y agoThe electricity bill is like $2000. It'd waste more money for a manager to think about how to replace equipment, at California pay rates. This whole thread is making me lose faith in HN.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoActually 83 KwH costs only about $20 in CA (avg $0.25 / KwH and probably LRL pays even less.
- kelnos 4y agoThat's not the purpose of the research, though. They are solely focusing on the energy transfer between the lasers themselves, and the output from the reaction. It's not clear that higher energies or bigger targets will teach us anything new. Upgrading the lasers would slow the project down as new hardware is installed and issues are worked out. Not to mention I doubt the new hardware is cheap, and may be more expensive than burning excess energy using old laser tech in the meantime. Other research groups work on laser efficiency, and the "final product" using this method (if it ever proves viable) would put together all the best pieces to get the best efficiencies.
- londons_explore 4y agoIt's a very old lab, and replacing them isn't cheap/easy. You don't need to use efficient lasers to get the scientific results they're after - other people have already very accurately measured the properties of modern lasers, so we can predict how they would perform without having to actually use them.