5 ms·

Can someone knowledgeable provide some commentary on the importance and veracity? I'm curious if this is truly a breakthrough, or a physics "in mice".

mimd 3y ago
The one from a few years ago was a big breakthrough in that it overcame the "effective" input energy, proving possibility. This is just a follow-up, so it's mostly testing/replication/improved yield, etc, so this one per se is not as great an achievement, unless your down in the weeds Think of it as curing a very hard disease in mice, which had no success before this point, like rabies. It shows possibility rather than it just being a theory on a chalkboard. The next large test (ICF is not thought to be scalable to achieve true parity) is the large scale iter tomahawk test in 5 years as it's scheduled for 2025, which is supposed to reach overall breakeven, though we will see.
joker_minmax 3y ago
The issue with applying any of this is going to be the longevity of the materials in use, in my opinion. Fission is hard enough on the containment in terms of wear and tear, fusion will have even more challenges. We are still permanently 20 years away from fusion in my opinion, lol.
alyandon 3y ago
From the article, * Energy gain in this context only compares the energy generated to the energy in the lasers, not to the total amount of energy pulled off the grid to power the system, which is much higher. I'm leaning towards the "in mice" but still a step forward. Disclaimer: Not a physicist.
- richard_rainbow 3y ago
  Cancer cures are very often found in vitro. After all it doesn't take much to kill something in a test tube.
tuatoru 3y ago
I don't know about the physics, but it's an engineering "in mice". They got more energy out of the plasma than they put in with the lasers, yes. But lasers are only a few percent efficient, and there are huge losses geting the power to the lasers from the capacitor banks (losses are proportional to the square of current, and we're talking very large currents). And there a further inefficiencies up the chain. Overall energy output would be well less than a thousandth of the energy put in. And it was generated only for a tiny fraction of a second. Down-chain, actually being able to use the generated energy is its own chain of losses and inefficiencies. TLDR; don't expect to see commercial fusion any time soon, or maybe in your lifetime.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Sure, but it works.

mimd 3y ago

The one from a few years ago was a big breakthrough in that it overcame the "effective" input energy, proving possibility. This is just a follow-up, so it's mostly testing/replication/improved yield, etc, so this one per se is not as great an achievement, unless your down in the weeds Think of it as curing a very hard disease in mice, which had no success before this point, like rabies. It shows possibility rather than it just being a theory on a chalkboard. The next large test (ICF is not thought to be scalable to achieve true parity) is the large scale iter tomahawk test in 5 years as it's scheduled for 2025, which is supposed to reach overall breakeven, though we will see.

joker_minmax 3y ago

The issue with applying any of this is going to be the longevity of the materials in use, in my opinion. Fission is hard enough on the containment in terms of wear and tear, fusion will have even more challenges. We are still permanently 20 years away from fusion in my opinion, lol.

alyandon 3y ago

From the article, * Energy gain in this context only compares the energy generated to the energy in the lasers, not to the total amount of energy pulled off the grid to power the system, which is much higher. I'm leaning towards the "in mice" but still a step forward. Disclaimer: Not a physicist.

richard_rainbow 3y ago
Cancer cures are very often found in vitro. After all it doesn't take much to kill something in a test tube.

tuatoru 3y ago

I don't know about the physics, but it's an engineering "in mice". They got more energy out of the plasma than they put in with the lasers, yes. But lasers are only a few percent efficient, and there are huge losses geting the power to the lasers from the capacitor banks (losses are proportional to the square of current, and we're talking very large currents). And there a further inefficiencies up the chain. Overall energy output would be well less than a thousandth of the energy put in. And it was generated only for a tiny fraction of a second. Down-chain, actually being able to use the generated energy is its own chain of losses and inefficiencies. TLDR; don't expect to see commercial fusion any time soon, or maybe in your lifetime.

happytiger 3y ago
Sure, but it works.