The Strange History
of Fusion and
the Science of
Wishful Thinking
by Charles Seife
Posted on 08/13/2022 12:57:56 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL's) National Ignition Facility (NIF) recorded the first case of ignition on August 8, 2021, the results of which have now been published in three peer-reviewed papers.
Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars: heavy hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they fuse together to form a helium atom, releasing large amounts of energy as a by-product. Once the hydrogen plasma "ignites", the fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining, with the fusions themselves producing enough power to maintain the temperature without external heating.
Ignition during a fusion reaction essentially means that the reaction itself produced enough energy to be self-sustaining, which would be necessary in the use of fusion to generate electricity.
In this latest milestone at the LLNL, researchers recorded an energy yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ) during only a few nanoseconds.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
It's roughly the time required for light to travel one foot. That bit of information is rattling around in my head because I was involved in the development of a laser ranging system some years ago. Divide the elapsed nanoseconds by 2 (for the round trip of the laser and the reflected energy) and that's your range in feet.
The problem remains that each EV, for example, must arguably have its own crash-safe fusion unit so that cities can be evacuated for hurricanes for example.
Electric Vehicles May Present Major Problem During Natural Disaster Evacuations: Experts (8.11.22)
Compare with Ford's concept for nuclear powered vehicles.
Ford Nucleon (Non-FR)
Insights welcome.
Tesla checking his notes.
.
Never be commercial. We have cheap fossil fuels (nat gas), cheap storage (battery, CO2 bladders), cheap solar and wind collection.
Immediately ban any Chinese people from accessing the area within a 5 mile radius.
Like the flying car.
Is that you, Grace?
Hope that had a truly diverse team headed by antiracists, or tgey better undiscover and like PRONTO!
DID I just appropriate?
PHOOF!
And just like that!
Our solar system has two suns, 93,000,000 miles apart.
This feels so chet99-y…
How many pitbulls and how much steam? /sarc
I con- jecture
That con-fusion
Is all that emanates
From commiefornia
Think I should keep my power buster generator to take over after a few nano-seconds of power?
Once fusion energy becomes a real possibility, I predict “scientists” will declare some fusion byproduct to be the “new Co2”. Maybe fusion created helium. Regardless, it must be reduced, taxed and regulated to ensure energy is too expensive for the masses. It was never about the Co2.
A Nanosecond. The time it takes for the guy behind me to honk after the light turns green.
May not seem like much to you but it is a huge milestone
This happened more than a year ago.
Randomly at the same time someone left a cat in a box on my porch.
It is polydactyl and always tries to write stuff on my white board.
Sometimes it looks like maths, but even I know that if cats could do maths they would never.
Democrats will oppose and shutdown and go with very expensive and unreliable solar and wind.
Oh wow, I was all excited ...and then I realized this is Newsweek.
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