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Laser fusion test passes key Milestone

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K

Kimawolf

Member
CLEAN energy inspired by the stars is the dream of scientists pursuing nuclear fusion, in which atomic nuclei fuse together and release energy. In a first for laser-driven fusion, scientists at a US lab say they have reached a key milestone called fuel gain: they are producing more energy than the fuel absorbed to start the reaction.
But the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, is still a long way from sparking a self-sustaining fusion reaction with an overall gain in energy – a process called ignition. Currently, the reactor as a whole needs more energy to operate than the amount that is produced.

"This is a significant step in fusion research," says Omar Hurricane at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which operates NIF. "But there is a long path ahead for fusion energy as a power source."

Inside a star's core, the intense heat and pressure fuse hydrogen atoms, creating helium nuclei and releasing vast amounts of energy. Hurricane and other researchers at NIF are attempting to achieve a similar effect by firing 192 laser beams into a gold chamber, which converts the lasers' energy into pulses of X-rays. A series of four of these pulses squeezes a small fuel pellet containing deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen, causing the pellet to implode and briefly undergo fusion.

NIF has been operating since 2009, but with slow progress. The lab missed a September 2012 deadline for ignition set by the US Congress. So in 2013, NIF adjusted their laser set-up so that the X-rays hit the fuel pellet in three pulses, heating the fuel faster.

Two runs of this modified experiment in September and November last year achieved fuel gain, Hurricane and his colleagues report (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13008). The experiment delivered about 10 kilojoules of energy to the fuel pellet, which released roughly 15 kilojoules.

However, the total energy input to the system by the laser was close to 2 megajoules. Some energy is lost during the process, for example when the laser is converted to X-rays. That means the fuel gain at NIF represents less than 1 per cent of the total energy entering the system.

Nevertheless, the NIF team and others are hopeful that the work is a step in the right direction. "They now have a handle on the physics and understand how to drive the machine," says Bob Bingham at the University of Strathclyde in the UK.

What's more, the helium nuclei generated during the experimental runs are colliding with fuel in the pellet, sparking further fusion reactions. This self-heating should lead to ignition, says Hurricane.

Lasers aren't the only route to fusion. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), currently under construction in Cadarache, France, will use a method that traps fusing hydrogen using magnets. Previous magnetic reactors achieved self-heating, but none have yet seen ignition.

"I applaud the result that they have obtained and encourage the NIF team to continue on the road to ignition," says ITER scientist Paul Thomas.

Even if NIF reaches its goal and harnesses the power of the stars, creating the fuel and precisely targeting the lasers is a slow, laborious process, and the intense laser blasts degrade the machine faster than a commercial operation could bear. Such engineering challenges will need to be solved before fusion power becomes practical, says Hurricane.
Click to expand...
http://www.newscientist.com/article...parked-fusion-power-passes-key-milestone.html

One step closer, let's get to work engineers!
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Meh.

It is cool that they got more energy out than in. But it is not like they have a way to efficiently capture and use all that energy. And I don't know they could build an operating fusion plant with this zap-a-pellet system at NIF.
 
N

Napoleonthechimp

Member
All of these fusion experiments add to a combined scientific knowledge that all scientists can work from. But with regards to when they'll be able to generate more power than what is being consumed: I've heard they have high hopes for the ITER fusion reactor in France.

DiscoJer said:
I guess this is some progress, but there is a saying - "Fusion has been 20 years away for the last 50 years".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion

It's really quite humbling.
Click to expand...

Necessity is the mother of invention.

With more and more people joining the ranks of the "developed nations" the demand for power is increasing exponentially. The world has to get its shit together or we're all doomed.
 
K

King Of Fuh

Member
speculawyer said:
Meh.

It is cool that they got more energy out than in. But it is not like they have a way to efficiently capture and use all that energy. And I don't know they could build an operating fusion plant with this zap-a-pellet system at NIF.
Click to expand...

You're right. Might as well just abandon the search for clean, renewable limitless energy. After all, this early result is just meh.
 
G

G.ZZZ

Member
Damn u america and ur need to research on your own. Magnetic-confinement based reactors achieved this "milestones" ages ago and if america didn't leave that train the technology would probably be 10 years more advanced, or close to commercial viability right now.
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
Gr1mLock said:
Wake me up when there's a beam rifle.
Click to expand...

Fusion is much cooler than a frigging infantry energy weapon. Especially the kind that uses massive lasers for fusion.
Energy weapons are impractical for infantry really, a lot of drawbacks, and in the end they're mostly different from conventional weapons, not better.

G.ZZZ said:
Damn u america and ur need to research on your own. Magnetic-confinement based reactors achieved this "milestones" ages ago and if america didn't leave that train the technology would probably be 10 years more advanced, or close to commercial viability right now.
Click to expand...

Laser fusion has advanced faster if i recall correctly (started later too?). Me, i reckon it will be more promising of the two.
 
G

Gr1mLock

Passing metallic gas
Woorloog said:
Fusion is much cooler than a frigging infantry energy weapon. Especially the kind that uses massive lasers for fusion.
Energy weapons are impractical for infantry really, a lot of drawbacks, and in the end they're mostly different from conventional weapons, not better.
Click to expand...

Facts. Facts and information that turn to nothing but bitter bitter wax in my ears. Beam rifle.
 
jchap

jchap

Member
1.8 million joules in and 17 thousand joules out = energy gain

NIF logic

I understand they are only counting the energy absorbed by the pellet but laser based ignition is a ridiculous project with no real path forward. Tokamak based magnetically confined fusion, on the other hand, might get somewhere.
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
Stupid question really

But those fusion (or was it fission?) power plants that use magnetic fields to keep the super heated plasma aren't they dangerous? What happens if it fails? Will the plasma nearly instant evaporate or will it damage everything?
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
Mr Swine said:
Stupid question really

But those fusion (or was it fission?) power plants that use magnetic fields to keep the super heated plasma aren't they dangerous? What happens if it fails? Will the plasma nearly instant evaporate or will it damage everything?
Click to expand...

The plasma touches the confinement chamber walls and cools down instantly. No explosion. At worst, there might be a steam explosion, if the chamber's breached and air gets in.
Also, fusion is the opposite of fission, no radioactive fallout danger. The reactor turns lightly radioactive over time but since it is in a big building, it ain't gonna spread radioactive stuff all over in case of explosion.
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
Woorloog said:
The plasma touches the confinement chamber walls and cools down instantly. No explosion. At worst, there might be a steam explosion, if the chamber's breached and air gets in.
Also, fusion is the opposite of fission, no radioactive fallout danger.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks for the answer! :)
 
G

Gr1mLock

Passing metallic gas
Woorloog said:
Would have to be around 2 million kelvins to cut metal like in the movies, ie it would melt its handler...
Click to expand...

tumblr_m13luvDrvp1qbw0gqo1_500.gif
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
Gr1mLock said:
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m13luvDrvp1qbw0gqo1_500.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

There is something cool though, an almost Death Star.
X-ray laser. Melts steel at 1 light minute (1/8th of Sun-Earth distance).
[url]http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Laser_Cannon--Non-Bomb-Pumped_Lasers[/url]
Click to expand...
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
Forever said:
How about a coil gun. Can we get a coil gun? I want to shoot through walls.
Click to expand...

Most conventional guns can shoot through walls easily enough.
A portable coil-gun (or railgun) wouldn't have many, if any, advantages over conventional guns either. It is heavy (though ammunition is light and plentiful so these factors might cancel each other out) and requires electricity, which adds a big wrinkle to logistics.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
King Of Fuh said:
You're right. Might as well just abandon the search for clean, renewable limitless energy. After all, this early result is just meh.
Click to expand...

Oh I think they should keep working on fusion, I just don't think the system at NIF will progress toward a workable reactor. I think ITER is more interesting.
 
C

Cronox

Banned
Glad to see another milestone at the Livermore Lab. I talked to a guy who worked there a couple years ago who was thinking that some international efforts were going to end up the better solution, but they're ahead of the pack for the moment. Now they just need to ramp up the efficiency.
 
J

J-Rod

Member
Sounds like all they counted for input energy was the laser beam itself, and not all the energy they used to run the laser, so they were really using about 100 times more energy than they were producing. I think it is more a of milestone in that it probably met the requirements necessary for congress to continue to approve funding their research.
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
J-Rod said:
Sounds like all they counted for input energy was the laser beam itself, and not all the energy they used to run the laser, so they were really using about 100 times more energy than they were producing. I think it is more a of milestone in that it probably met the requirements necessary for congress to continue to approve funding their research.
Click to expand...

Getting more energy out of the fuel pellets than it is used to compress them is important, since now they can focus on improving the efficiency until they produce enough to exceed the energy required for the lasers themselves. Right?
If the first step wouldn't work, trying to figure out how to exceed the laser energy requirements is moot.
 
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