Laser Nuclear Fusion Enter a New Regime

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

That is how I how understand it: the x-rays are like a “shaped charge” that compresses the pellet (thank for clarification! They used to use plastic to suspend the pellet but who knows now!).

What is also missing is the first shot to unfreeze the pellet. Then the 100s of laser beams, the heavy metal x-rays compressing the now plasma (any of the isotope’s electrons are pushed off the surface)), the remaining ions heat up and overcome the Coulomb forces separating them, resulting in nuclear fusion.

The news is this is a huge step! From 170 kJ to 1.35 MJ is a true leap.

PS - Article’s main picture shows everything but the suspension material with the gold particles being hit by the blue laser beams (they are timed by a computer that takes into account how long the process signal has to travel before all beams simultaneously pulse!). The space is technically a hohlraum (hollow space) but also refers to whole apparatus (i guess, “hohlraum capsule” in full but that is almost always shortened)

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the extra explanation. Even I might eventually get my head around this.

This tech will change absolutely everything - one day this will probably replace all forms of energy production on the planet, so it’s incredible this isn’t the front page around the world. We televise and follow the minutiae of people running round tracks, jumping over things and trying to put balls into nets, yet this civilisation altering work is more or less trivialised - a byline… Humans are perplexing.

Truly magnificent, world saving work these scientists are doing.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
a reply to: mbkennel
So in simple terms:

That means the metal-alloy is able to convert the energy delta introduced, when they electrons fall back again and the atom/molecule want's to get rid of the energy this wiggles/vibrates in the x-ray frequency, thus emitting x-rays?

These x-rays then put pressure on the fuel pellet inside, because it can not take in the energy, it compresses, together with the heat from the plasma it finally ignites and fusion happens?

That's about right. The other key point is that the x-rays inside the hohlraum bounce off the sides and fill the space very quickly at the speed of light and it comes to an equilibrium---this is a key Teller-Ulam insight, plus calculations in the late 40's that just 'lighting the end' of a thermonuclear fuel with an A-bomb (the earlier proposal) does not result in self-sustaining ignition.

That way it is very hot in X-rays everywhere evenly. You need to get the implosion to be as symmetrical as possible in order to get compression (the same story with the inventions needed for the Trinity/Nagasaki original fission clores). Shining the lasers directly on the pellets doesn't work as you get hot and cold spots and it just squirts out.

In a H-bomb the fusion fuel is also surrounded by additional heavy tamper (lead/tungsten/uranium) which is vaporized violently and just like a rocket the rest is imploded inwards, and being heavy there's lots of momentum. It all bears down on the fusion fuel at maximum compression. Furthermore, at least in earlier designs, there was an additional piece of fissile material (U 235 + Pu) on the inside which was also being compressed and started fissioning, making lots of neutrons and heat and that further jumpstarted the fusion, which was now being compressed simultaneously by the inward imploding tamper, and a fission detonation from the inside exploding outward.

Then finally in weapons the outer hohlraum is surrounded by cheap depleted uranium which can be made to release massive energy (and disgustingly radioactive fallout) from the neutron pulse released by the fusion.

That would also work in ICF experiments to greatly increase energy output but of course there would now be fission waste.

One thing that is never discussed is the proliferation potential for more steady magnetic fusion experiments to make neutrons which can be used to transmute dirt cheap U-238 to weapons capable Pu-239 without needing a fission reactor.

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the extra explanation. Even I might eventually get my head around this.

This tech will change absolutely everything - one day this will probably replace all forms of energy production on the planet, so it’s incredible this isn’t the front page around the world. .

No it won't. This tech isn't really a viable path to cheap fusion reactors. I would look at the companies working on newer generations of magnetically confined fusion.

In any case, we already know the tech we need, at least for the next 100 years---inexpensive modular fission reactors and butch the f up about the waste----but people don't want to do it.

a reply to: mbkennel

There is no “silver bullet” that solves everything, anymore.

We do not have one internal combination engine that we only use, but, we have multiple versions that run on different fuels. Fusion is going to be the same: multiple types of reactors producing useable energy for purpose.

The thing is, it will be adopted as soon as possible to cut carbon dioxide emissions. That is when our future starts.

Sorry that you can’t see it but most have problems with forward thinking: I am not a nihilist, Lewbowski, I believe in da future!’

originally posted by: mbkennel

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the extra explanation. Even I might eventually get my head around this.

This tech will change absolutely everything - one day this will probably replace all forms of energy production on the planet, so it’s incredible this isn’t the front page around the world. .

No it won't. This tech isn't really a viable path to cheap fusion reactors. I would look at the companies working on newer generations of magnetically confined fusion.

In any case, we already know the tech we need, at least for the next 100 years---inexpensive modular fission reactors and butch the f up about the waste----but people don't want to do it.

Tbh i have no idea what magnetically confined fusion, but i'll look it up - sounds interesting. But what i'm applauding is any progress towards cleaner (or at least far cleaner) energy. 'Butching the f up about the waste' is dandy, but would you have that attitude if they put the waste in your back yard. Inevitably it'll be in someone's back yard, but is that ok, so long as it ain't yours?

originally posted by: McGinty
Tbh i have no idea what magnetically confined fusion, but i'll look it up - sounds interesting. But what i'm applauding is any progress towards cleaner (or at least far cleaner) energy. 'Butching the f up about the waste' is dandy, but would you have that attitude if they put the waste in your back yard. Inevitably it'll be in someone's back yard, but is that ok, so long as it ain't yours?

I think it's right to be concerned about the waste, but that problem of what to do with it really should have been addressed before the first commercial reactor was licensed, and the license should have specified waste disposal methods.

One time I drove across the US and I noticed out west there are vast stretches of desert wasteland, which are effectively nobody's backyard because I went for many miles without seeing a single human structure other than the highway.

Have you ever heard of the Jerry Freeman story?
He was an archaeologist who hiked across the Nevada test site to follow the trail of the 49ers, apparently without realizing the area is still radioactive.

He died from cancer 2 years later, so since the area is already so radioactive, nobody can live there, why not bury the waste there? They might need to designate a more secure area so people with more nefarious intentions than Jerry Freeman don't have access to the waste. Knapp says there are already security patrols in the area but Freeman managed to dodge those to do his archaeology work.



About the idea that radioactive waste from fusion is "cleaner", the details matter. Fusion reactors can produce a similar amount of waste to fission reactors and the first 50 to 100 years the fusion waste might actually be more dangerous. The good part is after 100 years, the fusion waste is far less dangerous, whereas fission waste continues to be very dangerous for thousands of years.

I read the article linked in the OP and to me it still seems like this old "joke" is still true:

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
(First attempts created 1 kJ of energy, same source, and then they reached 100 kJ last year. This fusion thing, the joke goes, always is 30 years away!)

I still don't feel like we are any closer than 30 years to commercial fusion.

I got more excited in 2014 when Lockheed Martin said they would build a prototype fusion reactor within 5 years and would have a working reactor in 10 years. They didn't release any details and it was the secretive "skunk works" involved so I thought maybe they had made some kind of breakthrough but were just holding it close to the chest and that's why no details were released. But I think I was too optimistic about that:

America's First Nuclear Fusion Reactor Could Go Online in 2025

In 2014, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) shocked the world with the announcement that it was building a nuclear fusion reactor and planned to have it online "in as little as ten years." Five years later, Lockheed confirmed that it is still working on the project -- but had made very little progress in nuclear fusion energy.

Now it sounds like MIT may beat them to it.

So their expectations at Lockheed Martin seem to have been inflated. Now I'm less excited about claims of future events in fusion, and I will get excited after a working fusion reactor is actually online.

There are tremendous engineering challenges to overcome, which partly explains the "perpetually 30 years away" joke which may not be a joke as much as an admission of the engineering challenges, but I will definitely tip my hat to whoever solves those challenges, if I ever see it happen in my lifetime which I may not.

originally posted by: McGinty

originally posted by: mbkennel

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Thanks for the extra explanation. Even I might eventually get my head around this.

This tech will change absolutely everything - one day this will probably replace all forms of energy production on the planet, so it’s incredible this isn’t the front page around the world. .

No it won't. This tech isn't really a viable path to cheap fusion reactors. I would look at the companies working on newer generations of magnetically confined fusion.

In any case, we already know the tech we need, at least for the next 100 years---inexpensive modular fission reactors and butch the f up about the waste----but people don't want to do it.

Tbh i have no idea what magnetically confined fusion, but i'll look it up - sounds interesting. But what i'm applauding is any progress towards cleaner (or at least far cleaner) energy. 'Butching the f up about the waste' is dandy, but would you have that attitude if they put the waste in your back yard. Inevitably it'll be in someone's back yard, but is that ok, so long as it ain't yours?

No proposals are putting it in anybody's backyard literally. But, inside a dry mine, and monitored? Hell yeah. Better than spewing CO2 and nitrous oxides and everything else produced by a combustion plant into the air!

Risk interpretation is wildly irrational by the public here.

After all, right now on San Diego bay right close to thousands of tourists are a few nuclear reactors running on near weapons-grade uranium. They glide by civilians 200 feet away while we're eating fish tacos and nobody cares.

The subs are spooky.

a reply to: mbkennel

Fair enough! I’m obviously wading into a science I don’t know enough about. But it sounds like you prefer tech with less environmental impact, which anyone with an eye past their own horizon must see is the only truly viable option. Right now we need to give up fossil fuels, but as you point out, traditional nuclear power creation is itself a bag of cognitive dissonance.

The Fusion breakthrough in the OP to my mind is something to celebrate, as it’s a further step away from insidious power creation. But I guess there’re no free lunches and will have some form of detrimental effect. If there’s already a step beyond that which supersedes fusion, before we’ve even got fusion working, such as Fission, then I’m sure that’s something worth aiming at.

But to let you know the level of technical understanding I have in these things, at school in the 80s I did a new class they’d begun simply called ‘Technology’. Unfortunately the teacher only turned up 2 or 3 times over that 2 years and in the exam, faced with questions I’d had no tuition on I decided to stage an ill conceived protest by answering the questions obtusely:

…Question: ‘What is nuclear fission?’
Answer: ‘When you catch nuclear fish.’

Despite the majority of my answers sounding like Rupert Pupkin’s stand up routine i somehow still got a pass, albeit with an E. Go figure! Maybe they were marking everything ‘up’ to avoid awkward questions about a class being left to their own devices for 2 years.

In the meantime the odd book on physics and the university of YouTube have done a far better job of education than all my years at my not fit for purpose U.K. comprehensive school and I’m more than happy to continue that education via the better informed folk of ATS, such as yourself. Thanks, buddy!

a reply to: mbkennel

Do you have any comments on the possibilities of a housed micro mini black hole, being able to have the ability to generate magnetic fields enough to contain fusion plasma; and also generate fusion plasma reactions, by having one magnetic field compress deuterium molecules against another magnetic field with extreme pressure?

Thanx...

Erno

originally posted by: Erno86
a reply to: mbkennel

Do you have any comments on the possibilities of a housed micro mini black hole, being able to have the ability to generate magnetic fields enough to contain fusion plasma; and also generate fusion plasma reactions, by having one magnetic field compress deuterium molecules against another magnetic field with extreme pressure?

Thanx...

Erno

We haven't ever found a 'micro mini black hole' and I wouldn't ever want to try. What good would it do anyway? They have mass, spin and charge. It would be like really small permanent magnet I guess, and rather uncontrollable the usual technology.

You generate magnetic fields with moving charges and charged particle spin. We already know how to do that---keeping up the compression long enough is the tough part. Nuclei are oppositely charged and it's really hard to get them to collide close enough to do the nuclear stuff as opposed to repelling and flying apart, and in bulk, creating chaos and entropy.

You have to be able to contain the nuclei so that they can have 10000 "shots on goal" losing minimal energy to the environment (that's the tough one).

For saving climate it's way way too late for fusion. We need something yesterday that's known engineering.

originally posted by: Erno86
Do you have any comments on the possibilities of a housed micro mini black hole...

originally posted by: mbkennel
We haven't ever found a 'micro mini black hole' and I wouldn't ever want to try. What good would it do anyway? They have mass, spin and charge. It would be like really small permanent magnet I guess, and rather uncontrollable the usual technology.

There are "extra dimension" theories of gravity, or should I say hypotheses, which predicted the possibility of micro black holes being generated inside the LHC.

I don't think those hypotheses have much evidence behind them, in fact the absence of black holes in the LHC is a lack of evidence, though the article below suggests they could occur more rarely at the LHC than we originally thought, so we need to look longer and harder.

If a micro black hole was made, it's not expected to be stable and would "evaporate" in a tiny fraction of a second:

World's largest atom smasher could seed microscopic black holes

These tiny black holes are not a cause for alarm — they would evaporate in less than 10^minus 27 seconds, transmuting into a shower of particles well before they did anything interesting like swallowing Earth. But to date we haven't seen any of particle sprays suggestive of microscopic black holes or extra dimensions.

But in a paper accepted to be published in the journal Physical Review D and posted to the preprint database arXiv, a team of theoretical physicists have pointed out that we may be missing something...

This group's more precise calculations reveal that, assuming all those extra dimensions exist and gravity is secretly superstrong, the LHC can produce far fewer microscopic black holes than we previously realized...

This means that all hope is not lost in the search of extra dimensions and gravity's potential hidden strength. We may just have to keep running the LHC longer before we can rule these models out...

So even if you could make a micro black hole, they don't last long enough to do much with them. 10^minus 27 seconds is a very short life.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The magnetic confinement seems to be a sticking point as most designs are for 15 - 25 Tesla magnetic field strength. We struggle to get close to 10 T for any extended time. That is what Commonwealth Fusion is focusing on (they hired the MIT engineers who worked with McGuire at LM when they were all doing research on the Boston campus). Once either team makes the announcement, they will leapfrog each other.

As magnetic field strength increases, the reactor size decreases 4-fold. Which is why I am not impressed with ITER and it’s 80’s tech (niobium tin).

Combining old school with new school (HTSC can survive at low temperature level magnetic field strength) might be “the next big thing” in fusion news. Stacked field of 40 T (or +) would do the trick for small, distributed, fusion reactors around the Grid.

That is my hopes and wishes for fusion. I am a Romantic about the subject…

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: Arbitrageur
As magnetic field strength increases, the reactor size decreases 4-fold. Which is why I am not impressed with ITER and it’s 80’s tech (niobium tin).

The "bigger is better" sounds more logical to me for fusion reactor efficiency, but as Dr. Cowley says, maybe someone can come up with a clever idea to make smaller machines feasible. Maybe they can be made, but won't be as efficient? Think about coal-fired power plants, where we have a handle on that technology. Why don't we have small, distributed, coal-fired power plants around the Grid?

Scientists Skeptical of Lockheed's Fusion Breakthrough

Cowley said decades of fusion research indicates the bigger the reactor, the better.
...
"What we've learned by building lots of machines is that when you double the size of the machine, you make it confine the heat eight times better," he said. "I believe ITER is the best possibility of doing that. Somebody might come up with a really bright idea and do it a lot quicker and cheaper. But it's difficult to see at the moment."

My own thoughts are we already have a great fusion reactor in the sun but don't efficiently use the energy it generates, though some progress is being made. Very high efficiency solar cells, while a challenge to make, may actually be less challenging than making efficient fusion reactors.

Wake me up when they’re small enough to put on the back of my DeLorean, please!

Since black holes sometime feed on something like starry plasma; we could well feed a micro-mini black hole until it gets to the size of a proton, which might make it power a starship or a generating plant's fusion reactors --- For say...a hundred years or so?

"The gold vaporizes"
Gold!
some say aliens took a lot of Gold from earth?
maybe now we know why.