Some real fusion news: Breakeven achieved!

[iamaphazael]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621

Basically, researchers at the National Ignition Facility have been able to create a fusion reaction that generates as much power as it consumes. While they're still a long cry from being able to make a commercially viable reactor, this is a big step in the right direction

[K^2]

It's honestly more like miniature H-bomb than a reactor. It's difficult for me to even imagine how one would go about building an actual reactor on the inertial confinement principles.

I'm not opening any Champagne until they manage to break even with magnetic confinement.

[Nuke]

oops wrong thread

Edited October 8, 2013 by Nuke

[magnemoe]

It's honestly more like miniature H-bomb than a reactor. It's difficult for me to even imagine how one would go about building an actual reactor on the inertial confinement principles.

I'm not opening any Champagne until they manage to break even with magnetic confinement.

yes however this would be used as en rocket engine, an pulsed fusion engine is being tested.

Note that National Ignition Facility is not about energy production but science including simulating nuclear bombs, the break-even is an bonus.

[K^2]

I was thinking about propulsion too, but then the break-even is kind of an arbitrary milestone. Ultimately, you don't care if you are breaking even or not. Any energy you are putting into the system is going to turn up heat that will help you get your propellant up to speed. The more energy you get out of it as fraction of the input the better, of course, but even 50% is a nice bonus.

As for viability of the inertial confinement fusion for space travel, I hope there is a better way, but it is definitely a way.

[Scotius]

Indeed. Better pulse fusion drive than nothing. 30 days to Mars still sounds awesome

[Seret]

I thought tokamaks had already achieved parity, but this is good news for the inertial confinement side.

[NGTOne]

No, tokamaks are still a few years off.

[Winter Man]

Well it's not quite true breakeven, that comes next. What happened here was the fuel gave out as much energy as it absorbed, not as much as firing the laser consumed.

[nuclearpower13]

Do you think ITER will have a major break through in Fusion power, or do guys believe it will always remain experimental.

[-Velocity-]

Do you think ITER will have a major break through in Fusion power, or do guys believe it will always remain experimental.

Honestly, given the history of let-downs, setbacks, and shattered hopes, it's probably not a good idea to place any bets at all on when or if commercial fusion plants will become a reality. Technological progress cannot be carried on to infinity, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that even with the best technology, fusion ends up being possible but just too expensive compared to other, simpler energy sources. Maybe building commercial fusion plants ends up being roughly analogous to powering a well pump on farm with a nuclear reactor instead of just using a windpump. Maybe more efficient energy usage plus alternative sources like wind and solar are good enough. I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT THOUGH.

Edited October 8, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Camacha]

I think it is one of man's biggest mistakes not to invest big in fusion research. Now that we still have plenty of easily available energy in the form of fossil fuels, we have the luxery to experiment. It is just that no one is interested in spending the money. Everything is going painfully slow. Ideally we would research seperate fusion technologies in parallel - and possibly even the same technology in a number of places.

If you would spend our money on this and space faring instead of spying on citizens and war over petty conflicts we might already have something actually providing power.

[magnemoe]

Honestly, given the history of let-downs, setbacks, and shattered hopes, it's probably not a good idea to place any bets at all on when or if commercial fusion plants will become a reality. Technological progress cannot be carried on to infinity, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that even with the best technology, fusion ends up being possible but just too expensive compared to other, simpler energy sources. Maybe building commercial fusion plants ends up being roughly analogous to powering a well pump on farm with a nuclear reactor instead of just using a windpump. Maybe more efficient energy usage plus alternative sources like wind and solar are good enough. I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT THOUGH.

Lots of lower cost fusion project ongoing who I think is far more likely to become successful than ITER

[Dispatcher]

Build your own:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/

[m4v]

Can you be a little more sensationalist with your topic titles? it might be an important milestone but this isn't anywhere near breakeven. By looking around I see that the lasers are like 20%-10% efficient so really there's still a long way to go.

[Nuke]

I think it is one of man's biggest mistakes not to invest big in fusion research. Now that we still have plenty of easily available energy in the form of fossil fuels, we have the luxery to experiment. It is just that no one is interested in spending the money. Everything is going painfully slow. Ideally we would research seperate fusion technologies in parallel - and possibly even the same technology in a number of places.

If you would spend our money on this and space faring instead of spying on citizens and war over petty conflicts we might already have something actually providing power.

i think its an even bigger mistake to not fund small fusion. for a tiny fraction of what iter costs you can test some alternative approaches to fusion that might work sooner because of reduced scale.

[NGTOne]

i think its an even bigger mistake to not fund small fusion. for a tiny fraction of what iter costs you can test some alternative approaches to fusion that might work sooner because of reduced scale.

The problem is, that doesn't work - fusion research is complex enough without the added factor of scaling it down.

Technologies have, historically speaking, started large, and then iteratively worked their way into a smaller and more efficient form (or greater punch for a given form factor). See: steam power, internal combustion, jet engines, etc.

Building a breakeven reactor is hard enough - good luck building a miniaturized inertial confinement setup, for instance.

[Nuke]

The problem is, that doesn't work - fusion research is complex enough without the added factor of scaling it down.

Technologies have, historically speaking, started large, and then iteratively worked their way into a smaller and more efficient form (or greater punch for a given form factor). See: steam power, internal combustion, jet engines, etc.

Building a breakeven reactor is hard enough - good luck building a miniaturized inertial confinement setup, for instance.

i should probibly reiterate, had to do something and ended up with a shorter than intended post. by small fusion i mean the poorly funded concepts that might work: polywell, dense plasma focus, etc. its true these involve much smaller reactors (optimal polywell size will be about 3 meters), but thats a good thing. a small reactor takes less time and money to build. concepts can be tested and refined at a much more rapid pace, and you dont need to build a custom laboratory to house the thing, just use an existing nuke lab. when you have a setback (its science, this will happen), you are not out hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost to build a new one, maybe just a few million. point is you test more ideas, you test them faster, and you spend less money so there is more to go around.

[NGTOne]

i should probibly reiterate, had to do something and ended up with a shorter than intended post. by small fusion i mean the poorly funded concepts that might work: polywell, dense plasma focus, etc. its true these involve much smaller reactors (optimal polywell size will be about 3 meters), but thats a good thing. a small reactor takes less time and money to build. concepts can be tested and refined at a much more rapid pace, and you dont need to build a custom laboratory to house the thing, just use an existing nuke lab. when you have a setback (its science, this will happen), you are not out hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost to build a new one, maybe just a few million. point is you test more ideas, you test them faster, and you spend less money so there is more to go around.

Fair enough. Problem is, not all fusion reactors have commercial potential - i.e. it's possible to achieve fusion reactions in all of them (duh), but you can't hit energy breakeven all of them.

Besides, Polywells are actually seeing a resurgence of interest, from somewhat unexpected sources - US navy, anyone?

[Nuke]

the paranoid lunatic inside me thinks the fact that there has been little polywell news is that they have achieved notable results, and are keeping them classified because the navy wants to equip all its ships before it lets the cat out of the bag to the rest of the world. think about it, there was a string of successes followed by total silence. if it was a failure funding would be cut and the documents declassified for science. of course thats a whole bunch of crazy nonsense. but just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Nuke

[Brotoro]

This is a far cry from my definition of "breakeven."

[SargeRho]

Then your definition is wrong in this case. The reaction produced as much energy as it consumed. That's breakeven. Period.

[K^2]

the paranoid lunatic inside me thinks the fact that there has been little polywell news is that they have achieved notable results, and are keeping them classified because the navy wants to equip all its ships before it lets the cat out of the bag to the rest of the world.

Doesn't necessarily means results. Something similar happened with Hf-178m2, with a lot of research being classified one way or another, but the final report concluded that it is not cost-effective given current levels of technology.

[drakesdoom]

Doesn't necessarily means results. Something similar happened with Hf-178m2, with a lot of research being classified one way or another, but the final report concluded that it is not cost-effective given current levels of technology.

That sounds like the best cover too a major breakthrough ever.

[m4v]

Then your definition is wrong in this case. The reaction produced as much energy as it consumed. That's breakeven. Period.

Bull****, it produced as much energy as the fuel absorbed, in breakeven, it should produce as much energy as you need for operate the whole reactor. The fuel absorbs like 20% of the energy, so in reality, this reactor produced 20% of the laser energy emitted. Now imagine that lasers are 20% efficient, this reactor produced 4% of the energy the lasers consumed. If that's breakeven for you then you are going to have problems paying the energy bills.