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- TL;DR Summary
- Fusion technology
Is this a 'big deal' ?
https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-...nt-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition
https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-...nt-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition
phyzguy said:Summary:: Recent article claims ignition has been achieved at NIF
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-major-nuclear-fusion-milestone-ignition.html
Anybody know any more? Like what they did differently from earlier trials.
NIF stands for National Ignition Facility and it is a large laser facility located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Its achievement of fusion ignition, which is the point at which the fusion reactions release more energy than the laser energy used to initiate them, is significant because it is a major step towards the goal of achieving sustainable fusion energy production.
NIF uses 192 high-powered lasers to focus and compress a small pellet of deuterium and tritium (two isotopes of hydrogen) to extremely high temperatures and pressures, causing the atoms to fuse together and release large amounts of energy.
If NIF is able to achieve sustained fusion reactions and produce more energy than it consumes, it could potentially provide a nearly limitless source of clean energy, as fusion reactions do not produce greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste.
The NIF project began in the late 1990s and it took over a decade of research, development, and testing to reach the milestone of fusion ignition in 2018.
While reaching fusion ignition is a major accomplishment, there are still many challenges to overcome before fusion energy can become a practical and reliable source of energy. The next steps for NIF and fusion energy research include improving the efficiency and stability of fusion reactions, finding ways to sustain the reactions for longer periods of time, and developing technologies to harness and use the energy produced by fusion reactions.