Big announcement about fusion energy coming soon (Dec-2022)

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The US Department of Energy is poised to announce a significant fusion energy breakthrough, reportedly achieving a net energy gain for the first time at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This milestone is seen as a crucial step toward developing clean, limitless energy, although experts caution that practical applications remain decades away. The announcement has sparked discussions about its implications for ongoing hydrogen energy research, with some asserting that hydrogen will continue to play a role regardless of fusion developments. Critics emphasize the need for realistic assessments of fusion's potential, highlighting that the energy input for the recent achievement far exceeds the output. Overall, while the announcement is a notable scientific success, it does not immediately translate into viable energy solutions.
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https://nypost.com/2022/12/12/us-set-to-announce-major-fusion-energy-breakthrough/

The US Department of Energy is set to reveal a “major scientific breakthrough” this week after scientists were reportedly able to produce a fusion reaction that created a net energy gain for the first time.

The development — a major milestone in the pursuit of limitless clean energy — was made recently at the government-funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, sources told the Washington Post.

The net gain reaction, which is considered to be a “holy grail” of zero-carbon power, is a major step towards being able to create a technology one day that could offer a clean and virtually limitless supply of energy.
 
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Engineering news on Phys.org
OK, if this were to pan out and become a viable source of energy, what would that do to all the schools now currently investing in hydrogen-energy research?
 
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It is only a breakthrough at the beginning of the path of development.

God only knows how long it will take before it can make a contribution towards providing clean carbon free energy.

As they say ,don't give up on the day job.

Let us cut down on (cut out) carbon et al emitting technologies as our immediate priority or we may eventually have nuclear fusion but no planet or human civilisation for it to benefit.
 
Astronuc said:
It's merely an announcement that there will be an announcement.
That's bold. To jump straight into the announcement announcement without a pre-announcement.

If this is an announcement of reaching the output exceeds the input milestone,. the real breakthrough goes back to August of last year, when they went from single digit percentages to 70%. 70 to 100 is less dramatic. It's a milestone, sure, but one that was bound to happen sooner or later.
 
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Vanadium 50 said:
when they went from single digit percentages to 70%
But 70% of what? :wink:
 
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PeterDonis said:
The other thread by @dlgoff on this topic has just been merged into this one.
Fusion?
 
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  • #10
Frabjous said:
Fusion?
That was its title before I merged it, yes.
 
  • #11
PeterDonis said:
That was its title before I merged it, yes.
or fused the threads :-p
 
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  • #12
Frabjous said:
or fused the threads :-p
Yes. Fortunately I didn't need to use huge lasers to do it--I'd hate to melt my computer. :wink:
 
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  • #14
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...m-the-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory/
expert reaction to reports of advance in nuclear fusion from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
“Although positive news, this result is still a long way from the actual energy gain required for the production of electricity. That’s because they had to use 500 MJ of energy into the lasers to deliver 1.8 MJ to the target – so even though they got 2.5 MJ out, it’s still far less than the energy they needed for the lasers in the first place. In other words, the energy output (largely heat energy) was still only 0.5% of the input. An engineering target for fusion would be to recover much of the energy used in the process and get an energy gain of double the energy that went into the lasers – it needs to be double because the heat must be converted to electricity and you lose energy that way.
...
“Therefore we can say that this result from NIF is a success of the science – but still a long way from providing useful, abundant, clean energy.”
 
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  • #16
PeterDonis said:
Yes. Fortunately I didn't need to use huge lasers to do it--I'd hate to melt my computer. :wink:
Thank goodness. That would be *hugely* inefficient... :wink:
 
  • #17
Trying2Learn said:
OK, if this were to pan out and become a viable source of energy, what would that do to all the schools now currently investing in hydrogen-energy research?
Hydrogen isn't an energy source (it's a carrier/battery), so a fusion breakthrough would not have any impact on that.
 
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  • #18
russ_watters said:
Hydrogen isn't an energy source
It would be if we were living on Jupiter and could mine it from the atmosphere...
 
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  • #19
PeterDonis said:
Yes. Fortunately I didn't need to use huge lasers to do it--I'd hate to melt my computer. :wink:
Now that would be worthy of a press release.
 
  • #20
TeethWhitener said:
Now that would be worthy of a press release.
So to recap then, is this looking like it is a big deal? This reads like a big deal

"These results if true, are the first time in history that the fusion community have output more energy from the reaction than they put in."

I thought that was the biggest hurdle?
 
  • #22
hydropower_breakthrough.png

(XKCD)

-Dan
 
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  • #23
When you find something that could be really good news, so much so that it could quite literally save the planet and be the next huge leap in human technology.

1670943541685.png


...but then find out it probably isnt.
1670943585311.png
 
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  • #24
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  • #25
pinball1970 said:
So to recap then, is this looking like it is a big deal? This reads like a big deal
It's a milestone of sorts in that it is a round number if you calculate it a certain way (1-1=0 if you ignore a bunch of other stuff) but it does absolutely nothing to bring us closer to fusion electricity. It isn't even on a path/timeline toward fusion electricity, so If anything it puts us further away if it redirects money away from projects that could move down the timeline.
 
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  • #26
Interestingly, this is currently the top story on CNN's website and has five additional supporting articles, but doesn't even appear on USA Today's homepage. The literal bottom line (last line of the last article):

CNN said:
“This will not contribute meaningfully to climate abatement in the next 20-30 years,” Friedmann said. “This the difference between lighting a match and building a gas turbine.”
 
  • #27
LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE).
https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-achieves-fusion-ignition

What is missing from the press release is the energy used to produce the 2.05 MJ, which apparently was on the order of 500 MJ (maybe more), as was alluded to in an earlier post.
See - https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...usion-energy-coming-soon.1048101/post-6831122

So yes, the achieved some net gain over the energy deposited in the Hohlraum, but a tiny fraction of the energy required to produced 2.05 MJ using 192 lasers. Assuming the energy is thermal, it would still need to be converted to useful electrical energy at a meaningful rate.

Current power reactors produce 0.9 - 1.2 GWe ( 900 - 1200 MW, or 900 - 1200 MJ/s) from 2.9-3.6 GWt. A power reactor based on IFE looks unattainable.

The announcement is a disappointment for a number of reasons.
 
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  • #28
If only they could somehow combine it with the wormhole the Caltech people just created…
 
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  • #29
This is the kind of breakthrough that should have been achieved in the 1970's. What happened? It probably didn't help that there is no real pressure to succeed beyond the next funding cycle and publishing deadline. We're always hearing grand pronouncements about the future energy needs being met by fusion but then put the work in the hands of research groups. ITER isn't a serious fusion program, it's an international diplomacy program in my view.

Fortunately there are a number of startups and private groups working to make fusion practical.
 
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  • #30
A more honest assessment.

“We got out 3.15 megajoules, we input 2.05 megajoules in the laser,” said Mark Herrmann, who is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s program director for weapon physics and design, in an expert panel discussion that followed the announcement. “That’s never been done before in any fusion laboratory anywhere in the world.”

But, he added, the output was about 1% of the electricity used.

“I want to be clear, ultimately this experiment drew about 300 megajoules from the grid,” Herrmann said. “The laser wasn’t designed to be efficient. This laser was designed to give us as much juice as possible to make these incredible conditions happen in the laboratory. There are many, many steps that would have to be made to get to inertial fusion as an energy source.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/energy-d...-could-revolutionize-the-world-165844246.html

I'll wait for the data. I suspect the electrical input was considerably greater than 300 MJ.
 
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  • #31
TeethWhitener said:
If only they could somehow combine it with the wormhole the Caltech people just created…
I'm thinking Faraday or 1905 and 1945, the first computer - expensive, large, slow, ugly and unwieldy, not good for much besides Mark 2.
 
  • #32
In my view the NIF is a nuclear weapons research facility loosely disguised as a fusion research program and this is part of the PR to justify its existence. If the claim is that this concept will soon bring about commercial fusion it's deceptive advertising. If the claim is that this breakthrough proves some other concept will be practical that's also untenable.

NIF as an energy source makes solar power satellites look good.
 
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  • #33
bob012345 said:
ITER isn't a serious fusion program, it's an international diplomacy program in my view.
Did you mean NIF? This announcement is about NIF, which is a purely American enterprise. ITER, the international project, is believed to be on a path to viable fusion electricity. It's not the last step though, its successor is.

...though ITER appears to suffer similar hype/obfuscation of goals issue as NIF.
 
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  • #34
russ_watters said:
Did you mean NIF? This announcement is about NIF, which is a purely American enterprise. ITER, the international project, is believed to be on a path to viable fusion electricity. It's not the last step though, its successor is.

...though ITER appears to suffer similar hype/obfuscation of goals issue as NIF.
Some of the pre-announcement articles led me to believe this was going to be about a tokamak in the UK. But my comment about ITER is my conviction after following the program for decades. It started out with great promise but the aims were downgraded over the years. It sucks the bounty of global fusion money and is the poster child of a big government research program. The concepts comes out of the 1970's. Yes, they do upgrade the technology over time but they are basically stuck in the past.

I am convinced practical fusion will happen but probably not through ITER or NIF or any other large public government research program. Probably through one of the many smaller, nimble new corporate or private concepts being actively pursued.

I will say ITER would have a chance if Elon Musk bought them out, fired most of the researchers (keep the engineers and technicians), brought on fresh people and focused the program on results.
 
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  • #35
russ_watters said:
It's a milestone of sorts in that it is a round number if you calculate it a certain way (1-1=0 if you ignore a bunch of other stuff) but it does absolutely nothing to bring us closer to fusion electricity. It isn't even on a path/timeline toward fusion electricity, so If anything it puts us further away if it redirects money away from projects that could move down the timeline.
It is certainly headline news. If they put my taxes up to fund it I am happy.
I am sure my hard earned money went to places I was not as keen on.
 
  • #36
gmax137 said:
Sounds like practical use of fusion might have gone from 30 years away to 29 years...

That's actually quite good news since it's been stuck at 30 for the past 50.
I belong to a Makerspace and we have a Science group which is making a 'Fusor'. People ask "When will you finish it?" We say "in two weeks". The funny thing is it's been two weeks away for about two years now. There's just something about fusion...
 
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  • #37
I've got this really good idea about cold fusion.

The mango flavor, with a bit of 7-Up, on the rocks!

-Dan
 
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  • #38
I did as doubletake of the title. I think it means

(Big announcement about fusion energy) coming soon

and not

Big announcement about (fusion energy coming soon)

If someone has the time and wants to perform a service to the community, it would be interesting to find out the history of "20 (or 30, or 50) years away". When was it first said? When was it last said? By whom? In what context?
 
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  • #39
Vanadium 50 said:
I did as doubletake of the title. I think it means

(Big announcement about fusion energy) coming soon

and not

Big announcement about (fusion energy coming soon)

If someone has the time and wants to perform a service to the community, it would be interesting to find out the history of "20 (or 30, or 50) years away". When was it first said? When was it last said? By whom? In what context?
A Quick search found this
  • 1955
    • At the first Atoms for Peace meeting in Geneva, Homi J. Bhabha predicts that fusion will be in commercial use within two decades. This prompts a number of countries to begin fusion research; Japan, France and Sweden all start programs this year or the next.

from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion#1920s
 
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  • #40
This is why Wikipedia is such a lousy source. It's uncited. I have not been able to get to a primary source, but I did find somn secondary sources that say Bhaba said "“I venture to predict that a method will be found for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner within the next two decades."

Saying that once in 1955 doesn't really warrant "it's always been 20 years away". Further, Bhaba was right. He doesn't say commercial. He doesn't even say breakeven. He says "controlled", and that was achieved in the late 1950's.

Further, Bhaba's view seems not to be universal. Teller - who knew a thing or two about fusion - said it was "similar to the stage at which flying was about 100 years ago".

It would be a service if someone were to follow the breadcrumbs and get a clear and accurate picture of the story, not just "well, everybody knows..."
 
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  • #41
Personally, I don't care about fusion. I want to see about those "chromodynamic light sources" that Janeway referred to on ST Voyager. The sounds way cooler.

-Dan
 
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  • #42
If I may venture a prediction, I would say we're $100B away as an order of magnitude. That's a more useful view of the work it would take than a time with no associated level of resources.

The US puts $700M in per year. The rest of the world, a similar amount. You can do the math.

The world GDP is $100T/year. Just to compare.
 
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  • #43
Vanadium 50 said:
I would say we're $100B away as an order of magnitude
Maybe that crypto guy in the Bahamas can chip in...
 
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  • #44
topsquark said:
I want to see about those "chromodynamic light sources" that Janeway referred to on ST Voyager.
"Get this cheese to sickbay".
 
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  • #45
Vanadium 50 said:
If I may venture a prediction, I would say we're $100B away as an order of magnitude. That's a more useful view of the work it would take than a time with no associated level of resources.

The US puts $700M in per year. The rest of the world, a similar amount. You can do the math.

The world GDP is $100T/year. Just to compare.
The issue as I see it is a lack of new, workable ideas not money. This is why my bet is on the startups with novel ideas.
 
  • #46
bob012345 said:
The issue as I see it is a lack of new, workable ideas
Really? Is this based on anything? It seems odd to be saying this the day after breakeven was announced using old ideas.
 
  • #47
Vanadium 50 said:
Really? Is this based on anything? It seems odd to be saying this the day after breakeven was announced using old ideas.
New fusion startups are typically using either new ideas or twists on old ideas. NIF is about two orders of magnitude away from breakeven. Do you see any reasonable possibility a practical, commercial fusion reactor will come out of the NIF? How efficient can the high power lasers be made? I'm skeptical they can be made efficient enough to make true breakeven with this concept without breaking the laws of thermodynamics. They also would have to do many shots per second on a continual basis not once in 1.5-2 hours at their best now. I believe NIF is primarily a way of testing the nuclear weapons stockpile.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/for_users/pdfs/2012user_guide.pdf
 
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  • #48
bob012345 said:
The issue as I see it is a lack of new, workable ideas not money. This is why my bet is on the startups with novel ideas.
Counterpoint:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-015-0732-y/figures/4
Selected quote: "The rate of increase in tokamak performance has outstripped that of Moore’s law for the miniaturisation of silicon chips (Pitts et al. 2006)."

Most of the information I've been able to find on fusion startups indicates that they aren't using particularly new ideas. Magnetic confinement, electrostatic confinement, inertial confinement, pick one. My gut says that fusion is simply a really really hard engineering problem (duh) and ignition will probably be achieved by really smart people continually improving and refining the existing ideas, ekeing out small gains bit by bit. It's not sexy, but it's far more likely to yield results than sitting around hoping for someone to have a revolutionary new idea.

Also, I don't think anyone realistically expects NIF to be the model toward fusion power production.
 
  • #49
Made a PSA infographic.
fusion breakthrough.png
 
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  • #50
While still waiting for data.
LLNL, December 8, 2022

By imbedding a target capsule in a strong magnetic field, inertial confinement fusion (ICF) researchers have demonstrated a potential path to sustained high-energy-yield NIF implosions.

Recent low-power tests using a magnetized room-temperature gas-filled capsule have achieved a 40 percent increase in hot-spot temperature and more than tripled the implosion’s energy yield compared to similar non-magnetized targets.
https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/magnetized-targets-boost-nif-implosion-performance

The current experiments, which created a 26-Tesla magnetic field around the capsule that grew to an estimated 4,700 Tesla during the implosion, resulted in a 40 percent increase in ion (hot-spot) temperature and a factor of 3.2 increase in neutron yield, a measure of energy production (26 Tesla is about 500,000 times more powerful than the Earth’s magnetic field).

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/169

I'd like to know how much mass of (D,T) is used per target, which is important to know in order to determine the conversion efficiency.
 
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