
Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab - olegp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24429621
======
sam
It is an important milestone. But to have a commercially viable fusion
reactor, you'll need a factor of 50-100 more energy out than in to make up for
inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme.

The real story here is that this facility allows the US to do nuclear weapons
research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty. If the goal was to
develop a commercially viable fusion reactor, the $3,500,000,000 spent so far
could have been put into projects geared towards small scale fusion
experiments investigating novel confinement schemes.

Like the one I was working on,
[http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP07/Event/71002](http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP07/Event/71002)
whose funding has since been cut and has been mothballed.

~~~
tsenkov
I wonder, what more do they need in nuclear weapons? Smaller size? Harder
detection? Bigger contamination radius?

Somehow, I am sure, if people start a nuclear war, even the WWII's initial
nuclear weaponry will be enough to destroy ourselves, knowing how many
countries can now chime in with their own.

~~~
JonnieCache
The US now has a notion of "tactical" nuclear weapons.

Some reading:

[http://www.fas.org/_docs/Non_Strategic_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf](http://www.fas.org/_docs/Non_Strategic_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf)

God help us all.

~~~
ewoodrich
That's been around since 1953 (less than a decade after the first atomic
detonation in '45). [1]

And we've maintained a limited number of low-yield warheads that would fall
under that designation. [2] (as an example)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb)

------
dekhn
A good place to start if you want to understand the purported rationale for
the NIF (stockpile stewardship), I suggest reading and understanding this
light introduction to modern nuclear weapons.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon)
(the rhodes books, Making of the Atomic Bomb is required background reading,
as is Dark Sun, if you want to get into the backstore).

In particular: The NIH experiment recapitulates many of the design aspects of
a thermonuclear weapon, but does so in a highly controlled lab environment.

I'm a biophysicist. I know a fair amount of engineering, although I'm not a
weapons physicist. Nonetheless, after years of reading about the NIF and
various fusion projects I've come to believe that there is little
justification for their expenditure. In particular, we can do stockpile
stewardship without this device, more cheaply, nor does NIF present an
economically viable method to production of power at a large scale in even the
most rosy predictions.

I still think the experimental design is cool, but I can't see this as a
rational expenditure (HUGE opex and capex) compared to other investments we
could be making.

Most likely scenario I see in 20 years is that china will be mass-
manufacturing small, safe fission reactors and making a mint selling them to
the rest of the world. That's got far less reqiurement for massive capex and
opex. It's just that the western nations decided to go stupid about fission
because OH GOD NUCLEAR MUTATIONS and stop investing in building more reliable,
safer, and smaller plants.

~~~
beloch
The NIF is probably more useful for coming up with new fusion bomb designs
than for stockpile stewardship, as you say, but what makes you say hot fusion
can never be economically viable? The sun is proof that nature can do this on
a grand scale! It may be a long ways off, but "a long ways" becomes "never"
without experimental work like the NIF. Yes, the U.S. is probably doing this
primarily to create new weapons just as the space race was really about
developing ICBM's. However, the fundamental science being done has huge long-
term potential. It's a sad, but true fact that, sometimes, scientists have to
use the megalomania of states to fuel research that has the potential to
benefit all of humanity.

Fission power is a separate matter. The single most important thing that most
people still do not understand is that power grids have almost zero capacity
for storing energy. That means most alternative energy sources, such as wind
or solar, can never exceed a certain percentage of the grid's production
capacity or it will become unstable. On-demand energy generation is still
needed, and there's absolutely no reason to fear nuclear power while we're
still using coal power, which is far more deadly in every sense! It's not just
the West that has this fear either. Look at Japan's recent nuclear shut-
down[1] (from 30% of their grid to 0%, replaced with fossil fuels), and tell
me that isn't going to influence China!

[1][http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/14/us-japan-
nuclear-s...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/14/us-japan-nuclear-
shutdowns-idUSBRE98D0DL20130914)

~~~
crystaln
Coal power is more deadly than fission power?

When has coal power ever created the sort of crisis that occurred in
Fukushima?

Because of fission reactors, the safety of entire regions of the world is
dependent on a consistent power supply and lack of human error, something that
clearly we can not rely on. In the event of a cosmic emp or major meteor
strike, these power plants are at risk.

~~~
mquander
Coal power creates that kind of crisis every day, so we don't bother calling
it a crisis anymore.

 _A total of 240,000 years of life were said to be lost in Europe in 2010 with
480,000 work days a year and 22,600 "life years" lost in Britain, the fifth
most coal-polluted country._

[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-
coal-pollution-premature-deaths)

~~~
crystaln
"commissioned by Greenpeace International" who I'm sure would back the
position that nuclear fission plants are safer than coal.

Of course, nuclear power plants are safe short term. Their threat is
catastrophe, which given time, is inevitable.

~~~
ars
Even _with_ a catastrophe every 50 to 100 years nuclear kills _far far_ less
people than coal.

~~~
crystaln
This is not really calculable, nor is the number of people killed by coal
calculable in any reasonable manner. However the impact of nuclear catastrophe
is _far far_ more insidious and lasting, particularly when caused by a global
calamity that causes meltdown in many plants.

~~~
ars
> This is not really calculable, nor is the number of people killed by coal
> calculable in any reasonable manner.

Of course it is. 161 people are killed for each THw of coal energy. And 0.04
people for each THw of nuclear power and this INCLUDES Chernobyl!

[http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-
so...](http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html)

[http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/dataset...](http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets/1fa41e6c4fb211e0b29f000255111976/versions/1)

> However the impact of nuclear catastrophe is far far more insidious and
> lasting

Clearly you've never seen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill)
the radiation and heavy metals released from that can never be cleaned (just
diluted).

> particularly when caused by a global calamity that causes meltdown in many
> plants.

A what?? And how do you manage that? If you have unreasonable fears then there
is no point in talking to you. Reason will not remove an unreasonable fear.

~~~
crystaln
I suppose fear of a 9+ earthquake followed by a massive tsunami off the coast
of Fukushima was considered unreasonable.

We are on a blob of rock hurtling through an unknown cosmos. Calamities are
very possible. It is deeply irresponible to create projects that will make
large parts of the earth uninhabitable should the power grid fail for a long
period or human stewardship go on hiatus. Meteor strikes, emps, plagues,
terrorist attacks, economic collapse,and other disasters are well within the
realm of possibility

------
nickpinkston
This is awesome news - I visited the NIF a few months ago and they seemed a
little downtrodden when asked about results.

I bet they're all cocky now!

They also told us that the lasers they use, if built with modern tech today,
would actually only be the size of a 40' cargo container (as opposed to like
100K sq-ft building), and cost like 1000x less. Pretty epic...

If we invested in fusion power like we did water power less than a century
ago, I can only imagine the possibilities...

~~~
marvin
This is so cool. I almost can't believe that such incremental tech development
would be applicable to fusion research. But there you have it. Now we just
have to throw a few more billions at the problem. If the costs really have
come down this dramatically, it is very promising indeed.

------
Jormundir
I think Nuclear Fusion is the single most exciting up-and-coming technology. I
can't believe we're not throwing a hundred billion dollars at it.

Make fusion, not war.

~~~
angersock
Right, but what's its viral coefficient? How can we get it as a mobile app?

~~~
pyre
I'm torn. Should we focus on gamifying it or making it web-scale?

~~~
foobarian
Do you want to disrupt the power grid? Fusion.ly is hiring!

~~~
samstave
>F.co

------
knappador
Producing net-energy is a different story than collecting net-energy. NIF just
blows up a canister with a pellet and takes forever to reload a shot. On the
other hand, an at-least-as-promising technology like Dense Plasma Focus
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus))
is still receiving minuscule funding. I'm hoping to be able to meaningfully
support DPF and other fusion technologies soon. DPF has my attention so far
because of its scaling characteristics.

~~~
gizmo686
What does producing energy mean if not collecting it? The conservation of
Energy tells us that we are not actually producing any energy, rather we are
converting energy from the mass of the reactants (hopefully into electricity).
If you consider the energy converted from mass to be produced, then it is
impossible to do nuclear fusion without producing net-energy (as long as you
stay on this side of lead).

~~~
kansface
Producing does not imply the ability to do useful work (power steam turbines).

------
dtap
There was not an overall net gain.

Direct from the source [http://1.usa.gov/1e4Na9Q](http://1.usa.gov/1e4Na9Q).

8 kJ out from 1.7 MJ (1700 kJ) in. At the end of the month they were able to
get 14 kJ. I believe they are referring to the energy released within the
hohlraum.

Also, if you are interested there are privately funded companies doing this,
General Fusion
([http://www.generalfusion.com/](http://www.generalfusion.com/)) and TriAlpha
Energy (secretive and funded by the Russian govt., but in California). The VC
fund I work for has invested in GF and obviously we think there is promise :)

------
Mizza
Ah, okay, cool!

I remember this being announced a while back, but I didn't understand why it
was significant if the energy in was less than the energy out. This article
helps to clear it up.

The missing piece was that I didn't understand how this reactor works. I
thought they just blasted a lot of lasers directly at the hydrogen isotopes.
Instead, it seems like that use the lasers to shoot something else, which then
creates a lot of x-rays which actually start the reaction.

The significant thing here is that the energy produced is greater than the
amount of energy coming in from the X-rays, but not the lasers which power
those X-rays.

Is that correct? (Not surprisingly, I'm not a physicist!)

~~~
mrterry
Lasers gets fired at the inner surface of a cylinder (called a hohlraum). The
laser heat the surface of the hohlraum which then emits x-rays. The x-rays
then deposit energy on the surface of a spherical capsule (this is the "energy
absorbed" number).

You start with ~2,000 kJ of laser energy, but some of that gets
"backscattered" and never makes it into the hohlraum. Other energy is spent
heating the walls of the cylinder. Additionally, some of the x-rays leak out
of the hohlraum and do not drive the capsule implosion. After all these losses
are taken into account, only about 15 kJ is absorbed in the capsule.

------
breckinloggins
I keep seeing this same story pop up (from what I presume is the same
September event).

Is there anything new this round? Perhaps some new results from post-
experiment data analysis? The article isn't really clear on this point.

------
sliverstorm
Not really well-informed enough to comment on details, but it's fantastic to
see the field is still moving, even if slowly. Proud that we are still funding
this kind of research.

~~~
rozap
Sorry to piss on your parade, but..

"Soon after, the $3.5bn facility shifted focus, cutting the amount of time
spent on fusion versus nuclear weapons research - which was part of the lab's
original mission."

Admittedly that is phrased in an odd way...

~~~
sliverstorm
Not thrilled about that part, but the "Soon after" refers to events past, not
the success this article is about.

 _However, the latest experiments..._

So, at least the fusion research is still funded and still moving.

~~~
claudius
This bit of the fusion research is mostly aimed at making small-scale
experiments on weaponised nuclear fusion without having to set off nuclear
bombs every other day. As a long-term energy source, it is assumed to be
rather unusable.

------
guimarin
tl;dr - Another article about the US nuclear weapons research facility at
Lawrence Livermore, AKA NIF, and its sideshow 57th priority.

On a related note. It's been really sad to see the US slowly lose its edge in
plasma based fusion tech, specifically tokamaks, which seem to be the only
credible long-term method of sustaining a fusion reaction for power-plant
purposes.

~~~
mrterry
Just a couple quibbles from a former NIF scientist.

NIF is much higher on the priority list than that. LLNL is already in the
doghouse due to NIF failing to ignite on schedule. As goes the 5 giga-buck
NIF, so goes LLNL (and the management knows it).

Technologically, I'd put inertial and magnetic fusion about the same place.
Even if the physics works, neither has a chamber first wall material that can
stand up to the huge neutron loads that a power plant will create.
Economically, both are hosed. Fusion wants to be big. Most reactor designs are
for >1,000 MW. Electric companies are mostly interested in plants in the
50-400 MW range.

~~~
guimarin
Don't get me wrong I think that LLNL and the NIF are doing great work. I just
think the work is more weapons based and less energy than we are all lead to
believe in the press. and I meant that the Fusion Reactor business is a low
priority compared to testing the nuclear stockpile, etc., not NIF in general.

The chamber first wall material keeps me up at night. I think money spent in
that area would be really well spent and have many many uses, both in places
where you need neutron shielding, and to a lesser extent, protection from
heat. When I think of really big, fun, 1960s style energy projects, the only
other 'credible' one seems to be laser pro-pulsed power-satellties. Now there
is where we might take a lot of the laser tech from the NIF!

~~~
mrterry
This is true. The reactor work is very low priority, and the LLNL's reactor
project "LIFE" has more fairy dust than I prefer. However, fusion and other
NIF experiments are important.

------
pslam
On the article itself: why did it take 6 paragraphs of text to finally mention
what the milestone was? I hate this style of article writing, and it's usually
a good bullshit-signal for any story. That's a shame, because it looks like
this is the Real Thing (in a small way).

------
gnator
Not much of a physicist myself but I am wondering if the technology developed
for nuclear fusion would have any use in progressing other fields

~~~
mrterry
I can think of two off the top of my head. Low temperature plasma processing
(used in semiconductor fab) got it start as the-mess-created-when-a-plasma-
confinement-experiment-fails. Adaptive optics were developed for high
intensity lasers and are now used in telescopes.

------
rpedela
Great, but I don't see how these extremely expensive nuclear fusion projects
will ever beat price/kW of coal without heavy subsidies. My bet is that dense
plasma focus is the future of cheap, clean power. Only time will tell though.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus)

~~~
germano
I would imagine that the price/kW of coal will become easier to beat as we run
out of it.

~~~
rpedela
Pick your favorite energy technology (oil, wind, solar), it still applies.

~~~
NhanH
It's quite a bit harder to run out of wind and solar.

~~~
rpedela
Yeah. My comment has nothing to do with finite or infinite amount of any
energy technology but rather that my original comment applies to fusion
competing with the price of any existing energy technology such as coal, oil,
wind, solar, etc.

------
moca
"the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount
of energy being absorbed by the fuel" means it is at least 4 orders of
magnitude away from being useful.

Since we still depends on nuclear power for decades to come, it is much cost
effective to invest safer and cleaner nuclear fission reactors. The kind of
fast reactor that can burn down nuclear waste so we don't need to build
nuclear waste storage system, which nobody knows how to build anyway. That
would give us power supply for several centuries (along with renewable
energy). Too many countries wasted too much money on fusion reactors for
decades, while we are still running nuclear reactors designed/built more than
30 years ago. Just wrong priority order.

------
jimmcslim
What would be the impact of a 'fusion economy', assuming realistic evolution
of the technology for the purposes of commercialisation? (i.e. I'm assuming
"Mr Fusion" powerplants on top of one's DeLorean aren't ever going to be
practically feasible).

What would such a world look like? Does it promote world peace; through
greater energy security for nations, would less reliance on fossil fuels for
baseload electricity generation have a significant impact on price of air
travel/sea cargo?

~~~
dreadpiraterob
Fusion changes everything. Cheaper electricity makes transporting materials
basically free. And projects like desalination become possible = no one
remotely close to an ocean ever lacks clean drinking water again.

~~~
regularfry
Or irrigation water, for that matter.

------
drjesusphd
> the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the
> amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel

So what? What if the fueld didn't absorb anything? What do they mean by
"absorb", anyway? This article is lacking in details, peer-reviewed
literature, or even the names of scientists willing to stake their reputation
on this claim.

The BBC should know better.

------
manimalcruelty
What is the opinion on Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks High beta fusion reactor?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor)

How does this stack up against the more conventionally theorised techniques?

------
unreal37
If reliable fusion technology were developed, would the government share it
with the public or would it be kept hidden away?

Sadly I'm not joking. I think there's a 50-50 chance that any cool science
that gets development by the U.S. government just becomes a classified DoD
missile project.

~~~
jlgreco
The development of fission technology seems like a fine case to consider. I
doubt we are more paranoid and militaristic now than we were during the height
of the cold war. _Maybe_ we are, but I really don't see it.

------
ck2
Is it plausible this lab is trying to figure out how to make nuclear
explosions without the radiation?

Because just imagine how terrifying the world would become from a superpower
that didn't have to fear the radiation aftermath.

Fusion research seems like just a complete cover up.

------
Apocryphon
Glad to hear that this is continuing at LLNL despite the shutdown. Too bad no
politician is going to use this as an example of why gov't investment is not a
bad thing.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Probably because "The real story here is that this facility allows the US to
do nuclear weapons research without violating the nuclear test ban treaty."
\-- Another HNer from this field.

------
2muchcoffeeman
What ever happened to the polywell reactor design?

~~~
NamTaf
The University of Sydney have continued research of polywell reactors. I'm not
terribly across their progress but I try to read papers whenever they're
released though I haven't read any of their 2013 papers. It seems the last few
years (2010-2012 at least) have focused around minimising point- and line-cusp
losses.

More reading here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell#University_of_Sydney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell#University_of_Sydney)

------
fuddle
I can imagine everyone driving around in Tesla cars powered by Nuclear fusion
in the not too distant future.

------
abelardx
It looks cold in that lab. Cold fusion?

------
drjesusphd
What milestone? Be specific.

------
enupten
This is wonderful news, go NIF !

------
devx
Wow, I remember seeing this project start up a few years ago, about how they
wanted to make a "sun" on Earth. It seems it only took them 5 years to achieve
this:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/3981697/Scie...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/3981697/Scientists-plan-to-ignite-tiny-man-made-star.html)

In a way, it reminds of Spiderman, too, but let's hope things don't go as
badly as in the movie, once we start to make that "sun" big enough to provide
a ton of energy.

~~~
drjesusphd
This is a trite and meaingless comment.

Spiderman? Really?

