

UK joins laser nuclear fusion project - soitgoes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14842720

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colinhowe
If fusion ever becomes feasible they should drop the word "nuclear". Given the
current level of fear around nuclear power the possibility of people
exploiting the naming similarity is worrying.

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TeMPOraL
Just like you get a MRI, not an NMR imaging - I read in few places that it got
renamed to get rid of the "Nuclear" word, because it scared people.

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ck2
I thought the claim of NIF was for fusion research was just a huge front for
nuclear weapons research?

Isn't that well documented at this point?

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arethuza
Which AWE are they talking about? I suspect it's this one:

<http://www.awe.co.uk/>

I suppose it's a good thing to have them diversifying away from their main
product lines!

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cstross
No, I'm pretty sure it's _entirely_ about the Atomic Weapons Establishment's
main product line. The NIF isn't actually a practical fusion reactor design --
the output energy from one of its fuel capsules is an order of magnitude less
than the input energy that powers the laser, whereas a viable reactor would
need to produce an order of magnitude _more_ energy ... at least once a
second, rather than once every few months, and using fuel pellets costing at
most a couple of dollars, rather than several hundred thousand.

What the NIF is good for is weapons research -- it's critically important to
the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_Stewardship_and_Manag...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_Stewardship_and_Management_Program)
). And _of course_ the AWE faces much the same issues in maintaining the
British strategic nuclear deterrent as the NNSA does in maintaining the US
warhead stockpile ...

If they wanted to back fusion research for electricity they'd be pumping money
into ITER (the conservative option) or taking a flutter on pollywell devices
(the hopeful long shot that might deliver a shortcut).

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arethuza
"they'd be pumping money into ITER"

Isn't the EU paying for 4/11ths of ITER? I hope the UK is paying our fair
share of that.

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danmaz74
This is promising news. I wonder, though, what is the energy cost of
extracting Deuterium and Tritium, which for sure is not null, and if in the
balance they are already counting that and the conversion efficiency of the
heat generated by the reaction.

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binarymax
Tritium isn't exactly easy to come by, yet the reactor would require approx 1
million "pellets" per day to keep alive? If they do reach ignition how do they
intend on sustaining the reaction with so little fuel available?

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pieter
I think they can produce them within the reactor, by using a mantle of
Lithium, just like fission reactors can use mantles of heavier elements.

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jessedhillon
A physics prof of mine used to say "fusion power is twenty years away, and
always has been."

This article doesn't seem to do much to change that perception, can anyone
else shed light on the current likelihood of a sustained, surplus-generating
reaction?

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arethuza
"The ITER fusion reactor itself has been designed to produce 500 megawatts of
output power for 50 megawatts of input power, or ten times the amount of
energy put in."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER>

However, this isn't for a sustained period of time - "up to 1,000 seconds".

The follow on DEMO plant would aim to produce 2000MW continuously:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO>

