Nuclear Fusion Produces And Spends Equal Energy For The First Time

[Spacethingy]

The BBC understands that during an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel - the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world.

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

Can't seem to find any other links at the moment, sounds good though. Slow but sure progress towards fusion being useful for something, although I have a feeling hoverboards may be invented first at this rate... :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

:rofl:

Sorry, but that is pretty much bogus there. Its no first, because ANY thermonuclear bomb achieved that already - the NIF actually reproduces the conditions inside a thermonuclear bomb for improving such bombs.

The NIF also consumes a lot of energy for igniting a small piece of fuel in a tiny golden tube.

Sure, it is a great achievement of them for getting break even between fusion energy and laser beam energy - but the lasers consumed a few magnitudes more of that energy for just getting ready to fire and produce the beam.

The lasers produced 500 TW power last year - but alltogether "only" 1.85 MJ energy = 3.7 ns pulse width.

AFAIR, a few projects have already reached break even for such a short time as well, including the Buzzard fuzor projects. But still never a sustained break-even for more than a microsecond. The next-generation fusion reactors like ITER or Wendelstein 7-X should achieve that goal.

 

[Capt_hensley]

Between you here(URWUMPE) and JIM in NSF, it's a privalage to know a couple know it all's. I feel like I can ask any question and the answers will knock my socks off. Why do I bother to do any research?:idea:

Great stuff man!

BTW the energy thing was impressive all by itself as well.

 

[N_Molson]

Yeah, I don't know how he is doing that. He must spend all his time reading encyclopedias, and all sorts of highly-specialized technical magazines. :blink:

And you could think "yeah yeah, that's easy, germans are skilled with technical stuff...". But no, he is also more than decent on history, geography, philosophy... Algebra and Physics also seem pretty obvious to him, not to mention computer science...

Or maybe that U.R.W.U.M.P.E. is an acronym for a community of people from a german university sharing the same account. Like Ulrich, Ralf, Wehrner, Udo, Mickael, Petra, Eliza... :hmm: :lol:

 

[Artlav]

Or he's a bot.
21,470 posts - no human can do that and have time left for the rest.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah, I don't know how he is doing that. He must spend all his time reading encyclopedias, and all sorts of highly-specialized technical magazines. :blink:

Actually, I just watch documentaries while having breakfast and read a good book from time to time. :lol:

And really, I don't know really much there. Just a whole half-wit here. :tiphat:

 

[N_Molson]

Or he's a bot.

More an AI, then, that watches all the Internet. Skynet is coming :shifty:

 

[Urwumpe]

Or he's a bot.
21,470 posts - no human can do that and have time left for the rest.

If I am a bot........I would have defeated IBM Watson in Jeopardy. :lol:

 

[kamaz]

Here's a reddit comment thread where someone explains that the supposed "breakeven" actually required 3 orders of magnitude more energy than was produced:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1nxtyb/nuclear_fusion_milestone_passed_at_us_lab/

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Yeah, I don't know how he is doing that. He must spend all his time reading encyclopedias, and all sorts of highly-specialized technical magazines. :blink:

And you could think "yeah yeah, that's easy, germans are skilled with technical stuff...". But no, he is also more than decent on history, geography, philosophy... Algebra and Physics also seem pretty obvious to him, not to mention computer science...

Or maybe that U.R.W.U.M.P.E. is an acronym for a community of people from a german university sharing the same account. Like Ulrich, Ralf, Wehrner, Udo, Mickael, Petra, Eliza... :hmm: :lol:

No, I believe the consensus was at least cyborg if not computer last time the subject was brought up.

Lemme see...

Universal
Realtime
Worldwide
Unlimited
information-Managing
Program
Execution...

Well at least I tried

This thread was really dissapointing to me. I entered it 20 years into the future, but then got thrown back 20 again...

 

[Spacethingy]

The BBC's science reporting's not all bad! I loved the article they did on Voyager leaving the solar system! :lol: [/irony]

Thought it seemed a bit too out of the blue to be true. Thanks for the constructive criticism; I did find it a bit strange how there was nothing on the NIF's website about it...

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

Somebody at NIF, launched a last ditch effort to get funding
to continue futzing around with a failed approach. They are repackaging
a failure and presenting it as a "breakthrough propulsion" concept that
they hope some space agency/private venture will throw money at it.

And They leaked it to credulous cretins at BBC.
Most of all modern fusion aproaches can cause fusion at low levels....

JUST NOT FOR VERY LONG, AND USING the OUTPUT OF A MODEST POWER PLANT TO DO SO.