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Europe Plans a New Type of Fusion Facility
SR71Blackbird writes "European physicists have put forward a plan for a facility that uses lasers to produce fusion. From the article: 'The laser would be used to compress and heat a small capsule of deuterium and tritium until the nuclei are hot enough to undergo nuclear fusion and produce helium and neutrons. In a reactor the energy of the neutrons would be used to generate electricity without the emission of greenhouse gases or the generation of long-lived nuclear waste.'"
Nothing for you to see here, please move along.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I saw this in Spiderman 2, like, a year ago.
Sounds like someone got funding from combining two of the coolest buzzwords from the 1950s.
-- $G
"According to Henry Hutchinson of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, who set up the European panel, fast ignition requires less laser energy than the conventional approach, which means that it is considerably cheaper."
This is great news! Now I can upgrade my imaginary working fusion reactor with a much more efficient model.
Yes, but will there be frickin' sharks?
This sig is false.
With the latest research and technology, controllable fusion is now only always twenty-nine years away. We're making progress.
It reminds me of downloading a file, where the time to completion stays constant as the file is downloaded because the download speed keeps dropping. Either the file is finally completely downloaded at some point or the system hangs. No matter what it always takes far, far longer than it should have.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
You're right. A glance around my house reveals that *all* my machines are heavier than air. 50 years ago who'd of thought we be at this point today.
"Why is everyone so skeptical? There are already working nuclear fusion reactors."
The only nearby one I know of is visible half the day in most parts of the world.
I read the post a couple of times, and I'm still pretty sure they never suggested that there will be an alternative; I'm not really sure what got you to jump to that conclusion.
/. though, so it'd be bad form if you didn't assume something like this.
This is
2015 is only 10 years away, by then we will have Mr Fusion to take care of this just using normal household waste - personally though I am waiting for my hover conversion.
But, but but... It says right in the article that there are no greenhouse gases, no generation of long-lived nuclear waste... ...no downside, no safety issues, no problems, that it will produce a limitless supply of clean energy too cheap to meter, that neutrons are good for you, that the isotopes it produces will cure cancer and that people living near the plant will probably live to be 150... ...and that you can double your money in 45 days by arbitraging postal reply coupons.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I saw a documentary on how a scientist used lasers to ignite tritium into a fusion reaction. Unfortunately the reaction got out of control and nearly wiped out New York City. It was a good thing Spiderman was there to stop him.
Well, sure, that's because Roomba looks like the umholy offspring of a frisbee and a cockroach. Everybody knows that a home vacuuming robot is supposed to look like this.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Bah - I laugh at these foreign scientists. Just wait until the first wave of creationists start graduating from our high schools. Then we'll show them what scientific advancement is all aboout.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Europe is neither a country, nor a state in the U.S.A.
Well, of course not. You don't have oil. But if you get a working* fusion reactor... Expect to have your people liberated* from their oppressive* governments, and your technology used to benefit the free world*.
I heartily suggest that if you value your autonomy, you refrain from developing an end-to-end solution which allows automobiles to be powered from a fusion energy source, even indirectly.
Oh, and by the way, Slashdot is not a person, and thus cannot be said to be smart - at least not in the sense you used, which is synonymous with "educated."
* where "working"=="produces net power surplus", "oppressive"=="not Republican", and "free world"=="the Bush family and friends". I think we all know how to translate "liberated".
it will be a state when we decide we need german beer, italian cheeses, and french wine. and that the future safety of the U.S. is at risk from european terrorists
I feel bad for your university because its plans will all fall in a heap when they realise they don't have the essential shark component for their laser.
Two agents of the Intergalactic Intelligence Agency (IIA) transferred to the higher planes as an entire solar system was consumed by a black hole this morning.
:-)
Sources from the IIA said they were monitoring a primitive race that lived in the third planet. That race was experimenting with sub-atomic particles trying to achieve sustainable fusion, which we all know can lead to an unstable black hole condition. The agents weren't able to interfere in time to avoid the catastrophe.
---
Measure your age in Hex - it'll make you look younger
But I'm not holding my breath. That's good then. We'll need as much flowing air as possible to make this work.
I hear sea bass make a good drop-in replacement - but only if they are ill-tempered.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I want complete and instantaneous energy release.
Is that how you got to be Chrispy?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Wanna build a Dyson sphere anyone?
Plus, just wait 75 years and pull Scotty out of the transporter, and maybe we can get that transparent aluminum formula.
All the energy we want, and we get to save the whales, all in one.
Seems like a real expensive way of novelty balloons...
Windows Tweaks
Scotty, I don't care HOW you do it, just BEAM ME UP!
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Only 2 more years. That is when our new multikilojoule multiPETAWATT laser will come online and fast ignition experiments will begin.
That's going to need one hell of a shark!
sudo ergo sum
Yeah, specially considering that neutron balloons are awfully heavy... :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Thats good news for America, because Europeans will be the "beta testers" here. Once the reaction gets out of control (as seen so many times lately) the resulting gamma flash will wipe them out. So Americans will be finally able to conquer the old-lands back.
But Scotty pulls up the formula for Transparent Aluminum (or Aluminium; he is Scottish, yes?) on a Mac Plus. You need a working Mac Plus to get the formula, so preserve yours now. The future is counting on it!
Chris