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NIF Aims For the Ultimate Green Energy Source
theodp writes "Edward Moses and his team of 500 scientists and engineers at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility are betting $3.5B in taxpayer money on a tiny pellet they hope could produce an endless supply of safe, clean energy. By the fall of 2010, the team aims to start blasting capsules containing deuterium-tritium fuel with 1.4 megajoules of laser power, a first step towards the holy grail of controlled nuclear fusion. Not all are convinced that Moses will lead us to the promised land. 'They're snake-oil salesmen,' says Thomas Cochran, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Moses, for his part, seems unfazed by the skepticism, saying he's confident that his team will succeed."
This is first time I ever saw this - Error 503 Service Unavailable Service Unavailable Guru Meditation: XID: 595044882 Varnish
$3.5 billion? This is a better alternative than giving the money to the UAW.
an ill wind that blows no good
So a member of an anti-nuke group doesn't approve of someone's attempts to build a workable fusion reactor? Is anyone really surprised by that?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
We have had Farnsworth fusors for decades. We can control fusion. You know, for a geek website we sure do play fast and loose with facts and poor summaries.
Maybe "step towards controlled fusion power"? Words convey meaning, folks.
Cochran says the NIF laser is still not powerful enough. Even if it were, he says, "these machines are just going to be too big, and too costly, and they'll never be competitive."
Proof of concept devices area always oversized and more costly than the production versions. Once you know it works and how it works, you can start shrinking it down and since the development is done, the cost per unit goes down further.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
It would be great if NIF could produce a working fusion system within the next century, but i find it a bit doubtful. There are two other fusion technologies which have aimed to reduce the size and complexity of fusion systems, instead of building massive billion dollar generators to instead build smaller technologies. These inlcude Polywell and Focus Fusion. Both are developed by engineers and appear to be honest attempts to develop fusion power and to do it with a reasonable amount of money, under 20 years, rather than centuries. While the government has given NIF billions of dollars, the polywell has received about 8 million in funding, despite the fact that if it is possible it could save the planet. Some scientists seem so enamored by the size and complexity, and unfeasibly of such machines as ITER they seem unwilling to consider smaller, cheaper and more practical alternatives, thus fusion always remains something far off in the centuries away future, when it is desperately needed now.
Id like to see polywell, focus fusion and the NIF fully funded however, since it is possible that one may be right and the others not workable, it increases the chance of finding a solution.
It would be better, if these billions of dollars were pulled from bank executives who were responsible for the economic collapse.
Maybe we can drop by their houses with pitchforks and torches and ask them to kindly donate their bonuses.
They're right, in a sense. Fusion's not going to solve any problems related to climate change -- we need something else for the near-term. But in a hundred and fifty years, it'd be nice to be able to produce 50x the current energy output of the world with no environmental consequences.
It's long-term, not short-term.
The Mirror Fusion facility was closed at the bequest of the Oil and Uranium industries. Many people don't seem to understand that these companies will do whatever it takes to protect their profits even if it means that the rest of the world suffers. Just look at the climate debate.
That's unlikely. Fusion would be a baseload electric power source, and that doesn't compete against oil (it competes against coal).
Now, fast forward twenty years to 2009, and the technology is just beginning start getting available for realistic electric cars, and so some time in the moderate future, there may be enough electric cars on the roads that electrical power may actually make some significant inroads against oil as a transportation fuel-- but not in 1985, and the oil companies are (and were) perfectly aware of that.
And, really, even if electric cars become popular, there are no shortage of uses for petroleum. The oil companies have nothing to worry about from fusion, their product is not going to go away, and they know it.
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Cheaper power won't translate to "cheaper for consumers". All it will do is enable bigger profit margins for the power producers. Power will always sell at a "market value". In fact, the tragic truth is that if ever a power source were created that was SO cheap it wouldn't be worth distributing due to lack of profits, the big businesses just wouldn't push it. It would die silently, or be implemented solely by governments in socialist countries.