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Fusion Reactor Breaks Even
mysqlbytes writes "The BBC is reporting the National Ignition Facility (NIF), based at Livermore in California, has succeeded in breaking even — '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.'"
Cool. Let it run the US gov't.
$
Mr. Fusion here we come!
why is the bbc first to report on this? It happens in CA, and we get scooped? wtf??
It's 5 to 8 hours later in England than it is here. They've had a few more hours to report on it than we have.
But what's this "break even"? If it produced more than it consumed, it's not "break even".
define facility, because fusion is known to release energy with great facility.
Here is a picture that looks to me very much like a facility.
It achieved a net fusion output about 100X as much as the energy input. (This facility did have the drawback that it was vaporized within a few microseconds after startup, but that's just a cooling issue.)
Yep, all you need is a 5 billion dollar fusion reactor to make a couple of bucks of helium.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Here in Australia we got today's news about the NIF reactor yesterday.
So in other words, "almost breaking even!". Just like everyone at the casino.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Three words: "Miley Cyrus twerked."
Google Trends search term popularity.
Achieving fusion break-even just when a skinny white girl learns to twerk is just wrong place, wrong time, baby.