Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Seems to have just a little more information than the source material :)
https://lasers.llnl.gov/newsroom/project_status/index.php
Ah, my friend, you need the full quote:
In 2009, NIF officials announced an aim to demonstrate nuclear fusion producing net energy by 30 September 2012. But unexpected technical problems ensured the deadline came and went; the fusion output was less than had originally been predicted by mathematical models.
Soon after, the $3.5bn facility shifted focus, cutting the amount of time spent on fusion versus nuclear weapons research - which was part of the lab's original mission.
However, the latest experiments agree well with predictions of energy output, which will provide a welcome boost to ignition research at NIF, as well as encouragement to advocates of fusion energy in general.
Looks like the good of mankind may prevail, after all.
Helium is a byproduct - but the amount generated is tiny - the pellet for each fusion reaction only contains a few milligrams of hydrogen fuel, and so even less helium is generated.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Not quite, the whole system it actually consumed more than it produced. The power outputted by the lasers was less than was produced. There are inefficiencies in the lasers so net power is negative.
Time flows the same in England as it does in the US, and they get the information at the same instant as the US (Barring marginal transmission delays). If it was a case of hours and timezones, I might agree with you somewhat, but as the freakin' summary quotes: "During an experiment in late September," (Emphasis mine).
Even assuming that means September 30th, that's 7 days the US press has had to sit on this. At that point, the fact that the UK is 5-7 hours ahead doesn't make an iota of difference (Well, technically I guess it makes 4.1666% of difference, but that's hardly the point).
Oh, and why is <sup> getting stripped out of /. HTML?
The *experiment* was in late September. Researchers tend to be rather cautious about announcing significant milestones, especially in high-profile areas such as this, taking time to double check their numbers and the like beforehand. I can easily see the process taking a few days or weeks before they're ready to make a statement.
As for getting the information the same instant the world over - how exactly do you see that happening? The scientists send a press release to (presumably) a small number of news organizations (the BBC probably being one of them). All other organizations hear about it second-hand, likely meaning at least a fair portion of a day, possibly several days, before it's published, and another delay before anyone else can publish anything more than a blatant plagarization. Repeat that a few times before it hits some other news stream that you watch and...
Sure the info probably went up on the researchers website about the same time as the press release, and that is available to everyone everywhere, but I would suspect that very few people routinely check the websites of random researchers on a daily basis - after all it's not something important like the latest celebrity scandal[/sarcasm], it won't make any difference to most people if they don't hear about it for a few days.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
" Vulcanized rubber"
That was more of an accident than military funded. Sulphur got dropped on some hot rubber and it was found to be tougher. From there, military went in, but the patent was well before the military (before the civil war, IIRC) thought about getting involved.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yes, except that a jackpot can be duplicated as many times as you want without getting your knees broke.
FYI the traditional mooning emoticons have been ( | ) or ( * ) or =( * )=
The last being the full goat.
Kids think they have to reinvent everything.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
On the other hand, an institution that is regularly criticized by folks like Dr. Ben Goldacre of http://www.badscience.net/ and Prof. Mark Liberman of Language Log for the incredibly poor quality of their science reporting may not be the source you really want to trust on this or any other topic.
- Bad Science's BBC category
- Enhance Breast Size by 80%
- Parrot Telepathy at the BBC
- More Junk Science from the BBC
- It's Always Silly Season in the BBC Science Section
Granted, few general-purpose new sources are particularly good when it comes to their coverage of science, but the BBC does have a bit of a reputation for being above average--a reputation which seems to be rather undeserved, as far as I can tell.