No, its gas phase DT. Soon, OMEGA will begin cryogenic ice DT shots. Activation of the Al and Fe structure is an issue and after a high yield shot a quick gieger survey is taken and access is granted within a minute or two. After a long succession of high yeild shots the levels near target chamber center can reach around ~5-10 mrem/hr though this drops to a few mrem/hr within a couple hours and within a day levels are usually back down to 1mrem/hr.
I sooooo want to see that show! You're talking about the PBS show NOVA right? in the early to mid 80's? There was another one in the mid '70's and ANOTHER in '79. I cannot find these anywhere. They are not available from PBS and no libraries I've searched for them in have any copies. I think they're just...gone.
"Fusion "experiments" have been "beginning" for over three decades, to the tune of over $60 billion dollars when last I checked. It will take an enormous amount of power to break even on that -- and every year the bar gets higher. *We're* nowhere near break-even, but Sandia's been doing all right!"
Whatever are you talking about? The Z-machine at sandia has only produced millijoule fusion yields, the JET at cullham has produced kilojoules.
"Meanwhile, not a penny for research on an electrically- accelerated boron-deuterium reactor."
There's no money for it because that is a nonequilibrium system which was proven impossible for generating excess energy.
I can't quite make much sense of the rest of your post.....
Here's the thing. I am currently posting this message as I sit at my desk in this building. You needn't wait until the middle of the next decade to see what Fast Ignition MAY offer us in terms of inertial fusion power. Only 2 more years. That is when our new multikilojoule multiPETAWATT laser will come online and fast ignition experiments will begin. Kodama et. al. have shown a neutron yeild increase of over three orders of magnitude when they coupled 500 J of chirped pulse (heater) light to their imploding cone in shell targets. We will be able to couple a ~3Kj heater pulse to the targets normally imploded on our current 30Kj 60 Terawatt system which currently holds the world record for neutron production at ~5X10^14 neutrons per pulse. This will therefore put us VERY close to the ignition regime and in fact one of the reasons the building of the new laser was approved was to examine the "near ignition parameter space" of scaled implosions to determine if the National Igniton Facility will ignite its capsules with high gain.
As to the subject of hydrodynamic instabilities, IANAP, but from what I gather of it, this problem is far less serious today with the discoveries (many made here at LLE) of things like frequency tripling the beam (to suppress hot electron production in the plasma), polarization smoothing, distributed phase plate smoothing (google for more info on this stuff or just go to the documents section of the LLE site) with the introduction of larger bandwidth of the laser pulse and the simple improvement of irradiation uniformity on target using more beams (our system is only a ~30Kj laser while the NOVA laser at LLNL was a ~40-60Kj laser, the reason we hold the record for neutrons/pulse is because NOVA was a 10 beam system, we are a 60 beam system. The supression of Rayleigh-Taylor instability in imploding targets is VASTLY reduced on our system because of the increase in uniformity.
Fast ignition is exciting because it potentially allows us to examine ignition and high gain in ICF with a huge decrease in price required to build the device to do it by at least a factor of 10. NIF is going to cost ~$4-5 Billion, a fast ignition device which could theoretically attain comparable fusion conditions (as described in TFA) is around $500 million.
Also building chirped pulse petawatt lasers is great for other sicience too. The light is so unbelievably intense from these things that they can initiate nuclear reactions DIRECTLY (photodisruption of the nucleus etc.)! The OMEGA EP will probably allow scientists here to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation in the laboratory....
To anyone who doesn't think that ICF or MFE methods of attaining fusion breakeven and ignition in the laboratory take a look at some graphs like this. The power produced by experimental devices has increased by nearly a factor of a BILLION over the past 3 decades. Slowly but surely we will get there, and when we do, it will change the world in ways I can't even imagine.
Maybe YOU should've been more careful. Deuterons have integer spin. They're bosons and NMR is useless in detecting them. Thats why heavy water is used as a solvent for organic chem NMR, so the H in water doesn't swamp the signal.
Waaaauu!:D Look at those solar panels! Almost no dust at all! What wasn't mentioned in the article is that Spirit's power output is now back up to ~930 Watt hours/day, the same as it was on landing day. The rover is now being shut down every day in the afternoon, no so it doesn't run out of power and die, as was the case around a year ago, but to prevent the electronics box from OVERHEATING!! Wildly successful doesn't even begin to describe the rover missions at this point:)
ugh, wish I had points to mod this idiocy down. The above post is nothing more than a wacky conspiracy troll. Mods---> just because something seems contrarian and perhaps superficially insightful, definitely does not mean that it actually is.
This is probably EXTEMELY unlikey. The reason being that the half life of U235 (the fissionable isotope) is "only" 700 Myears (U238's is 4.5 Gyears). Therefore the original amount of U235 present in the protoplanetary solar system is ~99% gone (the solar system is 4.5 GY old). This is why the Oklo reactors are not going anymore, they existed 2 GY ago because back then the natural abundance of U235 in U ore was ~3% (and what's the concentration of U235 in nuclear reactors?....yup ~3%). I think this fact also VERY likely precludes the existance of a natural nuclear reactor at Enceladus now as well.
Is this the most bang on post of the entire article here or what? Yes, the answer is yes. WTF is so special about a damn hand held tesla coil and a common green (frequency doubled Nd:YVO) handheld laser pointer with a diverging lens on the end? Because that is literally all he's got it sounds like. Answer, not a fucking thing! Damn is it this easy to become a scam artist these days? I need a career change.
Talk about hyperbole! Jeez glass houses an' all that. I find it funny and sad that responses to my post automatically assume that I must be some Rush Limbaugh loving anti-environmentalism dittohead jackass because I posted from a skeptical viewpoint and attacked illogical/fuzzyheaded magical thinking. Hint, I voted for Kerry (albiet grudgingly since I am more libertarian than democrat). I am fully for the reasoned and rational conservation and management of the environment so long as it is dictated very strictly by scientific knowledge and inquiry. What irritates me is when some unscientific Mother Gaia worshipping dolt goes on about how any technological progress beyond what we already have now is bad and wrong! As a skeptic and a liberal I think it is sad that justified attacks on irrationality and anti-science nonsense are immediately seen as being synonymous with "an attack on the left". I hope it is not the case that "the left" has become so inextricably associated with the emptyheaded irrational brand of environmentalism that this is how it is seen by all other political groups, though judging from posts here, I fear this may indeed be the case.:(
"Each time a different colored cell is charged, this charges the atoms and converts them to ions and facilitates the release of UV photons due to the ionic collision. The inside wall of the cell is meted with a special treatment of a phosphor coating. This is done to exploit the phosphors property of giving out light when it comes in contact with other light."
Ughh, barf, don't even bother to RTFA, not worth it. This is a FAR more fascinating and in depth view into the workings and history of plasma displays.
Yes reminded me of that too! However, look at that last link you gave. It, along with the PhD thesis of Todd Rider done in 1995 appears to rule out all noneqilibrium methods of attaining power from fusion.:(
Good great crap, wherever did you get the idea that photosynthesis is more efficient than solar cells! Plants are disgustingly inefficient at solar energy conversion. Even sugar cane, one of the most efficient plants, you only get about 8% of sunlight converted to chemical energy. Then you have to burn it heating water to steam and running a generating turbine. I would guess your overall sunlight to electric conversion efficiency there is less than 3% while most solar panels are in the 12-14% direct sunlight to electricity conversion efficiency range!!
I would love love love to believe that solar, wind and or biofuels coupled with eltremely rigorous conservation could satisfy our current and future energy energy requirements. A cheaply produced plastic solar panel on every rooftop would be a beautiful sight. But there is one little graph that sticks in the back of my head as I think of these things and just doesn't go away. Energy consumption scales so perfectly with economic output and standard of living that it simply cannot be ignored. Look at all those countries at the bottom left of that graph. They will be moving toward the upper right of it in the next century, and while I hope alternative energies can be made viable on a large scale I very higly doubt, as the grandparent post says, that they will have the energy density necessary to satisfy Earth's future energy requirements. No, I think instead that the future is not in huge scale energy conservation, it is in development of extremely high energy dense sources such as fusion (and perhaps in the interim, fission).
"Let us assume for the sake of argument, that we have implemented a form of nuclear energy production that leaves something relatively harmless behind, such as helium. When this process is put into practice the world over, the effect on our environment could be Very Bad"
Uhhhhhh......why? I really think the new agey "everything humans do besides sitting in a ditch poking berries up thier noses is UNNATURAL AND THEREFORE EEEEEVILL AND BAAAAAD" nonsense is really dangerous magical thinking. We can't go back to the stone age just to make sure every last chipmunk lives a happy healthy full life and its just ludicrous to think so. Just because something is not cuddlyfuzzycute doesn't mean that it MUST somehow harm the planet. Helium is not a greenhouse gas, it is not an ozone depleting gas and it is TOTALLY inert. There is a reason its called a noble gas. I think we CAN manage Earth's resources wisely and we CAN produce the vast energies that will be required for the next stage of human civilization on Earth and we CAN do it without destroying the planet if we just use our heads and rigorously apply the scientific method.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I KNOW like totally NO useful science has come out of any of this nonsense!
No, its gas phase DT. Soon, OMEGA will begin cryogenic ice DT shots. Activation of the Al and Fe structure is an issue and after a high yield shot a quick gieger survey is taken and access is granted within a minute or two. After a long succession of high yeild shots the levels near target chamber center can reach around ~5-10 mrem/hr though this drops to a few mrem/hr within a couple hours and within a day levels are usually back down to 1mrem/hr.
oops that second link was broken.
I sooooo want to see that show! You're talking about the PBS show NOVA right? in the early to mid 80's? There was another one in the mid '70's and ANOTHER in '79. I cannot find these anywhere. They are not available from PBS and no libraries I've searched for them in have any copies. I think they're just ...gone.
"Fusion "experiments" have been "beginning" for over three decades, to the tune of over $60 billion dollars when last I checked. It will take an enormous amount of power to break even on that -- and every year the bar gets higher. *We're* nowhere near break-even, but Sandia's been doing all right!"
Whatever are you talking about? The Z-machine at sandia has only produced millijoule fusion yields, the JET at cullham has produced kilojoules.
"Meanwhile, not a penny for research on an electrically- accelerated boron-deuterium reactor."
There's no money for it because that is a nonequilibrium system which was proven impossible for generating excess energy.
I can't quite make much sense of the rest of your post.....
Well...not quite THAT strong. :)
Here's the thing. I am currently posting this message as I sit at my desk in this building. You needn't wait until the middle of the next decade to see what Fast Ignition MAY offer us in terms of inertial fusion power. Only 2 more years. That is when our new multikilojoule multiPETAWATT laser will come online and fast ignition experiments will begin. Kodama et. al. have shown a neutron yeild increase of over three orders of magnitude when they coupled 500 J of chirped pulse (heater) light to their imploding cone in shell targets. We will be able to couple a ~3Kj heater pulse to the targets normally imploded on our current 30Kj 60 Terawatt system which currently holds the world record for neutron production at ~5X10^14 neutrons per pulse. This will therefore put us VERY close to the ignition regime and in fact one of the reasons the building of the new laser was approved was to examine the "near ignition parameter space" of scaled implosions to determine if the National Igniton Facility will ignite its capsules with high gain.
As to the subject of hydrodynamic instabilities, IANAP, but from what I gather of it, this problem is far less serious today with the discoveries (many made here at LLE) of things like frequency tripling the beam (to suppress hot electron production in the plasma), polarization smoothing, distributed phase plate smoothing (google for more info on this stuff or just go to the documents section of the LLE site) with the introduction of larger bandwidth of the laser pulse and the simple improvement of irradiation uniformity on target using more beams (our system is only a ~30Kj laser while the NOVA laser at LLNL was a ~40-60Kj laser, the reason we hold the record for neutrons/pulse is because NOVA was a 10 beam system, we are a 60 beam system. The supression of Rayleigh-Taylor instability in imploding targets is VASTLY reduced on our system because of the increase in uniformity.
Fast ignition is exciting because it potentially allows us to examine ignition and high gain in ICF with a huge decrease in price required to build the device to do it by at least a factor of 10. NIF is going to cost ~$4-5 Billion, a fast ignition device which could theoretically attain comparable fusion conditions (as described in TFA) is around $500 million.
Also building chirped pulse petawatt lasers is great for other sicience too. The light is so unbelievably intense from these things that they can initiate nuclear reactions DIRECTLY (photodisruption of the nucleus etc.)! The OMEGA EP will probably allow scientists here to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation in the laboratory....
To anyone who doesn't think that ICF or MFE methods of attaining fusion breakeven and ignition in the laboratory take a look at some graphs like this. The power produced by experimental devices has increased by nearly a factor of a BILLION over the past 3 decades. Slowly but surely we will get there, and when we do, it will change the world in ways I can't even imagine.
hmmmm well that does make sense doesn't it....
how do you use the line to shim the field though
Maybe YOU should've been more careful. Deuterons have integer spin. They're bosons and NMR is useless in detecting them. Thats why heavy water is used as a solvent for organic chem NMR, so the H in water doesn't swamp the signal.
Waaaauu! :D Look at those solar panels! Almost no dust at all! What wasn't mentioned in the article is that Spirit's power output is now back up to ~930 Watt hours/day, the same as it was on landing day. The rover is now being shut down every day in the afternoon, no so it doesn't run out of power and die, as was the case around a year ago, but to prevent the electronics box from OVERHEATING!! Wildly successful doesn't even begin to describe the rover missions at this point :)
Uhmm....., very, VERY?
A non-thumbnail size version of this panorama where the jaw droppingly spectacular dust devil on the left can be seen very clearly.
mmmhmm, wow you're really smart!
Hmmm, have you always been as stupid as you are now, or is this a more recent development?
ugh, wish I had points to mod this idiocy down. The above post is nothing more than a wacky conspiracy troll. Mods---> just because something seems contrarian and perhaps superficially insightful, definitely does not mean that it actually is.
This is probably EXTEMELY unlikey. The reason being that the half life of U235 (the fissionable isotope) is "only" 700 Myears (U238's is 4.5 Gyears). Therefore the original amount of U235 present in the protoplanetary solar system is ~99% gone (the solar system is 4.5 GY old). This is why the Oklo reactors are not going anymore, they existed 2 GY ago because back then the natural abundance of U235 in U ore was ~3% (and what's the concentration of U235 in nuclear reactors?....yup ~3%). I think this fact also VERY likely precludes the existance of a natural nuclear reactor at Enceladus now as well.
Yeah under extremely uncommon circumstances when it is reacted with fluorine. Helium is TOTALLY inert.
Is this the most bang on post of the entire article here or what? Yes, the answer is yes. WTF is so special about a damn hand held tesla coil and a common green (frequency doubled Nd:YVO) handheld laser pointer with a diverging lens on the end? Because that is literally all he's got it sounds like. Answer, not a fucking thing! Damn is it this easy to become a scam artist these days? I need a career change.
Talk about hyperbole! Jeez glass houses an' all that. I find it funny and sad that responses to my post automatically assume that I must be some Rush Limbaugh loving anti-environmentalism dittohead jackass because I posted from a skeptical viewpoint and attacked illogical/fuzzyheaded magical thinking. Hint, I voted for Kerry (albiet grudgingly since I am more libertarian than democrat). I am fully for the reasoned and rational conservation and management of the environment so long as it is dictated very strictly by scientific knowledge and inquiry. What irritates me is when some unscientific Mother Gaia worshipping dolt goes on about how any technological progress beyond what we already have now is bad and wrong! :(
As a skeptic and a liberal I think it is sad that justified attacks on irrationality and anti-science nonsense are immediately seen as being synonymous with "an attack on the left". I hope it is not the case that "the left" has become so inextricably associated with the emptyheaded irrational brand of environmentalism that this is how it is seen by all other political groups, though judging from posts here, I fear this may indeed be the case.
What part of TOTALLY CHEMICALLY INERT did you not understand?
Yeah seriously, its horrible. I mean honestly:
"Each time a different colored cell is charged, this charges the atoms and converts them to ions and facilitates the release of UV photons due to the ionic collision. The inside wall of the cell is meted with a special treatment of a phosphor coating. This is done to exploit the phosphors property of giving out light when it comes in contact with other light."
Ughh, barf, don't even bother to RTFA, not worth it. This is a FAR more fascinating and in depth view into the workings and history of plasma displays.
Yes reminded me of that too! However, look at that last link you gave. It, along with the PhD thesis of Todd Rider done in 1995 appears to rule out all noneqilibrium methods of attaining power from fusion. :(
Good great crap, wherever did you get the idea that photosynthesis is more efficient than solar cells! Plants are disgustingly inefficient at solar energy conversion. Even sugar cane, one of the most efficient plants, you only get about 8% of sunlight converted to chemical energy. Then you have to burn it heating water to steam and running a generating turbine. I would guess your overall sunlight to electric conversion efficiency there is less than 3% while most solar panels are in the 12-14% direct sunlight to electricity conversion efficiency range!!
I would love love love to believe that solar, wind and or biofuels coupled with eltremely rigorous conservation could satisfy our current and future energy energy requirements. A cheaply produced plastic solar panel on every rooftop would be a beautiful sight. But there is one little graph that sticks in the back of my head as I think of these things and just doesn't go away. Energy consumption scales so perfectly with economic output and standard of living that it simply cannot be ignored. Look at all those countries at the bottom left of that graph. They will be moving toward the upper right of it in the next century, and while I hope alternative energies can be made viable on a large scale I very higly doubt, as the grandparent post says, that they will have the energy density necessary to satisfy Earth's future energy requirements. No, I think instead that the future is not in huge scale energy conservation, it is in development of extremely high energy dense sources such as fusion (and perhaps in the interim, fission).
"Let us assume for the sake of argument, that we have implemented a form of nuclear energy production that leaves something relatively harmless behind, such as helium. When this process is put into practice the world over, the effect on our environment could be Very Bad"
Uhhhhhh......why? I really think the new agey "everything humans do besides sitting in a ditch poking berries up thier noses is UNNATURAL AND THEREFORE EEEEEVILL AND BAAAAAD" nonsense is really dangerous magical thinking. We can't go back to the stone age just to make sure every last chipmunk lives a happy healthy full life and its just ludicrous to think so. Just because something is not cuddlyfuzzycute doesn't mean that it MUST somehow harm the planet. Helium is not a greenhouse gas, it is not an ozone depleting gas and it is TOTALLY inert. There is a reason its called a noble gas. I think we CAN manage Earth's resources wisely and we CAN produce the vast energies that will be required for the next stage of human civilization on Earth and we CAN do it without destroying the planet if we just use our heads and rigorously apply the scientific method.