{"id":6470,"date":"2014-02-12T21:30:02","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T21:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6470"},"modified":"2014-02-13T01:23:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T01:23:18","slug":"sci-tech-milestone-achieved-in-laser-fusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6470","title":{"rendered":"Sci-Tech: Milestone achieved in laser fusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lasers.llnl.gov\/\" target=\"_d\">National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0has achieved scientific break-even in laser fusion tests for the first time. This is comparing the amount of laser energy impinging upon a tiny drop of tritium-deuterium to the fusion energy that takes place in the droplet due to the compression and high temperatures resulting from the blast of laser light:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/laser-fusion-experiment-extracts-net-energy-from-fuel-1.14710\" target=\"_d\">Laser fusion experiment extracts net energy from fuel &#8211; Nature News &amp; Comment<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/journal\/vaop\/ncurrent\/full\/nature13008.html\" target=\"_d\">Fuel gain exceeding unity in an inertially confined fusion implosion &#8211; Nature\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/technology\/nuclear-fusion-hits-energy-milestone-1.2534140\" target=\"_d\">Nuclear fusion hits energy milestone &#8211; CBC News<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The amount of fusion energy, however, is still only about 1% of the total energy needed to create those laser pulses. However, as they understand better how to shape and time the pulses and how to design the fuel droplet and the &#8220;hohlraum&#8221; capsule that holds it, the fusion output could rise very rapidly. This ignition condition occurs when the heat of the fusions starts to drive other <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nuclear_fusion\" target=\"_blank\">tritium-deuterium\u00a0fusions<\/a>, which in turn creates more heat, etc.<\/p>\n<p>To build a reactor from such a process will require an efficient way to turn the emitted energy (high energy helium nuclei and neutrons) into heat to drive electrical generators. And the rate of laser pulsing needs to be increased substantially. All tough technology challenges.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lasers.llnl.gov\/science\/icf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"Drawings of a NIF Hohlraum\" src=\"https:\/\/lasers.llnl.gov\/content\/assets\/images\/science\/ignition\/target_capsule_ill.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>All of the energy of NIF\u2019s 192 beams is directed inside a gold cylinder called a <\/em><br \/>\n<em>hohlraum, \u00a0which is about the size of a dime. A tiny capsule inside the hohlraum<\/em><br \/>\n<em>  contains atoms of deuterium (hydrogen with one neutron) and tritium (hydrogen with <\/em><br \/>\n<em>two neutrons) that fuel the ignition process. <a href=\"https:\/\/lasers.llnl.gov\/science\/icf\" target=\"_blank\">Credit: LLNL<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory\u00a0has achieved scientific break-even in laser fusion tests for the first time. This is comparing the amount of laser energy impinging upon a tiny drop of tritium-deuterium to the fusion energy that takes place in the droplet due to the compression and high temperatures resulting from the blast &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6470\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sci-Tech: Milestone achieved in laser fusion<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-1Gm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3475,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=3475","url_meta":{"origin":6470,"position":0},"title":"Sci-Tech: Ultra-dense deuterium packs tightly","author":"TopSpacer","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A\u00a0 group led by Prof. Leif Holmlid at the\u00a0 University of Gothenburg, Sweden has created a really bizarre material: Ultra-dense deuterium may be the nuclear fuel of the future Material that is a hundred thousand times heavier than water and more dense than the core of the Sun is being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Science and Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Science and Technology","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9036,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=9036","url_meta":{"origin":6470,"position":1},"title":"Sci-Tech: Updates on five fusion power projects","author":"TopSpacer","date":"October 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"While I'm quite optimistic about progress with LENR energy production, it's great to see progress being made on more conventional fusion approaches as well. 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