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The 192 lasers of the National Ignition Facility have so far failed to focus enough energy on a tiny fuel pellet to initiate nuclear fusion.
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http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/politics_and_policy/1.2657141
40 comments:
What happens if it does not meet the milestone? I would guess they would just keep working to see if they can get it working or understand why it does not work.
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Who says lasers don't work?
Vic Reis
NIF has been an enormous failure!
Time for bonuses, all around, for the managers who were such good liars they could fib to see NIF pushed through to completion with enormous cost overruns and long time delays. It's been a lab management "career builder" for decades.
Here we go again. Brilliant Pebbles, X-ray Laser, Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (MFTF), and now the National Ignition Failure (NIF) Program.
The success or failure of the ignition campaign will have no direct relationship to nuclear weapons performance,“ Koonin said, although he added that NIF’s “already high value” for stewardship of the weapons stockpile would be “greatly enhanced” by experiments that ignition would enable.
Dr. Steven Koonin, DOE/ NNSA, Physics Today
It appears that Koonin finally "let the cat out of the bag" and then attempted to "stuff it back in" with his double-talk.
I find it ironical that Dr. Vic Reis (Father of the NIF) is still giving bad advice to LANS Management. He appeared as the guest speaker at the recent LANS Management retreat providing his "vision". God save us!
You guys at Livermore just painted yourselves in a corner with failure of NIF and getting out of the nuclear weapons business. Your only hope is continuing to steal weapon systems and/or Life Extension Programs (e.g. W78 and W80) from Los Alamos.
Fear not. LANS leaders like Charlie McMillan and Bret Knapp are bringing the famous Livermore "success stories" like NIF to Los Alamos.
The major NIF risk was the pellet instability. It appears the lasers are crapping out. It's ironical that Livermore has so much confidence in the NIF lasers they were deemed low risk. It's too bad they buried the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). The could have hauled NIF to Texas and stuffed it inside the SSC 54-mile long tunnel.
"November 21, 2011 5:04 PM"
How about making a giant pit and throwing money in it? In 10 years it will do great things.
The decommissioning and demolition (D&D) of NIF will likely exceed the R&D and construction costs, by default. It's examples like NIF that are running the U.S. into the ground.
Notice how no one is left to defend NIF. Yet another classic example of how Livermore oversells and never delivers.
not too many experimentalists following these posts, probably too busy...
The point of NIF is to do physical studies (experiments) to understand small-scale ignition physics. The studies are now underway. NIF is now doing what it is designed to do.
It has unparalleled measurement equipment, outstanding brains, and a rich and tolerant customer.
All the attributes necessary to fully investigate the physical regime.
Must be an extraordinarily exciting time for those closely involved.
What ever happened to the "ignition" goal? Was that compromised by a PBI? Change the name of the facility to the Never Ignition Facility (NIF) if there is no longer a plan to achieve ignition. Keep the acronym, it will save the taxpayers some money.
Its kind of sad, how a lot of people here on the blog gloat about NIF's so called failure.
How about giving it some time?
Remember the LHC which run for about 5 days and then broke down and had to be repaired for over a year. Now it is running fine, albeit still at lower energy and is slowly ramping up.
Large machines like this are more complicated than just your regular PMT.
And all this griping of LLNL vs LANL is getting really old. It would help our future much more if we would be united instead of pointing fingers at each other.
And all this griping of LLNL vs LANL is getting really old. It would help our future much more if we would be united instead of pointing fingers at each other.
November 24, 2011 9:22 AM
Do you not know that this has been going on since Teller, having been booted from Los Alamos for his arrogance, convinced Congress that the US needed another nuclear weapon lab in the early 50's? Think where the word would be if the thermonuclear design (the "super") had never been pursued.
The point of NIF is to do physical studies (experiments) to understand small-scale ignition physics. The studies are now underway. NIF is now doing what it is designed to do.
November 23, 2011 12:06 PM
Small-scale ignition physics? Please! You are implying that NIF has achieved ignition, which it hasn't and won't. Is that you Moses trying to burn more money on this billion dollar fraud?
To think for one moment that the NIF concept will produce 60 watts of energy to light a one lightbulb in home is crazy. While we may end up doing some elegant science here, the engineering of this concept is far, far more difficult than the physics. Unfortunately, the physicists have kept the engineers out their turf so they can continue to play fun and games at the taxpayer expense. The whole NIF concept is STUPID!
The whole NIF concept is STUPID!
November 24, 2011 9:08 PM
The "whole NIF concept" (unspoken) was to do nuclear weapons physics studies under the false umbrella of fusion energy research.
"..are implying that NIF has achieved ignition.., ?
No, In layman's terms, they are walking the path, they have not come to the end of the journey. The operational NIF laser and target diagnostics are allowing scientists to characterize this regime, as intended.
A very exciting time for those involved.
All can still place bets as to the outcome, but the important point is, the outcome is now being pursued and will occur.
"The whole NIF concept is STUPID!"
There is not enough information available today to make this statement with certainty. Better to postpone it 100 years. At that time, the NIF results and the possible consequences will be determined.
Remember, Ben Franklin's toying with kites didn't lead to the light bulb for 100 years.
The Curies turn of the century isolation and study of radionuclides didn't yield a practical use until 1945 and power production until 1953.
Quantum mechanics lead to the laser and electronic circuits about 40 years after its discovery. The telescope that Galileo used to upset the theory of the heavens, is still leading to discoveries 500 years after its monumental discoveries.
Knowledge and innovation take their own sweet time. NIF is a fine instrument, wielded by fine minds. It may lead to something useful or may not.
"Knowledge and innovation take their own sweet time. NIF is a fine instrument, wielded by fine minds. It may lead to something useful or may not.
November 27, 2011 6:56 PM"
I agree I do not think a valid opinion on NIF's success or failure could be made for another 100-500years. Even if NIF is declared a failure it will have paid a way for success of the followup machines, thus making NIF really a success. Look at how many times alternatives to classical mechanics failed until quantum mechanics came along, however it is these alternatives that paved the way for quantum mechanics. These are exciting times indeed.
"Knowledge and innovation take their own sweet time. NIF is a fine instrument, wielded by fine minds. It may lead to something useful or may not."
While this may be correct, should the country pay billions for the project during an economic depression? Maybe yes or maybe no.
"While this may be correct, should the country pay billions for the project during an economic depression? Maybe yes or maybe no.
November 29, 2011 3:33 AM"
We are not in a depression and even if that does happen than yes we should put billions in to keep people working and investing for the future. Have you heard of the Hoover Dam?, lots of working people and great payoff for a long time. There is a chance NIF could lead to a knew energy source that could replace oil, that alone is worth trying. Ok your right we should billions more on Banker bailouts.
Sounds like the NIF Kool-Aid is being passed around again.
NIF, the "Hoover Dam" of our century?
The Hoover Dam did something productive and supplied electricity to the western US. All NIF does is suck-up lots of power and produce nothing of real value! Some analogy.
The Kool-Aid comes in other flavors as well: LANCE and CMRR are among the more popular ones in some locations.
When you corner the LANL scientists involved in the nuclear weapon program they will be happy to inform anyone that NIF has little to no relevance to their program. The ONLY two people at LANS who fully endorse NIF are MacMillan and Knapp who are so far up the LANS/LLNS cash cow sphincter they can't smell it.
Surely support given to NIF by LANL is based on the merits of the work. Otherwise, the leadership would not be trusted advisors on such a complex issue.
Surely support given to NIF by LANL is based on the merits of the work. Otherwise, the leadership would not be trusted advisors on such a complex issue.
December 1, 2011 5:26 PM
Surely you realize that Mcmillan and Knapp are LLNL people through-and-through??
The Kool-Aid comes in other flavors as well: LANCE and CMRR are among the more popular ones in some locations.
November 30, 2011 11:58 AM
Don't forget the infamous Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (MFTF), X-ray Laser, and Brilliant Pebble Kool-Aid flavors that fizzled.
You youngsters don't know about about the infamous Livermore Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (MFTF) do you? The infamous yin-yang (baseball threads) magnet concept that was supposed to be generating electricity for our homes at this very moment. As my my fusion buddy puts it "never flipped the switch". What an absolute and total waste of the taxpayers money. Another oversold and bogus concept that Livermore failed to deliver. The joke of this concept is that Livermore gave themselves an award for re-using the parts. Now that's ingenuity.
:MFTF, he magnet concept that was supposed to be generating electricity for our homes at this very moment..."
Not true.
MFTF was an incremental step in the advancement of magnetic confinement of plasma. It studied the characteristics of a magnetic plug at the end of a magnetic bottle to trap elevated temperature plasma on a large-scale, with significant advances in the technology of the application of superconductors to large electromagnets.
The plasma physics were judged to be not worth pursuing further experimentally on such a large scale under the reduced funding for magnetic fusion at the time, when the smaller parallel experiment TMX showed that adequate confinement of the plug region was unlikely to be achieved experimentally.
The technology of confinement systems, the large vacuum system,the neutral beams, the electromagnets and cryogenic systems were run successfully in a technology demonstration. This technology base is now one of the key steptones on which the more promising magnetic confinement technique, toroidal confinement, will be scaled up in an international collaboration in France,ITER, with operation beginning in 2025-2030. Again, not a reactor, but an experiment.
So MFTF was a successful scientific endeavor, it answered the question of whether scale-up of plasma confinement in a magnetically plugged solenoid was promising. The answer, not a promsing as other methods. It demonstrated the scale-up of key technologies that will be useful.
The point you miss is, if an outcome of an experiment is known, it is often not worth doing. Therefore, setbacks and failures are a necessary part of science.
Don't like it, stick with farming.
Oh wait, it too, has uncertainty.
I believe the met and exceeded the milestone this month.
I read the March report. It looks like they can deliver laser light in the 2 MJ range near target, but how much energy/power did it take to do that, and how much did they get out? How CLOSE are we to ignition? That's what we want to know!
The problem of the LLNL laser fusion concept is RT instability, limiting the achievable ratio of the initial to the final implosion radius. According to a scaling law by R.Kidder the ignition energy is inverse proportional to the 6th power of this ratio, or vice verse this ratio is inverse proportional to the 1/6 power of the energy input. This means that even increasing the laser energy 10-fold, from 2MJ to 20 MJ, would not help. What is needed is not more energy but a smaller final implosion radius than what the RT instability permits. For this reason I had for many years proposed not only to use cylindrical targets where the RT instability is less serious, but in addition 10^7 Ampere low Z multi-MeV ion beams along the axis of the cylinder to radially confine the fusion alpha particles by the magnetic field of the beam. In this configuration the fast ignition is ideally achieved by a proton beam entering the cylinder at its end, and does not have to take place in the center of a spherical target as in the fast ignition scheme invented by Basov and later by Tabak. While the proton beam is propagating in the center along the axis of the cylinder, a hollow high Z MJ ion beam propagates along the surface of the cylinder for compression.
F. Winterberg, Professor of Physics, University of Nevada.
I may add that because of Kidder's scaling law, the outlook for the "direct" drive concept pursued with the Omega laser is unlikely to be better, and quite possibly worse. But the DOE program managers in Washington still shell out large sums of money to PIs at various universities in support of this lost cause, instead of supporting alternative concepts.
F. Winterberg
Reading the different excuses to explain the failure to reach ignition, like to blame mother because the modeling (using LASNEX?) predicted success, it must be emphasized that in case of serious instabilities, as is the RT instability, such model calculations are not reliable.
F. Winterberg
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