Can anyone here verify the 1 MJ NIF yield that was mentioned on this blog? I don’t see any news release on that and it’s supposedly been a week since the experiment.
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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Rumor has it that there will be some kind of public announcement this week.
Just be patient,
-- Jas. Mercer-Smith
Actually it sounds better to say
"We know the lion by his claw"
Unlike Newton NIF did not exactly solve the problem in 12 hours, nor is it obvious they can reproduce this since it is a single shot.
But who knows where this could lead, I am cautiously optimistic but if one looks at the history of science there are all sorts of one anomaly events in big experiments. Repeat the shot and I will be more optimistic.
It is also a pretty cool song by an English band.
8/19/2021 10:26 AM
English boy bands got rich covering the true sounds of the delta. I suppose there is an allegorical connection to NIF and weapons in there somewhere.
-- Jas. Mercer-Smith
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Interesting comment. The experimental basis for our present stockpile confidence is single-shot data, gleaned from never repeated events.
8/20/2021 3:01 PM
Are you implying a band like Led Zeppelin are not entirely original and "borrowed" from the blues?.... A truly shocking statement.
I do not know the history of laser fusion, did the British come up with this first or Mississippi. I do like fusion bands.
The experiment was enabled by focusing laser light from NIF — the size of three football fields — onto a target the size of a BB that produces a hot-spot the diameter of a human hair, generating more than 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power for 100 trillionths of a second.
“These extraordinary results from NIF advance the science that NNSA depends on to modernize our nuclear weapons and production as well as open new avenues of research,” said Jill Hruby, DOE under secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA administrator.
The central mission of NIF is to provide experimental insight and data for NNSA’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program. Experiments in pursuit of fusion ignition are an important part of this effort. They provide data in an important experimental regime that is extremely difficult to access, furthering our understanding of the fundamental processes of fusion ignition and burn and enhancing our simulation tools to support stockpile stewardship. Fusion ignition is also an important gateway to enable access to high fusion yields in the future.
“This result is a historic step forward for inertial confinement fusion research, opening a fundamentally new regime for exploration and the advancement of our critical national security missions. It is also a testament to the innovation, ingenuity, commitment and grit of this team and the many researchers in this field over the decades who have steadfastly pursued this goal,” said LLNL Director Kim Budil. “For me it demonstrates one of the most important roles of the national labs – our relentless commitment to tackling the biggest and most important scientific grand challenges and finding solutions where others might be dissuaded by the obstacles.”
While a full scientific interpretation of these results will occur through the peer-reviewed journal/conference process, initial analysis shows an 8X improvement over experiments conducted in spring 2021 and a 25X increase over NIF’s 2018 record yield."
https://www.llnl.gov/news/national-ignition-facility-experiment-puts-researchers-threshold-fusion-ignition
"The August 8th shot was a remarkable achievement."
When is NIF scheduled to repeat this exact experiment? Are there scheduling conflicts, lack of funding, or damaged systems in need of repair first?
- Doug
I think it is pretty clear that they did get a huge boost. The question is can the reproduce this and understand what exactly the did to get it. It is a big step, if they can repeat than they really have something they can celebrate.
The world is falling apart, America is leaving our allies behind, Covid is ravaging the world, China and Russia are rising, the US cannot even face its own past injustices, our nation almost fell on Jan 6. Does NIF really matter at this point? Is this all you can think about? There is more to the world and way more important things than a giant toy. Suppose NIF worked out, all it would mean is that we would think we have cheap energy to keep living our unsustainable life style. The reality is that we cannot keep this life up, even if we made energy 80% cheaper all we would do is use 10 times more energy. We need to completely rethink our way of life, how we spend money, do we even need money, do we need war, do we need weapons. Listen to the young people around you not to news about so called scientific breakthroughs.
8/23/2021 3:33 PM
Yes, yes, listen to all that worldly wisdom gained in peace, without the threat of nuclear doom, thanks to the security blanket of our nuclear weapon stockpile.
8/23/2021 3:33 PM
Tell you what. You do all that for me, ok? I've got better things to do. Like living my life regardless of what you think.
8/24/2021 5:44 PM
The problem is that you "living your life" by using fossil fuels, eating meat, buying cars, being in a big house, flying to Paris, is deadly for the rest of the world and future generations. One of our current conversations is making vaccines being a mandate. You can say it your life but when you do not have a vaccine you are endangering others. The US and world is waking up now and starting to put in the mandates. Pollution and unsustainable life styles are just if not more deadly than not getting a vaccine. We need mandates for how much fuel, food, size of house, travel, number of kids, and lifestyle if we are to make a better future for all. Covid in many ways is opening our eyes to the better future if we drop the idea of thinking about only ourselves but start thinking collectively. NIF could be used for good but only if we rethink our lives.
Rethink your own life, I'm busy living mine, which you can't touch.
8/25/2021 6:04 PM"
Living "your" life, things are changing my friend, things are changing. Vaccines are going to be mandated soon, after that will be restrictions on how much travel one can take, what kind if any kind of car you will be allowed, internet freedoms will soon be gone, more freedoms after that. By 2030 you will own nothing, have no privacy, no space of your own, but you will be happy. You will have to live in a city as we all will, but using the term your will not be a thing. Your way thinking is obsolete and useless.
World Economic Forum
Leadership Strategy
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By Ida Auken
Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city - or should I say, "our city." I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes.
It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.
First communication became digitized and free to everyone. Then, when clean energy became free, things started to move quickly. Transportation dropped dramatically in price. It made no sense for us to own cars anymore, because we could call a driverless vehicle or a flying car for longer journeys within minutes. We started transporting ourselves in a much more organized and coordinated way when public transport became easier, quicker and more convenient than the car. Now I can hardly believe that we accepted congestion and traffic jams, not to mention the air pollution from combustion engines. What were we thinking?
All in all, it is a good life. Much better than the path we were on, where it became so clear that we could not continue with the same model of growth. We had all these terrible things happening: lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment. We lost way too many people before we realized that we could do things differently. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded.
My biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city. Those we lost on the way. Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology. Those who felt obsolete and useless
https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=5bd7dbda1735
I'm already vaccinated fully since early March - waiting for a booster, so I'm completely in favor of vaccine mandates, just as for school-age children before being allowed to enter school. As someone said today, willfully unvaccinated people are about to see their world shrink greatly.
The rest of your blather about losing freedoms is just...blather.