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Monday, August 7, 2023

Fusion success



https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-scientists-repeat-fusion-power-breakthrough-ft-2023-08-06/

13 comments:

Anonymous said...



Ok the room temperature superconductor at least NIF worked. I have to say I think this is on par with a room temperature superconductor in terms of revolutionizing energy and saving all life on planet earth from climate change. I expect it will win the Nobel prize this year.

Anonymous said...



Ok the room temperature superconductor at least NIF worked. I have to say I think this is on par with a room temperature superconductor in terms of revolutionizing energy and saving all life on planet earth from climate change. I expect it will win the Nobel prize this year.

Anonymous said...

Beyond the simplistic media release, please fill us in, “fusion gain success” totaling X, in Y number of attempts over how many years? And, we are only talking energy “gain” at the target, not wall plug gain correct? So another 20 years or so maybe?

Anonymous said...

Now they just need to increase the shot rate by a factor of ten million, increase the energy per shot by a factor of a hundred, and reduce the cost by a factor of ten and they’ll be competitive with burning coal.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be the case that as technology develops fission power could also become cheaper and better? For example, even for existing plants in the United States, better operating procedures and maintenance have meant the plant produces power a greater portion of the time, lifetime of plants can be extended, and so on.

While the US perhaps does not have the industrial base and low labor costs to build out a large number of big nuclear reactors as was done in the past, there are also a variety of concepts for novel fission reactors as you know.

Of course, there are many other fusion concepts proposed now that do not involve giant lasers, as well as a number of alternate concepts using various sorts of lasers, alternate capsule designs, etc.

There are actually a variety of private efforts now developing fission and fusion reactor concepts with an aim towards commercial use, either for power production or special applications such as space travel, military use, and so forth.

I think DARPA and ARPA-E have had a number of programs to work with industry and sponsor design studies of such concepts which as I recall, can be found on their website.

So yes, it is a breakthrough, and will increase funding and interest in fusion directly, although I would not expect the exact fusion concept used in NIF and these shots to be something of course, that would somehow scale up.

A Nobel of course, would be I think appropriate, depending on the rules associated with the award of course, and one might expect that to create more interest among governments and investors to direct funding into fusion in general, as a form of Green Energy.

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that lab's webpage for news mentions nothing of this new success.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Kim values the contributions of the employees that actually made this happen during difficult and trying times onsite like she approved for the other programs golden children.

Anonymous said...

4:09 that’s because fusion isn’t new, and NIF is far from a success story.

Anonymous said...

4:09…. It’s on newsline

Anonymous said...

“I wonder if Kim values the contributions of the employees that actually made this happen during difficult and trying times onsite like she approved for the other programs golden children.”

I too hope the many stress related heart attacks, high blood pressure, and suicides among the dedicated past and present NIF employees are appreciated and acknowledged by the NNSA Field Office and in Washington, DC. At LANL and LLNL, the NNSA has shown itself to be too chummy and focused on catering to LANS and LLNS management at the expense of the actual “commodity” thought of workforce.

Anonymous said...



Some news reports are saying 2023-2022 is the time frame that the world changed due to three biggest scientific breakthroughs in 100 years which are (1) AI, (2) Fusion, (3) Room Temperature Superconductors.

This is mostly hype but LLNL should go with as the lab that got fusion started on planet earth as energy source. The room tempter superconodtcor is pretty much a bust at this point. As for AI, the average person is using ChTGPU to do homework, write memos, letters to family and so on so I guess you can say that AI has changed the world for the average person.

I think the bigger changes are going to be when AI can drive UPS trucks, do farming and manual labor, though I am guessing that is at least 5-10 years with some kind AI-robotic merger. After that if we can get AI to run NIF, or make compounds we could get fusion and room temperature superconductors. Once AI can do everything we are set! Or we will make great pets. My cat has a pretty good life so maybe it will work.



Anonymous said...

“I too hope the many stress related heart attacks, high blood pressure, and suicides among the dedicated past and present NIF employees are appreciated and acknowledged by the NNSA Field Office and in Washington, DC. At LANL and LLNL, the NNSA has shown itself to be too chummy and focused on catering to LANS and LLNS management at the expense of the actual “commodity” thought of workforce.”

When a LLNS employee has a “preventable” accident or injury, it quickly becomes a lab published “lessons learned”. When a LLNS employee develops a serious job related life threatening health issue, LLNS instantly becomes tone-deaf on the matter because it is not a favorable topic for their annual NNSA $$$ evaluations. Profits are significantly more important than people at LLNL under LLNS. Most unfortunate, but easily resolvable during the next contract change.

Anonymous said...

6:12 Yes, there was always that saying about being NIF’d, that wasn’t always good thing, but to reward people who weren’t even here on their LLNL vacation was sickening. However after what she said in that all hands about this really pushed us NIF’d people over the edge. Not to mention all the others working on other important issues at that time as well GS, Biomed, and everyone who was keeping the site running. I guess much of the lab doesn’t matter to them and we and our families are expendable to them.

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