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Near fusion?

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By scooby
http://dailyme.com/story/2010092000004225/livermore-lab-nears-launch-fusion-quest.html

Any comments on the article that appeared in the paper today?

Comments

Anonymous said…
This is a big experiment with many dangers including a rad component; thus thing may have to be done in a controlled process. People should realize this is an experiment with no guarantees of success even after a decade of work.
We (USA) have come this far and we need to work on the pending problems; else it will go the way of the magnetic fusion project…a great experiment that never happened.
9/23/2010 10:17 PM
fish said…
Fusion....the power source of the future! Always in the future!
9/25/2010 12:49 PM
Anonymous said…
1.1 MJ of laser light to target chamber center was followed up by a successful D-D shot campaign with deuterium fusion on the 1st shot and neutrons ~1E10. By the 4th D-D shot, the blast was spherical and met the compression ratio NIF anticipated in quest for ignition (or, was stated as such).

A D-T ignition target is approximately 10 Ci of tritium (unless that has changed) in HT, or about the same as in an exit sign.

LLNL use to release 100's and thousands of Ci's of tritium in HT in the past (1980's and prior).

Running a shot campaign of 4 or 5 ignition size targets (to see how well NIF works), which is done in vacuum containment, in an evacuated facility, with an elevated release point of some 30-35m shot at 3 o'clock in the morning does not seem like a huge danger to me.

Intentional slow boating?
9/25/2010 5:05 PM
Anonymous said…
Hmm, I'd heard that cryo-laying of the target was not successfull (really only a 33 1/3% probability that it will anyway), was this deuterium "fusion" done without layering, or did cryo-tarpos succeed?
9/27/2010 6:59 AM
Anonymous said…
"And credible means that we have no reason to believe it's not going to work," Thomas D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration , which oversees the Livermore lab, told Sen. Dianne Feinstein during Congressional testimony in March.6

What a joke, here's a guy defining "credible" when he has none. His statement "we have no reason to believe it's not going to work" is a weak, political, and waffle statement considering we paid several billion on this contraption. It typical of experiments to have grandiose oversold declarations to acquire money to build them and then have weak statements to undersell the product when we get ready to fire it. Come on D'Ago have some confidence in something we paid several billion on and stop defining credible for us.
9/29/2010 3:15 AM
Anonymous said…
Ah c'mon you guys, it will work, in a substantially equivalent way.
10/01/2010 10:07 AM
Anonymous said…
Just define "failure" as "success".

NNSA does it all the time.

Misson accomplished.
10/01/2010 6:43 PM
Anonymous said…
It depends on what the definition of "will" will be.
10/07/2010 5:38 PM
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