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 NIF: “Scientists hit a milestone toward nuclear-fusion energy”


Jan 26, 2022

https://youtu.be/aPmOsCR96o0

Comments

Anonymous said…

Reproduce the shot.
Anonymous said…
Expect “breakthroughs” about once a year from now until eternity. NIF remains a $10B playground.
Anonymous said…
At least twice. Then crow about it.
Anonymous said…
I was a big anti-NIF guy, mainly because of Moses, but I have to give them their due. I hope this precipitates the shutdown of the Z machine which is becoming more and more useless. Lots of bills to pay in the future, I’m sure Sandia corporate could do without Z and focus of more money making ventures.
Anonymous said…
1/28/2022 7:51 PM

A blatant push to absorb Sandia's fusion funding to support more ridiculous nonsense at NIF.
Anonymous said…
Sandia deserves zero fusion funding based on their years of lousy results. They promised break even with MAGLIF, their fusion scheme and never got it. I think they only get a few thousand joules whereas NIF is getting millions of joules. Also, they published some incorrect data on the metallization of hydrogen a few years ago. The NIF a people redid the experiment and showed in a Science article that the Sandia results were incorrect. Kind of ironic after the Nova D2 EOS fiasco. NIF is looking pretty good today on all fronts.
Anonymous said…
1/30/2022 12:09 PM

It isn't haw many Joules NIF is getting, it is how many Joules NIF is spending to get that many Joules.
Anonymous said…

The Z could be seen as relevant for ITER, more so than NIF would be. I have no idea if that is actually true but I have a few people say this.
Anonymous said…
It's good to see technical merit debated on a blog, rather than by professionals in those stuffy peer-reviewed journals. The peanut gallery truly knows best.
Anonymous said…
"It's good to see technical merit debated on a blog, rather than by professionals in those stuffy peer-reviewed journals. The peanut gallery truly knows best.

2/05/2022 4:48 PM"

????

Did I miss something. In any case yes, the peanut gallery can know best in many cases, particularly if that peanut gallery does have some experts and people that understand how science actually works. Journals are for very specific technical merit not overall themes or if a research direction has a long term future or not. You present a very odd argument on how science advances. In any case this is a blog or peanut gallery for things related to the labs. Would you call conferences or DOE meetings peanut galleries, because the same things are said in those as on this blog. Also who said that the posters are not professionals? Many may have completely adequate technical backgrounds to make insightful comments. For example if you ask someone at NIF if things are going great they would say yes, in fact it is in their interest to say yes and hype up their results. On the other hand anyone who has good understanding of science can point out that one successful shot may not mean all that much if they cannot reproduce it on a regular basis. Anyone with real knowledge of science knows that these kinds of things have happened countless times especially in large scale experimental physics.

Anonymous said…
4:48 Do you have a single, peer-reviewed article that proclaims NIF has any prayer of being within a factor of 100 of actually generating power to our grid? Be careful as your true, parasitic, “professional” nature is showing.
Anonymous said…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10493401/Britains-artificial-sun-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record.html

The 'artificial sun' nuclear reactor in Culham released a total of 59 megajoules of energy, equating to a power output of just over 11 megawatts averaged over five seconds.

It is not a huge energy output
Anonymous said…
But is a huge energy input. Wrong ratio.
Anonymous said…
Here are some peanuts for your gallery. Before romancing NIF any further, get acquainted with these four books: "The Fairy Tale of Nuclear Fusion" by Reinders (Springer), "A Piece of the Sun" by Clery (Ducksworth Overlook), "Fusion Follies: Carbon-Free Energy and Seawater Sorcery" by Miklosy (Amazon), "Lost in Math" by Hossenfelder (Basic Books). When NIF can show a positive energy balance from a fusion plasma and Q >> 1 post your results here, don't placate yourselves with another peer review. Good luck with your careers.

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