We are coming up to year since NIF had the one great burning plasma shot. Celebrations where at hand, Nobel prizes where to be given, rapid progress would soon happen, Lux!!!.
What happened? Was the shot ever reproduced? Seems odd that a year latter and they cannot duplicate it.
Comments
Lawrence Livermore’s latest attempts at ignition fall short
Researchers investigate the variables that have prevented them from replicating their near-ignition performance of a few months ago.
Three inertial confinement fusion experiments conducted since the August shot have fallen well short
“The intention was to replicate as closely as we could the parameters of the August shot,” says Herrmann. The fact that the three subsequent experiments performed well above the previous best mark of 170 kJ indicates that NIF has entered a regime in which even tiny variances in capsules and laser performance have an outsize impact on the outcome. Those variables aren’t well understood yet, he adds.
From Aug 2021
The August 8th shot was a remarkable achievement. I had always thought that the radiation field in the hohlraum would be too complex to ever achieve the necessary implosion symmetry at the convergence ratios required to reach ignition. Clearly I was wrong. Omar and his team deserve all of the accolades that I expect them to receive. "We know the lion by his paw."
-- Jas. Mercer-Smith
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Followed by
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
In any case Mr Smith may have turned out to be right all along and it is too complex and they simply got lucky because it could simply be a distribution in the produce fields. Personally I want this stuff to work because it is cool science. I doubt that this approach is viable for any kind actual energy source, also even if they figure out exactly what is going on it maybe they can never get capsules good enough or the energy of the lasers is to low or not accurate enough to get consistent results for this machine. Maybe the next machine, with more or bigger lasers.
If NIF fails to demonstrate a repeat(s) of the burning plasma shot ignition test of last year soon, I think the NIF laser toy box days are coming to an end, in favor of other less complex and perhaps less problematic fusion system hardware alternatives. At this point, I bet NIF managers are “eating their own” to stay funded.
7/04/2022 12:48 PM
We know the kitten by its stain on the couch.
A little harsh. I don’t think Congress see the NIF 10 year failure to achieve ignition metaphorically as a repeated “stain on the couch”, even when the “kitten” has requested additional ignition funding every year since 2012. Congress and the taxpayer just want meaningful ignition results, and short of results, they both still want NIF experimental transparency that relates to ignition progress.
I agree with your point. It was a bit harsh and a slightly cynical response to Mercer-Smith jumping the gun and declaring NIF a huge success after only one shot. Again anyone familiar with big science projects knows that one event anomalies are very common and you need to reproduce the result before you declare some super important result.