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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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.