http://www.scienceline.org/2009/08/31/physics-goodier-fusion-reactor-tokamak/ The Shortest Distance Between You and Science Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:47:04 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.scienceline.org/2009/08/31/physics-goodier-fusion-reactor-tokamak/comment-page-1/#comment-3338 James Makepeace Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:24:45 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2009/08/31/physics-goodier-fusion-reactor-tokamak/#comment-3338 This is a semi-informed piece about fusion ! The truth about the National Ignition Facility is that it is a dual purpose facility. It enables "stewardship" of the nuclear stockpile (thus allowing conformity with the international nuclear test ban treaty) and it was also built to prove that fusion can be triggered with large lasers. Whoever tells you otherwise has another agenda, and that's about concern over threats to research funding. NIF will soon prove that fusion can be triggered by lasers in a deuterium/tritium fuel pellet, but it was never intended to go straight from there to producing a continuous energy supply. That is the job of another international project which you didn't even mention... HiPER (try Googling that) will develop from NIF's proof of principle to create a demonstrator reactor which can run "fast ignition" laser fusion on a continuous basis. AS usual the scientists who feel their precious funding is most threatened by the fast-advancing laser technologies are doing all they can to tell the world that it will never work, but the fact is that laser fusion has come further since lasers were invented than "tokamak" fusion has in the entire half-century since it was first attempted, and lasers are nearing the point where they will deliver. That's not to say that we shouldn't be pursuing both laser and magnetic fusion goals... we absolutely have to ! Today the press are starting to pick up on the possibility of power outages in the next few years, as the nuclear fission plants run down and shortages of fossil-fuel generatd power become unavoidable at peak times. The bottom line is that renewables will never come close to meeting our huge demands for energy, so we'd best get on with cracking the fusion challenge... and stop the scientists scrapping among themselves ... This is about something much more important than who gets the next piece of funding, and some scientists really need to wake up to that ! This is a semi-informed piece about fusion !
The truth about the National Ignition Facility is that it is a dual purpose facility. It enables “stewardship” of the nuclear stockpile (thus allowing conformity with the international nuclear test ban treaty) and it was also built to prove that fusion can be triggered with large lasers. Whoever tells you otherwise has another agenda, and that’s about concern over threats to research funding.
NIF will soon prove that fusion can be triggered by lasers in a deuterium/tritium fuel pellet, but it was never intended to go straight from there to producing a continuous energy supply. That is the job of another international project which you didn’t even mention… HiPER (try Googling that) will develop from NIF’s proof of principle to create a demonstrator reactor which can run “fast ignition” laser fusion on a continuous basis.
AS usual the scientists who feel their precious funding is most threatened by the fast-advancing laser technologies are doing all they can to tell the world that it will never work, but the fact is that laser fusion has come further since lasers were invented than “tokamak” fusion has in the entire half-century since it was first attempted, and lasers are nearing the point where they will deliver.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be pursuing both laser and magnetic fusion goals… we absolutely have to ! Today the press are starting to pick up on the possibility of power outages in the next few years, as the nuclear fission plants run down and shortages of fossil-fuel generatd power become unavoidable at peak times.
The bottom line is that renewables will never come close to meeting our huge demands for energy, so we’d best get on with cracking the fusion challenge… and stop the scientists scrapping among themselves … This is about something much more important than who gets the next piece of funding, and some scientists really need to wake up to that !

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