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Thread: Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

  1. #1
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    Default Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

    More than what would fit in my garage:

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...nuclear-fusion

  2. #2
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    Default Is this an E Bay item?

    I'd like to bid on one!

  3. #3
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    The first thought that comes to my mind is "BOONDOGGLE"! After decades of work and billions of someone else's money they are "still a long way away" from useable energy output. Like the International Space Station these monstrous programs are sold to the the public for reasons other than their true purpose, fail to accomplish their stated reason for being and eat up resources that might accomplish real and far more profitable science. I am quite sick of these "one hand washes the other" big science/big government/big business arrangements.

    Omar Hurricane?

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    Jealous much? Please tell me how else humanity should achieve nuclear fusion.

  5. #5
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    Jealous? No. Angry. Do you remember the story of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas? Representative Jim Wright, famous for hie ethics, championed this project for his district. Billions were spent digging a large tunnel and building up the economy in his district. Bill Clinton canceled citing an economic downturn (in the 1990s?) when the real reason was that CERN had engineered the LHC using better technology (newer) and could largely supplant the SSC with a lower cost alternative.

    If you have read some of my other posts you know I strongly advocate research, but responsible research that efficiently uses resources to get the most productive results.

    Have you read much about table top accelerators?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_acceleration

    We simply did not nor do we yet posses lasers with enough efficiency or power to make inertial confinement fusion a reasonable investment...yet. To proceed with the large scale implementation when they did was foolish or more likely corrupt.

    Should we send a manned mission to Mars? Absolutely! But not yet. We do not have the technology to make it either safe enough or the return worthwhile.

  6. #6
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    Default

    what a huge waste of money and resources....this planet better figure something other than nukes for energy.
    Pat B

    laserman532 on ebay

    Been there, done that, got the t-shirt & selling it in a garage sale.

  7. #7
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    Last time I checked the majority of the earth is molten, as a result of radioactive decay in the core. Why are we not exploiting that heat? Boiling water deep in the crust can't be any harder than building the worlds biggest laser....

  8. #8
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    Good point. And, where that heat is more convenient ie Iceland there is a significant investment in geothermal energy. I guess this is sorta nuclear power,right?

    I am most excited about solar. Despite living in an area without many clear days I still think the market driven push to improve solar/electric generation will bring this source to a leading position in no more than 20 years. They are improving on just about every aspect. The efficiency keeps increasing the cost keeps dropping. They are moving away from toxic materials such as cadmium and they are seeing decent efficiency from organic cells. With graphene electrodes these are becoming so light and flexible they can be incorporated into roofing and other building materials, consumer products such as briefcases and even clothing. They are starting to manufacture these on continuous roll machines and even dot matrix printers. Then there is the whole area of concentrators and multi-junction cells that exceed 50% efficiency in fixed installations.

    Compare that to the fiasco that occurred after the Spanish government ceased providing huge subsidies to the solar based utilities. These very expensive installations would never have been made if the high costs and low efficiency of earlier solar panels had been fairly evaluated. They did not make any environmental, or economic sense, but I'll bet a few industrialists connected with the government did pretty well.

  9. #9
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    I know Saudi Arabia is putting huge effort into developing high efficiency solar panels, in an effort to use that countries to most plentiful resources: Sun & sand.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by planters View Post
    Jealous? No. Angry. Do you remember the story of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas? Representative Jim Wright, famous for hie ethics, championed this project for his district. Billions were spent digging a large tunnel and building up the economy in his district. Bill Clinton canceled citing an economic downturn (in the 1990s?) when the real reason was that CERN had engineered the LHC using better technology (newer) and could largely supplant the SSC with a lower cost alternative.
    That was before my time. The supercollider is no more than a footnote in lectures about particle physics. The LHC isn't (in fact I've been down the tunnel once in the Atlas detector!)

    Quote Originally Posted by planters View Post
    If you have read some of my other posts you know I strongly advocate research, but responsible research that efficiently uses resources to get the most productive results.

    Have you read much about table top accelerators?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_acceleration

    We simply did not nor do we yet posses lasers with enough efficiency or power to make inertial confinement fusion a reasonable investment...yet. To proceed with the large scale implementation when they did was foolish or more likely corrupt.

    Should we send a manned mission to Mars? Absolutely! But not yet. We do not have the technology to make it either safe enough or the return worthwhile.
    I do agree 100 % with you on these points. I'm sorry for my remark, I got the impression you were critisizing big science projects in general.
    Except the ISS. How is that not a valuable science project with lots of spinoff technology, economy boosting effects, experience source and science return?


    I don't think solar power is the future. While it's true solar panel technology is improving drastically, it just doesn't work half of the time on average. You need big energy storage methods, which is going to be a very big problem. In my eyes it's great as an in-between source of energy, while we get away from fossil fuels and move to a real sustainable energy source (probably nuclear fusion).
    Geothermal energy is nice where it's possible (but you can't send people to Mars with it :P)

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