Reply To: New Focus Fusion myspace.
The Focus Fusion Society › Forums › National Ignition Facility (NIF) et al › Our relationship to NIF › Reply To: New Focus Fusion myspace.
Dr_BarnowlBrian H wrote: Inertial fusion necessarily involves implosion of individual ‘pills’ of material, doesn’t it?
The current targets are a gold “hohlraum” containing a small beryllium sphere with the cryogenically cooled fuel mix inside. Estimates giving a sensible reactor output are about 10Hz pellets.
It sounds like the worlds most expensive and heavily engineered machine-gun / laser / kettle. The “heavy weapon guy” in the popular game Team Fortress 2 boasts :
Heavy Weapon Guy wrote: She weighs one hundred fifty kilograms and fires two hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. It costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon… for twelve seconds.
Ok ; 10,000 rounds per minute is more like 166.66Hz … but $200 doesn’t sound unreasonable. So will a NIF-style reactor cost $120,000 dollars to “fire” for a minute? Or will it just never work because it’s too difficult to reconcile being a machine-gun, a kettle AND a laser?