Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
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  • #892
    Rezwan
    Participant

    The goal of the Focus Fusion Society is to advance aneutronic fusion. We’re currently enamored of the Dense Plasma Focus with pB11 – “Focus Fusion” from whence we derive our name. We like it because the concept paints a picture of fusion that would be elegant, small scale, easily distributed, truly cheap and clean, with no weapons potential. Looking at articles on NIF, we also feel the DPF is as, if not more plausible than NIF (or as implausible).

    Given that, what relationship approach do we take to NIF? Adversarial? Competitive? Critical? NIF Is already under criticism:

    …skeptics dismiss NIF as a colossal delusion that is squandering precious resources at a time of economic hardship. Just operating it, officials grant, will cost $140 million a year. Some doubters ridicule it as the National Almost Ignition Facility, or NAIF.
    NYT on NIF

    It may indeed be a white elephant, but if they can pull ignition off, that would be impressive. Even if something simple and elegant (like the DPF) eclipses it. You must get some points for taking

    some 7,000 workers and 3,000 contractors a dozen years, their labors creating a precision colossus of millions of parts and 60,000 points of control

    My point here is that things are sensitive, and throwing the “D” word around (“delusional”) is not nice when all fusion scientists live in glass houses. Of course, the DPF house is a lot less expensive, so that axes out the “colossal” superlative.

    In any case, the other argument against attacking our worthy foes is that there are so few of us, and so many of them (10,000 workers there just to get to pre-ignition, imagine their support staff, fans and government backers). And they have all the relationships with government and with people with money.

    Perhaps there are some win/win options.

    Competitive-collaborative?

    I can’t think of collaboration on the science level – but I don’t know, there may be some peripheral components in common. The science is very different for the two approaches. It’s David and Goliath. The main area of winning is public interest. Could the differences be used to kindle public interest and support in fusion in general?

    Aside from the science, NIF, like all fusion endeavors, has public relations problems. Awareness is low, and attitudes are turned off to fusion. That creates some common ground where resources could be pooled and events coordinated.

    Why am I rambling on about this? Well, to fill up these new forum categories. And also because I think the fusion community needs to – well – fuse a bit. Not totally. Not ignition. But a bit closer to pre-ignition wouldn’t hurt.

    There are so many ways to handle something.

    #7854
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    I think the number of jobs, contractors, and years speaks volumes about NIF’s continuing contributions. They’re into laser research; ITER’s into materials and cryo-electromagnet research, and all of this is amplified through the university systems. My opinion is that we remain open to collaboration should they initiate it. Not that I’m holding my breath…

    #7858
    Brian H
    Participant

    Attempting to actually cycle a behemoth like this, much less extract usable power, is “delusional”, IMO. Somebodies sold somebodies a multi-billion $$ bill of goods with this one. Not for the first time.

    #7860
    Lerner
    Participant

    NIF is actually funded as a nuclear weapons simulation device, not as a step towards electric power generation. In theory, however, the knowledge gained, if it reached ignition, would help in desiging a inertial fusion power device using some other source of energy than foot-ball-field-sized lasers.

    #7862
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Still NIF is cheaper, smaller than ITER and can succeed sooner.

    #7864
    Brian H
    Participant

    Lerner wrote: NIF is actually funded as a nuclear weapons simulation device, not as a step towards electric power generation. In theory, however, the knowledge gained, if it reached ignition, would help in desiging a inertial fusion power device using some other source of energy than foot-ball-field-sized lasers.

    Inertial fusion necessarily involves implosion of individual ‘pills’ of material, doesn’t it? The only suggested mechanisms I’ve seen for repetitive, controlled implosions seem to depend on unheard-of levels of mechanical precision and durability. That seems to me to introduce exponentially increasing opportunities for breakdown and the need for unobtainium.

    #7876
    emmetb
    Participant

    Lerner wrote: NIF is actually funded as a nuclear weapons simulation device, not as a step towards electric power generation. In theory, however, the knowledge gained, if it reached ignition, would help in desiging a inertial fusion power device using some other source of energy than foot-ball-field-sized lasers.

    In the same way the US got reinvolved in ITER, after having withdrawn initially. For a large part this was because the entire contraption is one big neutron-source that is useful for breeding fissile material. This is something that the US cannot but stay involved in. Perhaps not so much for the prospect of clean power, but more from a nuclear weapons proliferation perspective.

    Having said all this. Of course these facilities represent great science. Of course we’re all curious about what will be the results. Yet we should be curious for the right reasons.

    #7880
    Dr_Barnowl
    Participant

    Brian 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?

    #7883
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Brian H wrote:
    Inertial fusion necessarily involves implosion of individual ‘pills’ of material, doesn’t it? The only suggested mechanisms I’ve seen for repetitive, controlled implosions seem to depend on unheard-of levels of mechanical precision and durability. That seems to me to introduce exponentially increasing opportunities for breakdown and the need for unobtainium.

    From a machine-builder’s perspective, attempting to improve mechanical precision anywhere near that far is worthy scientific investigation in it’s own right. Now throw in the power and control systems, and NIF starts looking a lot less like a political patronage (machine politics) and laser weapons project.

    #7888
    Brian H
    Participant

    Aeronaut wrote:

    From a machine-builder’s perspective, attempting to improve mechanical precision anywhere near that far is worthy scientific investigation in it’s own right. Now throw in the power and control systems, and NIF starts looking a lot less like a political patronage (machine politics) and laser weapons project.

    In neutron-resistant unobtainium, of course!

    #7900
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    But we know where to mine unubtanium now! ;-P Don’t forget the follow-on project to make unobtainium industrially usable, btw.

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