One step closer to fusion...

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
I happen to think LPP is going to win. But it's interesting that the link is ten years old. Are they ten years closer today than they were then?
They are still making slow 'progress'. Each potential step forward, at first, is a few steps backward.
https://lppfusion.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/LPPFFusion-Report-July-3-2019.pdf
After 44 shots to date, we have achieved our first goal of firing with low impurities. The electrodes are far smoother than the tungsten ones were after a similar number of shots, indicating better erosion resistance, as we expected. Fusion yield has risen 60-fold since the first shot and is now 1/10th of a joule. This is comparable with the best results achieved with the similar 10-cm long tungsten anode, but not yet above our record of ¼ J, achieved in 2016 with a longer 14-cm anode. We also have not yet observed the long-lived filaments that we hope to produce as a step to getting much higher fusion yield. That is our next goal.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
They are still making slow 'progress'. Each potential step forward, at first, is a few steps backward.
I looked into investing in them but ultimately saw too many red flags. For one think they seemed to place a high value on the patents they hold. That seemed very naive to me and scared me off. I think at best they'll get far enough to prove the approach and then lose control when the big money comes in, which will be needed for all the engineering to actually go commercial. Such is the fate of basement inventors.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Maybe, maybe not.

http://fusionandthings.eu/2019/06/05/new-calculations-show-proton-boron-fusion-is-still-difficult/
https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf
Tri-Alpha Energy (now TAE Technologies) “Tri Alpha says it will produce a working commercial reactor between 2015 and 2020,” from NBF 8/16/2011. “Tri Alpha Energy now likely 2020 - 2025….. for commercial nuclear fusion,” from NBF 10/16/2015. “Tri-Alpha Fusion to develop commercial fusion by 2027,” from NBF 1/19/2017. ”The company will generate net energy from fusion…. in about five or six years,” from K. Bourzac [8], 8/6/2018. TAE once planned to exploit the aneutronic p-11B reaction, but tacitly abandoned that goal when it dropped “Tri-Alpha” from the company name.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Interesting... reminds me of a guy who said we wouldn't witness a heavier than air flying machine in our lifetime... about a year before the kitty hawk event...
That guy was mistaken in that belief obviously as large birds can fly because the physics and thermodynamics of flight was solved by evolution millions of years ago. We needed the technology of efficient and powerful engines to make it possible. Those same physics and thermodynamics rules have confined fusion to the realm of the interior of a star for billions of years. It's not a matter of thinking it can't be done on principle, it's saying it will be a really, really hard nut to crack to recreate and sustain those conditions with a usable power gain. Fusion is easy, I could easily create fusion reactions at work if I was crazy and felt suicidal.

http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v3p155y1977-78.pdf
Wilbur and Orville Wright are often thought of as semi-literate bicycle
mechanics who luckily stumbled upon a workable airplane design. The fact
is that the brothers were not only research scientists, but were also expert
engineers and mechanics. In order to succeed in building a flying machine
they had to solve many theoretical and practical problems. They did so
using what is now regarded as scientific method, beginning with kites and
moving on to gliders before considering the special problems of powered
flight. They even began their research by requesting that the Smithsonian
Institution perform a literature search on the subject of flying.
 
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Thread Starter

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Of course the guy was mistaken ... it's very easy to judge a situation in retrospect ...

And that makes me wonder... What changed? What technological and scientific breakthrough happened at that moment in time that allowed heavier than air machines to become a flying reality?

My (personal) answer is:
1.- The refinement of the internal combustion engine​
2.- A practical understanding of aerodynamics​

Same thing with the electric car. It was mainly a mastering of high energy density batteries that brought it into reality (lithium batteries, in this case ... and chemistry being the fundamental science behind the accomplishment) combined with improved energy efficient motors and control technologies. And that revolution is still ongoing...

But back to fusion. As you've said, it's easy for us to accomplish, although in a violent, uncontrolled way. Hell, all we need to get it going is gravity... lots of it! ... But in the real world, harnessing it will require more refined techniques, and we're getting there.

I have a hunch that it might be sooner than most sceptics believe it will be. Mainly because our computational and real time control capabilities have grown exponentially (and that's an understatement) since the technology was first proposed.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Fusion is easy, plasma is hard. Natural gravitational confinement requires at least a mass the size of a red dwarf star to stabilize the reactions. Computational and real time control capabilities must be faster than instabilities of our much smaller mass until we have a fusion spark of a duration to extract energy in a highly non-equilibrium system with a required higher output in its plasma cubic meter than each cubic meter of the suns core. Unlike flying, we are trying to do something better than a star that never happens in the universe outside a star. We don't know how close or far away fusion power is but a good bet would be far away.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/olson2/
Rayleigh-Taylor Instability and Fusion

 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
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