Fusion power? YOU BET!

In the history of science it seems like breakthroughs are pretty much the
domain of the very young. Brussard was a very bright, very nice old guy that probably let wishful thinking dictate the last decade of his life. I don't think there's a chance in Hell his reactor will work.

I desperately hope I'm wrong.
 
he saw the fault in his ITER work and left it on the table

too bad it's ongoing 40 years later and billions spent for a test reactor in 2020
 
These targets are meso-scale, three-dimensional, multi-material components fabricated with micro- and nano-scale precision. Currently, the fabrication of NIF targets, with similar geometries and specifications, require several man-weeks and several tens of thousands of dollars. The LIFE application will require novel manufacturing to produce hundreds of millions of targets per year at a unit cost of pennies each. In addition, the targets must be capable of surviving the 100 – 1000g accelerations required for rapid injection into the target chamber.
Click to expand...

So they need to produce these "NIF targets" of ~ nano meter (1 E−9 m) or a billionth of a fucking meter precision for pennies a piece (lawls @ "novel manufacturing techniques"). And these "three dimensional" (lawls w and h and d) multi-material (lawls more than 1 material) targets have to withstand ~ 1000g's.

When they use flowery language you know you're being ripped off.

:jester:

Spoiler


My tax dollars are paying for this? This is even worse than the lolerlaserplane.
 
Last edited:
Perfessor: We are gonna make a star on earth.
Student: What fer?

Perfessor: The world's first fusion reaction.
Student: Oh great I've been hearing about the benefits to mankinds for 30 years. Great to see this is happening!

Perfessor: [still smiling]
Student: So ... that's great. When can we expect commercial fusion?

Perfessor: Oh, in a 100 years or so, it's hard to say.
Student: wat

Perfessor: Well we have to make zese really small targets of nano meter precision for pennies a piece.
Student: Well why don't you research how to do that?

Perfessor: No glories, little prestige.
Student: But you won't have working fusion without zese targets.

Perfessor: WE do research. We don't care how it can be used, or if used at all. We do research son.
Student: If you were successful and found a way to make these targets, you would change that. People would love you and not grumble about how they're tax dollars are spent.

Perfessor: Well tbh, there's no fucking way we can make these NIF targets for cheap enough. Maybe in the 23rd but not now.
Student: So why are you guys doing this?

Perfessor: MIT wants the prestige, my staff needs teh tenure, my colleges will bend over for me.
Student: But you are doing something with no pay off in the foreseeable future. Isn't that larcenous?

Perfessor: You are dismissed.
 
hahahaha
the-laugher-big.jpg
 
hey i missed that arsin thread this all over page 13

neat!

nuclear fusion is easy btw, anyone can do it really

it's making it sustainable, stable, and generating positive power out put that are tricky
 
It would be pretty hilarious if NK actually did make some enormous breakthrough and had a cheap sustainable solution.


Utterly impossible that they actually did anything, but still.
 
Slashdot Hardware Story | ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisis

Slashdot.com said:
"The long beleaguered experimental magnetic confinement fusion reactor ITER is currently in what some are calling the worst crisis of its 25 year history. Still existing only on the paper of thousands of proposed design documents, latest cost estimates for the superconducting behemoth are soaring to nearly 20 billion USD — roughly twice the estimates of as recently as a few years ago. Anti-nuclear environmentalist organizations have seized upon the moment as an opportunity to use the current global economic crisis as a means to push for permanently killing the project. If ITER is not built, the prospect of magnetic confinement fusion as a technique to reach thermonuclear breakeven and ignition in the laboratory would be in serious question. Meanwhile, the largest laser-driven inertial confinement fusion project, the National Ignition Facility, has demonstrated the ability to use self-generated plasma optical gratings to control capsule implosion symmetry with high finesse, and is on schedule to achieve ignition and potentially high gain before the end of the year."
Click to expand...
 
I say fuck trying to make giant versions of these things. Keep em small. Make them big enough to supply 2x the power that average household uses and let people put one in their back yard.

If they can pull that off, they'd have buyers lined up for years.
 
.................

as i said, since the beginning of this thread:
ITER is worthless and wont work, costs too much, and if built would be gigantic (why it is so expensive)
we have other fusion designs on the way that are being built already for far cheaper
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top