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National Ignition Facility fires record laser shot—…a milepost on the way to fusion energy.
http://www.nature.com/news/national-ignition-facility-fires-record-laser-shot-1.10269[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif][font size=5]National Ignition Facility fires record laser shot[/font]
[font size=4]Powerful pulse a milepost on the way to fusion energy.[/font]
Eric Hand
20 March 2012
[font size=3]The world’s largest laser has just put a little more zing in its zap. On 15 March, the 192 laser beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, fired a record 1.875-megajoule shot into the laser’s target chamber, surpassing its 1.8-megajoule design specification. The shot, which was just a demonstration and did not incorporate a target, nonetheless represents a milepost in an effort to get past the break-even point — ignition — in coaxing fusion energy from a tiny frozen fuel pellet.
“It’s a remarkable demonstration of the laser from the standpoint of its energy, its precision, its power, and its availability,” says Ed Moses, NIF director. He adds that the shot was 2.03 megajoules after passing through the final focusing lens — making the NIF the world’s first 2-megajoule ultraviolet laser. Final diagnostic and other optics reduced the energy to 1.875 megajoules at the centre of the target chamber.
Most of the NIF’s recent shots have maxed out at 1.6 megajoules. As recently as December, the team was still only 10% of the way towards creating the overall conditions for ignition. Moses declined to say when he will test the 1.875-megajoule capability on a target, but he says that the extra energy will allow more leeway in target designs. He adds that the damage on the laser optics was less than models predicted, and that the laser was able to fire another shot about 36 hours after the record-breaking one.
…
The NIF is racing to achieve ignition before the end of the fiscal year, when a two-year ignition campaign ends. A larger question for the field of laser fusion is who will support it as a possible energy source. The construction and operation of the NIF has been supported by the US Nuclear Weapons Complex, which uses the facility to test the physics of nuclear bombs, and the US Department of Energy’s fusion-energy budget goes almost entirely to an alternative approach that uses magnets rather than lasers to induce fusion.[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.10269
[font size=4]Powerful pulse a milepost on the way to fusion energy.[/font]
Eric Hand
20 March 2012
[font size=3]The world’s largest laser has just put a little more zing in its zap. On 15 March, the 192 laser beams of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, fired a record 1.875-megajoule shot into the laser’s target chamber, surpassing its 1.8-megajoule design specification. The shot, which was just a demonstration and did not incorporate a target, nonetheless represents a milepost in an effort to get past the break-even point — ignition — in coaxing fusion energy from a tiny frozen fuel pellet.
“It’s a remarkable demonstration of the laser from the standpoint of its energy, its precision, its power, and its availability,” says Ed Moses, NIF director. He adds that the shot was 2.03 megajoules after passing through the final focusing lens — making the NIF the world’s first 2-megajoule ultraviolet laser. Final diagnostic and other optics reduced the energy to 1.875 megajoules at the centre of the target chamber.
Most of the NIF’s recent shots have maxed out at 1.6 megajoules. As recently as December, the team was still only 10% of the way towards creating the overall conditions for ignition. Moses declined to say when he will test the 1.875-megajoule capability on a target, but he says that the extra energy will allow more leeway in target designs. He adds that the damage on the laser optics was less than models predicted, and that the laser was able to fire another shot about 36 hours after the record-breaking one.
…
The NIF is racing to achieve ignition before the end of the fiscal year, when a two-year ignition campaign ends. A larger question for the field of laser fusion is who will support it as a possible energy source. The construction and operation of the NIF has been supported by the US Nuclear Weapons Complex, which uses the facility to test the physics of nuclear bombs, and the US Department of Energy’s fusion-energy budget goes almost entirely to an alternative approach that uses magnets rather than lasers to induce fusion.[/font][/font]
30 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
...you've got 6 and 7 the wrong way around - The big bang was a) the ultimate free lunch, and b) the precursor to all fusion energy. 
That's a promise. 
I think I read somewhere that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. Now I'll wind the end this rope to this turbine, you go tie the other end around Andromeda, and...
Seriously though, that's true. If they could harness that it would be the biggest thing. Until then, it could seed some cool scifi:
In the year 5269438:
Mister president, the reports are true. We are approaching peak universal expansion. If we continue to use dark energy at this rate, the expansion of the universe will be reversed, and it will collapse back into a singularity, ending all things as we know it.
Mister president: Now I can't tell that to these big expansion boys down in Texas, it will be the end of me politically and think of the economy. Can't you possibly re-word those reports boys?
(Please note, NASA article — copyright concerns are nil.)
http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/
[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif][font size=5]Dark Energy, Dark Matter[/font]
[font size=3]In the early 1990's, one thing was fairly certain about the expansion of the Universe. It might have enough energy density to stop its expansion and recollapse, it might have so little energy density that it would never stop expanding, but gravity was certain to slow the expansion as time went on. Granted, the slowing had not been observed, but, theoretically, the Universe had to slow. The Universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the Universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today. So the expansion of the Universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.
Eventually theorists came up with three sorts of explanations. Maybe it was a result of a long-discarded version of Einstein's theory of gravity, one that contained what was called a "cosmological constant." Maybe there was some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space. Maybe there is something wrong with Einstein's theory of gravity and a new theory could include some kind of field that creates this cosmic acceleration. Theorists still don't know what the correct explanation is, but they have given the solution a name. It is called dark energy.[/font]
[font size=4]What Is Dark Energy?[/font]
[font size=3]More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe.
One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the Universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the Universe.
Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual"
particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10[small]120[/small] times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.
Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the Universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.
A last possibility is that Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct. That would not only affect the expansion of the Universe, but it would also affect the way that normal matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies behaved. This fact would provide a way to decide if the solution to the dark energy problem is a new gravity theory or not: we could observe how galaxies come together in clusters. But if it does turn out that a new theory of gravity is needed, what kind of theory would it be? How could it correctly describe the motion of the bodies in the Solar System, as Einstein's theory is known to do, and still give us the different prediction for the Universe that we need? There are candidate theories, but none are compelling. So the mystery continues.
The thing that is needed to decide between dark energy possibilities - a property of space, a new dynamic fluid, or a new theory of gravity - is more data, better data.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=3]In the early 1990's, one thing was fairly certain about the expansion of the Universe. It might have enough energy density to stop its expansion and recollapse, it might have so little energy density that it would never stop expanding, but gravity was certain to slow the expansion as time went on. Granted, the slowing had not been observed, but, theoretically, the Universe had to slow. The Universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the Universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today. So the expansion of the Universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.
Eventually theorists came up with three sorts of explanations. Maybe it was a result of a long-discarded version of Einstein's theory of gravity, one that contained what was called a "cosmological constant." Maybe there was some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space. Maybe there is something wrong with Einstein's theory of gravity and a new theory could include some kind of field that creates this cosmic acceleration. Theorists still don't know what the correct explanation is, but they have given the solution a name. It is called dark energy.[/font]
[font size=4]What Is Dark Energy?[/font]
[font size=3]More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn't be called "normal" matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe.
One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. As a result, this form of energy would cause the Universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the Universe.
Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual"
particles that continually form and then disappear. But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10[small]120[/small] times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.
Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the Universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.
A last possibility is that Einstein's theory of gravity is not correct. That would not only affect the expansion of the Universe, but it would also affect the way that normal matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies behaved. This fact would provide a way to decide if the solution to the dark energy problem is a new gravity theory or not: we could observe how galaxies come together in clusters. But if it does turn out that a new theory of gravity is needed, what kind of theory would it be? How could it correctly describe the motion of the bodies in the Solar System, as Einstein's theory is known to do, and still give us the different prediction for the Universe that we need? There are candidate theories, but none are compelling. So the mystery continues.
The thing that is needed to decide between dark energy possibilities - a property of space, a new dynamic fluid, or a new theory of gravity - is more data, better data.
…[/font][/font]
Let’s take the example of New York City, it’s a large urban area, with a preexisting power grid.
A significant portion of its electricity currently comes from a large, aging nuclear fission plant. OK, so let’s say we have a large nuclear fusion plant we can replace it with… this seems like a good thing™ to me.
Look to Southern Illinois:
http://www.coalage.com/index.php/news/news/1276-prairie-state-energy-campus-starup-just-a-few-months-away.html
[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Prairie State Energy Campus Starup Just a Few Months Away[/font]
Thursday, 25 August 2011 09:57
[font size=3]The countdown is under way for the partial startup in December of Prairie State Energy Campus, a 1,600-megawatt mine-mouth complex in southwestern Illinois, the brainchild of Peabody Energy Corp. a decade ago.
Already, the new Lively Grove underground mine is producing some of the 6.3 million tons of high-sulfur coal that will be burned annually in the nearby supercritical power plant. Coal is being stockpiled in preparation for the commercial operation of 800-megawatt Unit 1. The twin second unit is scheduled to go on line next summer, perhaps sooner. Drawing upon a reserve base of 200 million tons, the mine has a projected life of 30 years.
…
The plant will generate enough electricity to serve some 2.5 million families in five states and produce about $785 million in annual economic benefits for Illinois, an Illinois Basin state whose coal production is on the upswing after two decades of decline and stagnation following Congressional passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990.
Rising from the surrounding countryside, Prairie State’s sheer size is impressive. It boasts a 700-foot-tall stack, 70 ft higher than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, about 40 miles away.
…[/font][/font]
Thursday, 25 August 2011 09:57
[font size=3]The countdown is under way for the partial startup in December of Prairie State Energy Campus, a 1,600-megawatt mine-mouth complex in southwestern Illinois, the brainchild of Peabody Energy Corp. a decade ago.
Already, the new Lively Grove underground mine is producing some of the 6.3 million tons of high-sulfur coal that will be burned annually in the nearby supercritical power plant. Coal is being stockpiled in preparation for the commercial operation of 800-megawatt Unit 1. The twin second unit is scheduled to go on line next summer, perhaps sooner. Drawing upon a reserve base of 200 million tons, the mine has a projected life of 30 years.
…
The plant will generate enough electricity to serve some 2.5 million families in five states and produce about $785 million in annual economic benefits for Illinois, an Illinois Basin state whose coal production is on the upswing after two decades of decline and stagnation following Congressional passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990.
Rising from the surrounding countryside, Prairie State’s sheer size is impressive. It boasts a 700-foot-tall stack, 70 ft higher than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, about 40 miles away.
…[/font][/font]
Clearly, the electrical infrastructure is in place to support a large fusion facility. I think that taking that coal plant off-line and providing power to those 2.5 million families from a centralized fusion plant would be desirable.
The LIFE concept calls for doing just this sort of thing.
https://life.llnl.gov/delivering_life/index.php
[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=3]…
The timeliness requirements for commercial delivery are compelling. Rollout from the 2030s would remove 90 to 140 gigatons of CO[font size="1"]2[/font]-equivalent carbon emissions by the end of the century (assuming U.S. coal plants are displaced and the doubling time for roll-out is between 5 and 10 years). Delaying rollout by just 10 years removes 30 to 35% of the carbon emission avoidance, which at $100/megaton translates to a net present value of $140 to $260 billion dollars. For inertial fusion energy to achieve its full potential in solving our energy/climate challenges, a focused delivery program is urgently needed.
…[/font][/font]
The timeliness requirements for commercial delivery are compelling. Rollout from the 2030s would remove 90 to 140 gigatons of CO[font size="1"]2[/font]-equivalent carbon emissions by the end of the century (assuming U.S. coal plants are displaced and the doubling time for roll-out is between 5 and 10 years). Delaying rollout by just 10 years removes 30 to 35% of the carbon emission avoidance, which at $100/megaton translates to a net present value of $140 to $260 billion dollars. For inertial fusion energy to achieve its full potential in solving our energy/climate challenges, a focused delivery program is urgently needed.
…[/font][/font]
