[FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement

Thu Dec 15 20:21:47 EST 2022

I am a long-time environmentalist (I think I joined the Wilderness 
Society in the early 60’s) and I opposed fission power plants because 
of safety issues and because of the long-lived waste products. My 
feeling is that even if you make the probability of a screw-up very low, 
given 10,000 yearsm *something* will happen.

Now with global warming imminent, I support some fission plants as a 
back-up to solar and wind (and tide, …) generators.

The problem with antimatter is, what kind of bottle will you put it in? 
Also, to make antimatter, you need to put as much (actually more: 
conservation of energy — bummer) into it as you will get out, so one 
step forward, then one and a half back.

--Barry

On 15 Dec 2022, at 16:28, Gillian Densmore wrote:

> Ok so this is cool and all.
> Sigh I'll ask *that* question. We want less carbons because the planet 
> is
> on f'n fire <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFgBFYkBZ6E>  . As far as 
> I
> know humans (in the very least) accelerated climate change. Ie we made 
> this
> mess clean it up. ok fair so far I'm following.
> So uh why not just start with fission (breeders) ? Why not also put as 
> much
> money into matter/anti matter as well as fusion? We can make minute 
> amounts
> of antimatter in massive collider. I'd think something who's by 
> product are
> xrays gamma and some other stuff with a lot of energy created would be 
> a
> massive honney pot the department of energy would pursue as well.
> I know the answer to fission (sadly) is NIMBY. (yes but it's a lot 
> cleaner
> and safer than oil and coal I say)
> I don't know why we haven't looked at other things as well
> What I'm saying is fusion has been humans icarus wings with it being 
> just
> arround the corner for decades. while matter/anti matter is (sort of) 
> here.
> Fission is here. Want zero carbons? cool! so why not build out a ton 
> of
> reactors we already can do. Or am I missing something?
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 8:31 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> 
> wrote:
>
>> How ICF might evolve into a power plant:
>>
>>   https://firstlightfusion.com/technology/power-plant
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Dec 14, 2022, at 7:16 AM, glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Excellent! Thanks. I think I'll have to push this topic for 
>> another day.
>> I've got a few more links from other fora I'll plop here just in case 
>> I
>> only land back here if/when I pop it off the stack later:
>>
>>
>> https://lasers.llnl.gov/news/magnetized-targets-boost-nif-implosion-performance
>>
>> https://spie.org/news/nuclear-fusion-nifs-hall-of-mirrors-may-solve-worlds-energy-crisis?SSO=1
>>
>> https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started
>>
>> https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/what-enabled-the-big-boost-in-fusion-energy-announced-this-week/
>>
>> On 12/13/22 16:23, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>> I think DT refers simply to the remaining fraction of 
>> Deuterium/Tritium
>> remaining after the reaction event (-4%) without specific accounting 
>> for
>> remaining D vs T.
>>
>> My understanding is that D-T  fusion occurs at a lower temperature 
>> than
>> D-D but that once fusion commences (starting with D-T), both D-T and 
>> D-D
>> reactions occurring in similar amounts. In laser-driven ICF (as with 
>> NIF) I
>> believe the ratio of D/T is nominally 50/50 though it would seem to 
>> make
>> sense to have a higher T to D ratio but most references I see imply 
>> equal
>> portions.   An equal number of D-D and D-T reactions would seem to 
>> consume
>> D more quickly, though as that commences, the D/T ratio would go 
>> down,
>> making D-T reactions (yet) more likely...   tricky business, no 
>> wonder it
>> has taken decades to get to this point?
>>
>> The Wikipedia Entry on ICF is pretty good:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_confinement_fusion
>>
>> I found several popular science Articles which seem to reinforce my 
>> sense
>> that this "breakthrough" is not as significant as implied:
>>
>>
>> https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-breakthrough-nif-uh-not-really
>>
>> Other interesting/relevant links regarding D-T and D-D fusion...
>>
>>
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263507001_Species_separation_and_modification_of_neutron_diagnostics_in_inertial-confinement_fusion/figures?lo=1
>>
>> https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsnuclear-fusion-reactions <
>> https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsnuclear-fusion-reactions>
>>
>> https://science.jrank.org/pages/4732/Nuclear-Fusion-D-D-D-T-reactions.html
>> <
>> https://science.jrank.org/pages/4732/Nuclear-Fusion-D-D-D-T-reactions.html
>>>
>>
>> On 12/13/22 4:36 PM, glen wrote:
>>
>> That's why I asked. I guess I'll assume DT means both deuterium and
>> tritium, not just deuterium. If you were going to track fuel use, 
>> you'd
>> track the rarer part more closely, right?
>>
>>
>> On 12/13/22 09:22, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>
>> DT = deuterium?
>>
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>>
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 13, 2022, 10:21 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:
>> gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     Awesome. Thanks. I'm still trying to catch up with the QC 
>> Wormhole
>> kerfuffle. Who knew Quanta was so click baity?
>>
>>
>>     What is "DT"?
>>
>>
>>     On 12/13/22 09:02, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>>      > In case no one wanted to get up at 7:00am to watch DOE
>> administrators talk:
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 1. Controlling the laser in space and time was important for
>> maintaining symmetry.  Timing precision of 25e-12 secs and laser 
>> spatial
>> precision of 5e-12 meter were needed. This was thought to be the main
>> explanation for the achievement.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 2. 8% more power on the laser this time
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 3. x-ray tomography is used to find flaws in the capsules.
>> Developing software to do the counting.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 4. They have ongoing efforts to study the fabrication systems 
>> and
>> their components (done in Germany) to find idiosyncrasies of each.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 5. Laser technology improvements since NIF was built which are 
>> 20%
>> more efficient.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 6. Target cost is from labor, and it takes 7 months each
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 7. 4% of DT is burned in a shot
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 8. Machine learning ties together radiation hydrodynamics and
>> experimental data.   (It sounded preliminary.)
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 9. The (successful) capsule had more defects than previous
>> experiments.   However, previous experiments did show benefits from 
>> capsule
>> quality.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 10. 15% of experiments are indirect drive of this kind, 15% of
>> experiments are other approaches to ignition.  The rest are weapons 
>> and
>> materials characterization.
>>
>>      >
>>
>>      > 11. Anomalous laser directional control were problems in the 
>> summer
>> runs.   Fixed that.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ 
>> ꙮ
>>
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