[FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement

Fri Dec 16 02:28:22 EST 2022

I like the idea of a large transatlantic DC power cable.   That would enable solar power to be distributed around the world.   It would reduce the need to depend on batteries for wind and solar.   Of course, you raise #3, so it would be a target for sabotage like with Nordstream.  It would be nice to think there are things just to valuable to destroy, but probably there are no such things.
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From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2022 12:01 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] technical notes on fusion announcement

What you are missing includes
1) Disposal of long term hazardous nuclear waste.
2) Problems in maintaining / decommissioning ol older nuclear fission plants
3) Examples like we are seeing Ukraine's nuclear plants caught up in a war.

On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 2:59 AM Gillian Densmore <gil.densmore at gmail.com<mailto:gil.densmore at gmail.com>> 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<mailto: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<mailto: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> <mailto: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.

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