US nuclear-fusion lab enters new era: achieving ‘ignition’ over and over

Womble , 6 months ago

The article glosses over it a bit, but I think it’s important to stress here that this isn’t energy gain in any real sense. Its more energy being created from fusion than laser energy gets to the target, but before then 99% of the energy input is lost in creating the laser beams.

So to give one of the examples used in the article, 2MJ of laser energy is delivered to the target and 3.9MJ is released. But to create this 200MJ was consumed to create that laser pulse.

rustydomino , 6 months ago

I can’t believe that “Secretary of State John Kerry” passed editorial review in 2023. In Nature. Makes you wonder why academic institutions are paying these journals exorbitant subscription fees for alleged editorial rigor.

n3m37h , 6 months ago

Let me know when it actually produces electricity then I’ll be happy till then we should have been working on MSR

davidgro , 6 months ago

This one is for weapons research, nothing like the ones that are doing power research, but some of the knowledge might transfer

n3m37h , 6 months ago

Oh of course it is, 7000 nukes aren’t enough

Sibbo , 6 months ago

Did they already build cooling?

PhlubbaDubba , 6 months ago

The use of “over and over again” gives me amusing Homer Simpson thoughts, “Oh yeah baby fuse me so hard! Just like that!”

luthis , 6 months ago

This news gives me confidence that fusion is now only 9 years away.

davidgro , 6 months ago

For several decades it’s been 20 years away, and before that 50, so yeah. Progress.

(No /s, I think the money is finally in place to make it happen, and that was always the bottleneck.)

That said, NIF is for weapons research, not power, but some of the knowledge they gain is probably transferable.