20 years away, and always will be

[ladajo]

Yes, NiF was always about weapons research. Or as the correct terminology goes, "stockpile management".

That article is wrong.

[CharlesKramer]

Pretty much everyone in the field knows that NIF was never serious about being an energy research project.

I can certainly see NiF was not designed as a demo of a practical electricity (or energetic neutron) generating device. It may not make sense as a bomb emulator, either.

Still... it did try to achieve breakeven -- and *expected* to achieve it -- and failed. And that failure is bigger than NiF itself, since NiF is the culmination of decades of research and predecessor laser machines (Nova, Shiva) that were also hoped to achieve breakeven.

Does that have *no* significance to the entire range of fusion hopefuls?

To me (not a scientist), NiF's failure is very bad news -- apart from NiF itself. It may signify a fundamental problem -- not just with the mechanics of NiF's imploding hohlraums, but with the understanding of fusion itself. EVERY publicized approach to fusion seems to think it is on the cusp of success, and so far everyone is wrong. 20 years (or 5 years, or 2 years) away, and always will be...

On a more cheeful note, if NiF was sold as a potential energy producing device, that's good in a way. I didn't think Congress was energy-aware enough for such a pitch to work. Now someone just needs to pitch a bigger and broader approach on a national (or, like ITER) international basis.

CBK

[ladajo]

It may not make sense as a bomb emulator, either.

Not meant to be contemptuous, but it would appear that you don't really know anything about Stockpile Management or weapons design and testing.

NIF was built primarily for weapons testing. The marketing plan for energy came later to help cement its budget. It is a secondary effort only. No matter what happens on the energy side, it will (and is being) used for weapons work. Given the Comprehensive Test Ban, it is a necessity.

[mvanwink5]

I didn't think Congress was energy-aware enough for such a pitch to work.

And the absurdity keeps flowing. Politics is about politics and always has been. By the way ITER funding is purely political and large, moreover, this budgetary Laurentian Abyss (normal for government projects) sits at the center of the pessimism. It is a government project, sitting like a leviathan sucking funding dry for everything else (that is politically funded)... what else would one expect? The smart money is for privately funded fusion projects and none is going into Tokamak research. Private funding has to be prudent to avoid financial disaster, and unless tainted by government subsidy is the best indicator of what is really going on. Look there, not at government boondoggles.

[CharlesKramer]

Not meant to be contemptuous

Your opinion, or do you have anything to back that up?

The IEEE -- not exactly slouches -- seem to disagree. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/ene ... oondoggles

- Charles

[Skipjack]

Not meant to be contemptuous

Your opinion, or do you have anything to back that up?

The IEEE -- not exactly slouches -- seem to disagree. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/ene ... oondoggles

- Charles

This is an article targeted at the general public. Ask anyone who is seriously into nuclear fusion to get the real story. You would be suprised how much BS gets sold to the public when it comes to hidden defense spending.

[CharlesKramer]

Ask anyone who is seriously into nuclear fusion to get the real story.

So: you've got nothing to back that up.

NiF is the successor to NOVA, NOVA was the successor to Shiva.

NOVA was supposed to achieve a self-sustaining fusion reaction. It failed.

So far NiF has failed too at fusion.

Everything else (what "anyone" thinks, what articles say) are besides my point: Shiva and NiF failed. The people behind them expected to achieve Q, and did not. Not even close. That means many billions of dollars and decades have proven them not as smart as they thought.

I can't see how that is not bad news for *all* fusion efforts. So far all the rest (including Polywell) seem equally misguided in their hopes.

[ladajo]

Not meant to be contemptuous

Your opinion, or do you have anything to back that up?

The IEEE -- not exactly slouches -- seem to disagree. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/ene ... oondoggles

- Charles

Charles,
From the NIF Website front page, "About Us"; A little handwaving for the marketing plan:

These conditions are similar to those in the stars and the cores of giant planets or in nuclear weapons; thus one of the NIF & Photon Science Directorate's missions is to provide a better understanding of the complex physics of nuclear weapons (see National Security).

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php

And just after that, the primary misdirection:
NIF's other major mission is to provide scientists with the physics understanding necessary to create fusion ignition and energy gain for future energy production (see Energy for the Future).

It is no accident what is listed first.

Now, let's take a look at the aforementioned "National Security" link (which as noted was placed before the "Energy for the Future" link.

As the largest, highest energy laser ever built, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) can create conditions—temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures that are 100 billion times that of the Earth's atmosphere—similar to those in stars and nuclear weapons. With all of its 192 laser beams complete, NIF is the only facility that can perform controlled, experimental studies of thermonuclear burn, the phenomenon that gives rise to the immense energy of modern nuclear weapons.

and

In the 1990s, after the United States ceased underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, the U.S. Department of Energy created the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) to continue to maintain the reliability and safety of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without the need for full-scale testing.

and futhermore

NIF experiments are an essential component of the nation's stockpile assessment and certification strategy. NIF provides the only process for scientists to gain access to and examine thermonuclear burn.

and

Along with its central role in the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the NIF & Photon Science Directorate also is contributing to national security through the missions of the Photon Science & Applications (PS&A) program. The Directed Energy Systems and Technology program element is focused on developing next-generation, laser-based defensive systems, such as the solid-state heat-capacity laser and the tailored-aperture ceramic laser. Technologies are also being developed to detect nuclear materials in transportation systems to enhance homeland security (see Mono-Energetic Gamma-ray (MEGA-ray) Sources).

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/ ... /index.php

And the icing on the cake;

NIF's Unique Contribution to Stockpile Stewardship

NIF is an essential component of the U.S. stockpile assessment and certification strategy. NIF is crucial to the Stockpile Stewardship Program because it is the only facility that can create the conditions of extreme temperature and pressure—conditions that exist only in stars or in thermonuclear reactions—that are relevant to understanding the operation of our modern nuclear weapons. In addition, NIF is the only facility that can create fusion ignition and thermonuclear burn in the laboratory.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/ ... rdship.php

Anything more descriptive is not available in public.

So, take their word for it. Top of the list for missions (literally, and officially) is "National Security" which is the euphamism for "weapons".

Please take a moment and read the link. I think it will settle your confusion.

The article you cited is wrong. Just because it is posted at IEEE does not mean that the author got it right. That would be a false appeal to authority.

LLNL is marketing NIF as "Energy" because congress likes to flex that on the tally sheet for votes over "Weapons". It is pleasantly ambiguous for both sides of the aisle. Nothing like hiding in plain site.

Next time, please do some homework before you offer opinions not thoroughly checked with easy lookups. No offense intended.

[CharlesKramer]

NiF, whatever else it's multiple purposes, tried to achieve break-even fusion, and failed.

NiF is the successor to NOVA, which tried to achieve break-even fusion, and failed. And Nova was itself the successor to Shiva and even earlier laser-to-fusion efforts.

The failure is relevant. It occurred despite computer modeling, confidence that new configurations and increased power would work, and many billions (over $7b + half-a billion a year for operations) for NiF alone.

This isn't about NiF. It's about fusion scientists predictions for 60 years FAILING: Bussard (who claimed he before he died he had it all figured out), Dense Plasma Focus (predicting proof of concept in 1 year... in 2008), Tri-Alpha (big announcement rumoured... for 2010!). Lyman Spitzer had the same optimism in the 1960s and after several incremental improvements he failed too. For that matter the Tokamak revolution (which was part of the reason Spitzer quit -- Tokamak results were much better) looked like it might succeed, but ITER is just the latest in a long line for which ignition was hoped. Maybe ITER will make it, but the history of that configuration leaves room for doubt.

The only way you deal with my point is to claim NiF really has nothing to do with fusion -- that it's failure doesn't matter because it wasn't really trying. But that's turning a blind eye, and unverified conspiracy, totally at odds with the claims for NiF and it's predecessor NOVA that ignition was the goal (even if its other goal was weapons simulation). This is the Bullwinkle Principle at its finest: watch me pull fusion out of my hat! Oh, wrong hat.

Maybe the secretly main goal for NiF is weapons simulation, but the link I provided from the IEEE says it's useless for that purpose too. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/ene ... oondoggles Specifically:

Years ago, when the energy rationale for laser fusion began to look a little implausible and the projected cost of NIF already had ballooned from $2 billion to $4 billion, its promoters began to sell it to Congress and the Department of Energy as a means of simulation-testing nuclear weapons. The idea that the reliability of nuclear warheads could be evaluated by making laser beams collide in a microscopic point may never have seemed very plausible to the average layperson. As it happens, it didn't seem very plausible to most experts either: Richard Garwin, for decades the most highly regarded independent specialist on nuclear weaponry in the United States, told IEEE Spectrum six years ago that it would be "a mistake to assume that NIF experiments are going to be directly relevant to weapons testing.The temperatures in the NIF chamber are much lower than they are in actual nuclear weapons, and the amounts of material being tested are much smaller."

So... NiF maybe useless for weapons modeling too. The ieee -- you know, engineers -- say so.

Lots of things with long histories of failure (the electric lightbulb, for which there were vacuum/filament experiments before Edison) and heavier-than-air flight turned to success in time. Other things (like fuel cells and IBM's bubble memory, so far) never become practical no matter how much money is thrown at them. Fusion may succeed in time -- or not. Being a Polywell fan is no reason not to face that.

But for now fusion is a failure, NiF's failure is a failure not just of NiF, but of fusion theory -- and yet another basis for the joke "20 years away, and always will be."

No offense intended.

I give up.

CBK

PS

If fusion succeeds, many dire problems:

- peak oil
- acid rain
- competition for mid-East oil
- fears about global warming
- radioactive waste from fission

instantly become obsolete because fusion should mean cheap electricity and cheap electricty solves everything.

So the stakes could not be higher.

But fusion may fail. So far it has failed. NiF is just the latest and most public example of a long history of failure. Industrial society doesn't just need more fusion research. It needs a plan "B."

[ladajo]

Charles,
I showed you from NIF itself that it was rationalized and built to support the Stockpile. That is the main and enduring reason. The other work is science that the construct can support, such as fusion energy research. Maybe one of the mis-interpretations you have is what DOE is all about. DOE was founded to manage sourcing weapons fuel for our stockpile. It took the innocuous name DOE on purpose, and it had nothing to do with national energy management.

You stick to NIF being a fusion research plant. Yes, they support that work, but if it fails, NIF will still be there doing what it was built to do, and that is weapons work. That is why it was built. As stated on their own website. I can not show you any other documents, as they are not in the wild.

NiF is the successor to NOVA

In what context and to what purpose do you base this on?
Yes, I agree that NIF is doing some further research on fusion ignition. But that is ancillary to it supporting work on fusion weapons.
I would also offer that you did a little deeper on the opinion that NIF is no good for weapons work. I think you may find that to be a singular source that is not current nor has been for a while. NIF has already been supporting weapons work. They even state it in public, as I showed you.

In any event, your point about it always being 20 years away. Okay, but I ask of you, if this idea does not apply in some other realms. You know like, artificial intelligence, or practical room temperature superconductors, or no-kidding energy weapons (granted we may finally be there on that one), or any number of other long term science projects.

I offer you a quote, "if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be science." Do you know who said that?

The point is, hard science takes hard effort over time. Work is Force applied for Distance. Similarly, Science is Effort applied for Time. The harder the science means it takes more time or more effort, or both. Practical fusion is one of the hardest science research projects mankind has ever undertaken. I has run for almost 100 years all counting. It may take longer. Any scientist would like to see a solution in his career. Is it so strange to hear them say such?

Personally, I think we are close. We already know that ITER will work, it is just an issue of the resource expense to get there. Then it becomes an operating cost basis once built. That is a business decision, not science. I would offer to you that 20 years is here, and you missed it by looking at trees and not the forrest. JET has hit 75%. The next step is ITER. ITER will hit net. It can not. We already knwo the science and that is why we are building it.
We also know that we can make net fusion. There are a bunch of fusion power plants sitting in silos and bunkers here and there on the planet. The only issue with them is efficient energy capture of the product. One idea to solve that was to used large underground domes filled with water to set small weapons off in, capture the steam and use it for power generation. Certainly a sound theory, but there may be issues over time with containment and dome maitenance. But, that is an engineering problem as well as a business decision. The science is sound.

If you are concerned that you don't have a Mr. Fusion in your flying car, I am sorry. But fusion science is essentially at an engineering and business solution point. It is not a fail as you think. Where you are placing your fail is for ongoing research into new generation and sustained reaction mechanisms that are studied to seek better solutions to the final energy capture engineering problem. Maybe this is the part you are not understanding.

I would also offer that as others have pointed out, more and more non-government guys are trying. I agree that that is almost always a sign of impending success by someone. Rational business minds do not take risks like government sponsered research does. That is why we have government sponsered research programs. To take those risks for the public in a managed manner, and provide impetus for advancement in the private sector. Another suggestion for you is to look into the entire construct of FFRDCs. Why and how this concept was established, and what it has done for our nation and the world rit large. You may find it educational and informative.

In any event, I disagree with your thesis. Fusion is here. It is well udnerstood. What the scientists are researching these days are different mechanisms to create conditions to cause fusion and manage it from the ones we already know.
You want a fusion power plant? I can put one up at a Lagrange Point and make lots of power. The problem then is engineering, how do I get that power back down here to earth efficiently? It is also a business decision, does the expenditure of resources required give me a net gain in return?
This second question is the issue with ITER.
But that said, once ITER is built and running, I can almost guarantee you that there will be more than one "Demo" built in more than one First World country if another process has not come to fruition.

[CharlesKramer]

#1 "Fusion is here"

Wow.

That bears no relationship to reality. Every attempt to achieve fusion (breakeven, let alone practical energy) has failed, and every optimistic prediction over 60 years has been proven fatally, drastically, dramatically wrong. That's true for every approach: NiF, Tokamaks, Stellarators, Polywells, Dense Plasma Focus, Reverse Field, pinches, bubbles, hot, cold, ALL of it: failed, failed failed.

And because results are so far from expectations, theory has failed too. NiF is just the most public and most recent face of that failure

To blame funding is a mistake. Worldwide 100s of billions have been spent since the 1950s. If half of that had been spent researching railroads we'd be maglev'ing to and from California at 500mph.

#2 "It is well udnerstood"

See #1.

[ladajo]

I think your view is narrow, and maybe a bit bitter. Not sure why though. Age related?

I do take exception to your "list" as well.
For example, you catagorically class all endeavors as "failures".

So what is science I ask you?

Is it measured in success and failure? Or is it measured by the advancement of knowledge, which more often than not is driven by failures.

In any event, I also personally doubt that you can class "Polywell" as an abject failure. Do you know something I don't know?
And also, FYI, JET has achieved .75, is that also an abject failure for a machine not meant to hit breakeven?

I am also not so sure on what you base your wide sweeping statement;

And because results are so far from expectations, theory has failed too.

I think there are a number of scientists and engineers that would disagree.

These guys for example:

[CharlesKramer]

> a number of scientists and engineers that would disagree

They invented a bomb in the 1950s. Not controlled fusion, not an energy source.

Changing the subject (from sustained fusion to bombs) doesn't change the sad reality that fusion for energy -- so far -- has many times claimed to be close to success, and each time so wrong it means the theory was wrong.

> "Polywell" as an abject failure. Do you know something I don't know?

In the Google Talk Bussard gave just before he died, he claimed he had solved the problem in the last days of the last Polywell he worked on. He said had done it -- figuring out the data only after the device was dismantled. All he needed was more funding.

Well here we are: 7 years (and several rounds of Navy funding) later it still doesn't work.

Proof = silence. Bussard was wrong. Everyone who predicted success so far has been wrong.

The failure of optimistic predictions for fusion has a 60 year history -- and applies to all of today's efforts.

I started this thread before I read this article (excerpt below). http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ce_of.html

- Charles

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Teller's former stomping grounds, is now the site of a monstrous $4 billion-plus fusion project known as the National Ignition Facility. The idea is to compress and bottle up a pea-sized pellet of hydrogen by using a laser so huge that it would make any red-blooded moon-nuking megalomaniac proud. The putative goal is to generate more energy through fusing hydrogen atoms than the energy that was put in by the laser in the first place. And NIF scientists say that they'll achieve success in 2010 ... rather, they'll achieve success by October 2012 ... rather, NIF has succeeded at the crucial goal of showing that Livermore scientists' predictions of success were all dead wrong.

It's par for the course. Livermore has been predicting imminent success with laser fusion since the late 1970s—always failing miserably at fulfilling every prediction.
...
Livermore is far from alone when it comes to overselling fusion. Way back in 1955, before the invention of the laser, physicists were predicting that fusion energy would be on tap within 20 years. Back then, the only workable method of bottling up a cloud of million-degree hydrogen, short of setting off an atomic bomb, was to use giant magnets. At that time, a number of scientists around the world attempted to design machines that would heat and confine burning hydrogen clouds with powerful electromagnetic fields. They didn't work as predicted; even after decade upon decade of false starts, the magnetic bottles were just too leaky. Yet fusion energy was still always just around the next corner.

[mvanwink5]

Ladajo,
Can't you see, fusion efforts have clearly failed, there is not one fusion plant generating power economically.

[ladajo]

They invented a bomb in the 1950s. Not controlled fusion, not an energy source.

Well, again I would disagree. It is an enginnering problem and business model problem. Clearly a fusion bomb generates energy, and in a controlled manner. They can dial in the yield with astonishing control and accuracy. That does not speak well to your claim it is not well understood.

And it can be used for energy, and also for driving a spaceship around. We just haven't decided yet it is worth it to build. I already told you about the underground dome idea, and now I will point out the ship drive concept. That one is interesting in particular given the variations.

You still have not defined what theory you are talking about that has failed. Please be more clear and specific. It is like you are saying taxes are a failure. Very general.

Proof = silence. Bussard was wrong. Everyone who predicted success so far has been wrong.

I would argue that silence could mean just that you are not in the informed circles. I state categorically that you have no idea as to the actual status of Polywell. You are making suppositions only. Wildly gesticulating ones at that.

If you want to argue about the course of science in seeking out alternative methods to produce slower and smaller scale fusion reactions that can be harnessed for power production with more ease than know methods, then lets talk about it. But to dismissively bucket all "fusion" as a failure tends to indicate that you are not seriously prepared to actually talk about the topic at hand.

And I know you are not prepared to talk about where Polywell is at for sure. I also have determined that you are not actually informed outside of speculation and internet hyperboli to talk seriously about NIF. If you want to talk on the one aspect of NIF, energy research, then we can do that.

So, how about them Jets?