My own little conspiracy theory

[Skipjack]

As far as I can tell, ITER is of no importance what-so-ever. We should stop wasting our money there and do so research on reactors that may actually have a chance at being economical.

Well that is not quite true. It still has a lot of value as a science project. Whether that value justifies the extremely high cost of the mega project is doubtful though. I would tend to say "no". At least some of the billions going to ITER would be better spent on researching alternative methods such as Polywell, FRC- colliding beam, DPF and others. Most of these alternatives would be sufficiently funded with less than 100 million for a break even proof of concept device, peanuts compared to ITER.

[KitemanSA]

I think we may be saying the same basic thing, I said no importance, you said no justification. Concur there is value unworthy of the cost.

[hanelyp]

Em. . .I'd like to understand better how NIF is a weapons program.

The implosion of laser fusion fuel pellets apparently has a lot in common with nuclear warheads. NIF is reportedly expected to be useful in calibrating computer simulations that can be applied to said nuclear warheads.

[Ivy Matt]

Regarding NIF, in a working reactor something else would be used for the hohlraums, probably lead. Right now it seems they've switched to using depleted uranium hohlraums in their experiments. Whatever the initial reason for funding NIF, it has proven useful in simulating the pressures in planetary or stellar cores. With an extremely intense laser like NIF, there are all sorts of scientific experiments it can be used for that weren't possible before. As a fusion reactor I'm not terribly fond of the concept, but I expect people will begin to take it seriously, if only because it seems to be the concept that is nearest to the breakeven point. (Assuming MSNW and/or LPP don't manage to beat them to the punch, and assuming that anyone is really within a year or two of breakeven.)

[ladajo]

I recall that there was an official US Gov assessment in the last couple of years that NIF was the closest of any Fusion work to breakeven, and then a corrosponding decision to plus it up to "get there first".

[quixote]

Regarding NIF, in a working reactor something else would be used for the hohlraums, probably lead.

From earlier this year.

Slutz and Vesy start with a fairly standard pellet: a cylindrical piece of cryogenically cooled deuterium/tritium, surrounded by either aluminum or beryllium (this is the conductor that the magnetic field acts on).

[Skipjack]

No matter what the hohlraum is made of, it will take energy to make that thing and then it has to be transported carefully and you need a mechanism for feeding it to the plant, then breeding the very hard to contain tritium, extracting it and feeding it to the plant that makes more hohlraum pellets. It just does not sound like a system that will be economic, even if they can reach breakeven. I think that the concept is likely to achieve breakeven, especially with the pace at which lasers have been improving in recent years. But breakeven does not mean economic.

[glemieux]

Thought I'd feed the conspiracy .

- Navy railgun and laser were killed, but later ressurected again. That would make sense if they think there is a usable powersource available soon.

I saw thisarticle on Wired and this following comment from Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder made me think of your theory:

Klunder isn’t worried about the ships generating sufficient energy to fill the laser gun’s magazine, which has been an engineering concern of the Navy’s for years. “I’ve got the power,” said Klunder, who spoke during the Office of Naval Research’s biennial science and technology conference [emphasis mine].

Maybe he's seen some definitive results from EMC2 that has him boasting ?

[GIThruster]

The Navy's new A1B reactor planned for use in the new Ford class supercarrier is smaller and more efficient than the A4W used in the Nimitz class and has 4X the power generation. no reason to posit a poly that would be a decade away from use.

[glemieux]

The Navy's new A1B reactor planned for use in the new Ford class supercarrier is smaller and more efficient than the A4W used in the Nimitz class and has 4X the power generation. no reason to posit a poly that would be a decade away from use.

Btw, I don't really think that Polywell is really what he was pointing to here. Just adding to it for fun in lieu of actual data.