Re: If they can pull this off ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Geoff Kuenning <geoff () cs hmc edu>
Date: June 12, 2010 7:47:53 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] If they can pull this off ...

> stream, zero meltdown capability, zero weaponization.  But visit the 
> National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, and you see 
> massive lasers poised to focus 500 terawatts of energy for a 
> billionth of a second on a BB-sized target of hydrogen isotopes. 
> Impressive early tests suggest that successful ignition could occur 
> in the next few months.  Sequence such ignitions rapidly, and you 
> have a one-gigawatt clean power reactor.  Laser physicist Ed Moses is 
> director of the National Ignition Facility...  

Color me skeptical.  This idea of using lasers to set off fusion dates
back at least to the early 1970's; Livermore was designing (or
building?) a test device in 1975.  35 years later, we've poured in
billions and they still haven't successfully fused even a one pellet.

Once single-pellet fusion _is_ achieved, you still have to solve the
problems of capturing the energy, recycling the lasers, reloading the
pellet chamber, getting out more than you put in, and a host of other
things I'm unaware of.  It would be hubris for me to say it'll never
happen, but I confident that we're a LONG way away from a successful
power source.  And of course there's a strong probability that some
other solution will come from a different direction and eclipse this
one.
-- 
   Geoff Kuenning   geoff () cs hmc edu   http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/

The "M" in XML stands for _markup_.  If you don't have anything
outside the angle brackets, you probably shouldn't be using XML.




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