NIF's current hype in the headlines and the real break-through

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
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Dennis P Brown
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NIF's current hype in the headlines and the real break-through

Post by Dennis P Brown »

I learned of these results over a month ago informally and I see there is a rather 'big' news event planned by NIF and the DOE tomorrow. First off, it is true that a major discovery was made (through break-through is very misleading) but secondly, part of their big results is extremely false (or misleading if one wants to be polite.)

I'll begin with the mostly true part - They indicate that they delivered 2.1 MJ of energy (x-rays via indirect drive) onto the target (frozen D2 pellet of a very complex design) and they obtained a good bit of thermo-nuclear burn (!) that released 2.5 MJ of energy. Certainly a rather good result. Also, this is their second such result so it is repeatable. I'll hold off explaining the 'big discovery' for the end.

The falsehood is the 2.1 MJ input power. Yes, that 2.1 MJ was the energy delivered to the target by a laser BUT a laser that is about 0.5% efficient; so doing the math means they used 100/.05 * 2.1 MJ or 420 MJ of energy into those diodes that are used to pump the laser media and that finally delivered the 2.1 MJ of laser light (a green beam in the 400 A range) that was then converted into x-rays onto the target (not explaining that part.) So NOT in any sense have they created net energy - that is extremely misleading and they shouldn't say stuff like that. It undermines their real and impressive work.

Now the good stuff: this is a major discover in the physics of nuclear fusion burn because the previous prediction of energy output (based on lower energy experiments that also created fusion burn using the similar laser) indicated that the level of energy they should have produced would have been far less (maybe 40% of that value of 2.5 MJ.) So apparently, the theory scales far better (faster) with beam energy then one would have concluded from their past work. That is, burning the fuel is easier then they believed using experimentally derived fusion burn physics. This opens up the real possibility that a better configured laser using direct drive - say using a ArF laser (25% conversion efficiency on target) at a better wavelength (about 192 A; couples better with far less non-uniformity nor beam cross talk) at even higher energy would produce true ignition (Near 100% burn of the target in sub-nanosecond). This part is the real deal relative to their work and is exciting.

This result demonstrates that inertia fusion is far more viable then previously believed and since the process is easier then magnetic (and likely far easier relative to engineering issues like dealing with the neutron wall threat), likely means that this type of process might be a real path towards net fusion energy.

Aside: Not unlike Richard, I am retiring soon - too bad because as this latest result indicates, the area I work in could be getting rather interesting - I work in a group that has developed both KrF and ArF excimer lasers (both are currently the largest such lasers operating in the world of those types), as well as design and test pellets for fusion research. We also test and develop methods to better couple beams to targets and prevent instabilities developing during target compression.

Relative to retiring the paperwork is so bad I've seriously considered putting it off! Between my latest experimental work, that retirement paperwork, and training a replacement I've been rather busy. Combined with my decision to convert my home heating system (currently oil) over into a heat pump system (are those things big and heavy!), well, the amount of work I'm doing has consumed me for a number of weeks now turning to months(!). Hence, I can't do any fusor work (nor work on my Mars paper or other important projects), and posting here has something I've been unable to handle for now. Hopefully, that will change after I retire.
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Richard Hull
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Re: NIF's current hype in the headlines and the real break-through

Post by Richard Hull »

Much will change after you retire. It did for me. Mostly for the good and is now working out great! Better each day if that is possible in an inflating economy.

Thanks for the rather complete description of the NIF "break through". Makes sense now. power scaling is interesting discovery, but the lies they tell about what they do in the doing related to real energy in vs. useless, non-captured energy out fools no one but the fools they tell it to. (media and by extension joe public)

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Frank Sanns
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Re: NIF's current hype in the headlines and the real break-through

Post by Frank Sanns »

Good post Dennis.

Not sure if I should start another thread or put it here. I guess I can move it if need be.

I have said since starting on this site that the way to fusion will be doing it smarter and not harder. What we are seeing is a smarter way to do fusion.

The world as we see it is essential due to electrons. Electrons make everything visible, holds things together and prevents objects from falling though apparently solid objects. Each day we see classical physics at work and believe that is the way the universe works. It is not. It is a very small subset of the way the universe works.

Example in point is the deuterium atom itself. It is overly simplistic to think of two atoms of deuterium (or D-T) tunneling through the Coulomb barrier to cause fusion to occur. Atoms do not fuse and as long as it is viewed that way, the true nature of fusion will not be evident with our every day thinking.

What fuses are hadrons and more specifically quarks and combinations of such. This is not just semantics. The reason this becomes important is the nature of the strong nuclear force and energies present.

The implications of this are that things are not always linear in the universe. Above certain energies and short time scales, the laws of classical physics alone no longer exclusively apply. There is a transition from classical physics into the quantum world. Quantum ElectroDynamics is such a world.

There are examples of these type transitions in many fields. One is non linear optics. This is one way that the common DPSS green lasers are made. There is no green light generated in such a laser. They are all IR 1064 nm wavelength that are frequency doubled to 532 nm green light. This frequency doubling does not occur below a certain intensity threshold. It cannot because one photon does not have sufficient energy to double on its own. Photons must be present in greater numbers so the non linear material can in effect, combine the energy of the photons to produce a new photon of double the frequency.

I give this example because this type of behavior also can happen with photon scattering with electrons. The x-rays used for the fusion work that is going to be released tomorrow uses such a system. It is another example of the non-linear behavior when energy gets above a certain threshold. At low energies photons can scatter from an electron. Energy and momentum are conserved in the photon electron pair and all is good minus some energy exchange. At very high intensities of photons, electrons can receive energy from multiple photons before it emits a single photon that has the combined energy of all of the photons that it has taken on. Many electrons can participate in this process. This complex interaction of the electric fields can produce a near coherent and nearly monochromatic x-ray beam from very intense visible and UV laser light.

This type of behavior can not be extrapolated by low energy conventional calculations or simulations. It is something that has to be found empirically because it does not obey the same set of physics that low energy interactions do. Perhaps at this point, enough is now learned that such behaviors can exist that they can be hypothesized and search for.

When the release of this new information on fusion becomes public tomorrow, I am guessing that we will see this disconnect from conventional low energy physics and new physics at these more uniform high energy states. I believe we will see many fusion approaches change because of this news. One of the changes will be to look at other fusion fuels at these high energies since the quark makeup of the hadrons will become the driving factor and not the conventional atom. We shall see. Interesting time for fusion.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Richard Hull
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Re: NIF's current hype in the headlines and the real break-through

Post by Richard Hull »

Nice points related to fusion and hadron/quark exchanges to do fusion. The key to all such quantum probabilistic reactions is to load the dice. You wisely note that such reactions take place in quantum time scales, in near unit fermi volumes, and at energy densities within this space where the dice are loaded due to the breakdown of commonly understood atomic physics, "Quark physics", if you will.

You seem to think this energy scaling break through will lead the way in future. Remember, this "break through" came about in putt-putt boat fusion which as of now has not produced any smooth flowing electricity. As Dennis points out, the lies of over unity are really just lies of boastful bluster. The need for real localized intense, focused energies are needed to make the "break through" happen at the sub quantum level, loading the dice. Such energies must be had locked to fermi sized volumes (10e-15 meter). At this local energy level quantum probabilities turn into sure things...A tall order.

The stars are terrible fusion engines as I have noted. They are volumetrically, very inefficient. They all do probabilistic fusion at the core. Stars really make neutrons! For all mater starting at deuterium must contain neutrons. These are made at nuclear energies and densities where quantum uncertainty still reigns supreme. It is just that an unfathomable, to our minds, number of throws of the dice in stellar cores brings about fusion that still can't overcome gravity, but oozes out at the surface over many years after the fusion takes place.

This great breakthrough concentrates energies far beyond those found in the cores of stars, doing away with or reducing quantum uncertainties.
We only observe quarks in colliders where collisional energies at fermi volumes create a mini universe of local energy at the collision point equal to the temperature of the universe during the "age of the quarks" before any matter condensed out. The quarks we make in the year 2000 within femtoseconds as their little fermi sized universe expands and the local energy drops, find themselves in a freezing cold 3 kelvin universe and simply go away as part of the energetic radiation from the event.

There was an age of the mesons after the age of the quarks. Mesons today are in the 100 MEV + range. They are easily created, but also find themselves in a cold universe. They take microseconds to nanoseconds to decay into electrons, protons and neutrinos. The mesons are true proto matter with quarks firmly ensconced and bound up in them.

Quantum uncertainties only came into being with the formation of nuclear matter in a colder universe where order and macro-stable entities and our modern atomics physics and electronic chemistry prevail.

This vaunted "break through" is just a taste of what can happen at fermi volumes where energy densities around regular matter harken back to where quantum uncertainties in sub nuclear physics just do not exist. You are in a different physics in a micro, fermi sized, different universe only existing over many "planck" time periods, (Yoctoseconds), before evaporating to fused matter back in the real universe.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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