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US scientists achieve net energy gain for second time in a fusion reaction
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Sounds like you didn't read the article or headline and think it's an article from the first time we achieved this. Even then, your numbers are off it seems.
"US scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for the second time since a historic breakthrough in December last year in the quest to find a near-limitless, safe and clean source of energy
Scientists at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.
Final results are still being analysed, the spokesperson added.
Nuclear fusion involves smashing together light elements such as hydrogen to form heavier elements, releasing a huge burst of energy in the process. The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.
In December, Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. That experiment briefly achieved what’s known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05 megajoules to the target, the Energy Department said.
In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, the department said.
The US Department of Energy called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power”.
Fusion energy raises the prospect of plentiful clean power: the reactions release no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste byproducts. A single kilogram of fusion fuel, which is made up of heavy forms of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium, provides as much energy as 10m kilograms of fossil fuel. But it has taken 70 years to reach this point.
Scientists have warned that the technology is far from ready to turn into viable power plants – and is not about to solve the climate crisis – but have hailed the latest breakthroughs as evidence that the power of the stars can be harnessed on Earth."
Sounds like you are just repeating the article without understanding it. They still have to pre charge the capacitors used with the laser, while once charged, they only use so much energy in the process you still have to charge the capacitors and acting like that is not part of the process is extremely disingenuous when charging them takes like 16x the energy generated from fusion before the test can even begin. Ffs
If you only need to precharge them once, and they are able to reachs stable fusion, then the results will be infinite positive return. They haven't achieved stability yet, but this remains a major breakthrough.
That's not how capacitors work lol, they may see stability for a bit but they would need to scale this up large enough that those capacitors are being fueled from the reaction. This is hype for the sake of hype....
It depends on if the full charge is needed to sustain the reaction or if it is only needed to start the reaction. If it's only needed to start the reaction and it can be self-sustaining after the reaction is started, then they only need to charge them one time. This isn't just hype. As far as I know, this is the first time that claims of successful safe fusion have been reproduced. In the past when they've claimed to have achieved fusion and then couldn't repeat it, that was hype. This is progress. Rome wasn't built in a day.
From what's read, those capacitors are needed to run the high wattage lasers, i.e. they need the charge to be stable and attempt to sustain self-sustaining reactions, the time they get for the reaction is the time it takes the capacitors to discharge. Doesn't seem like any of the headlines are doing anything but baseless hype acting like we have a reaction that created more enegry than was used to create it. Sure repeating the same reaction is progress but that's not what is being sensationalized, the cherry picked energy consumption vs production stats is and its extremely misleading.
The entire internet is probably familiar with that complaint from the first experiment SmoothIsFast lol. Congrats! 🎉
Cool and that's all that matters here, unless they could scale this to the point they can use the excess to power to recharge the capacitors, for now its not actually net positive and is hype for hypes sake.