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https://thebulletin.org/2022/12/the-energy-departments-fusion-breakthrough-its-not-really-about-generating-electricity/>
"This week’s headlines have been full of reports about a “major breakthrough”
in nuclear fusion technology that, many of those reports misleadingly
suggested, augurs a future of abundant clean energy produced by fusion nuclear
power plants. To be sure, many of those reports lightly hedged their enthusiasm
by noting that (as The Guardian put it) “major hurdles” to a fusion-powered
world remain.
Indeed, they do.
The fusion achievement that the US Energy Department announced this week is
scientifically significant, but the significance does not relate primarily to
electricity generation. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s
National Ignition Facility, or NIF, focused the facility’s 192 lasers on a
target containing a small capsule of deuterium–tritium fuel, compressing it and
inducing what is known as ignition. In a written press release, the Energy
Department described the achievement this way: “On December 5, a team at LLNL’s
National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion
experiment in history to reach this [fusion ignition] milestone, also known as
scientific energy breakeven, meaning it produced more energy from fusion than
the laser energy used to drive it. This historic, first-of-its kind achievement
will provide unprecedented capability to support [the National Nuclear Security
Administration’s] Stockpile Stewardship Program and will provide invaluable
insights into the prospects of clean fusion energy, which would be a
game-changer for efforts to achieve President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon
economy.”
Because of how the Energy Department presented the breakthrough in a news
conference headlined by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, news coverage has
largely glossed over its implications for monitoring the country’s nuclear
weapons stockpile. Instead, even many serious news outlets focused on the
possibility of carbon-free, fusion-powered electricity generation—even though
the NIF achievement has, at best, a distant and tangential connection to power
production."
Via Dave Farber.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
