National Ignition Facility (NIF)

[American Patriot]

Broke a record...

Record-Breaking Laser Hits 500 Trillion Watts

• By Wired UK
• Email Author
• July 17, 2012 |
• 9:30 am |
• Categories: Energy, Tech

By Duncan Geere, Wired UK
Laser physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have broken the record for the highest-power laser shot with a collection of beams delivering more than 500 trillion watts of peak power.


The National Ignition Facility fired 192 beams at the same time, delivering 1.85 megajoules of ultraviolet laser light to a target a mere two millimeters in diameter. To put those numbers into perspective, the 500 terawatt figure is 12,500 times greater than the demand for electricity in 2006 in Britain, which averaged out at 40 gigawatts.
“For scientists across the nation and the world who, like ourselves, are actively pursuing fundamental science under extreme conditions and the goal of laboratory fusion ignition, this is a remarkable and exciting achievement,” said Richard Petrasso, senior research scientist and division head of high energy density physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a press release. “The 500 TW shot is an extraordinary accomplishment by the NIF Team, creating unprecedented conditions in the laboratory that hitherto only existed deep in stellar interiors,”
The National Ignition Facility is the world’s foremost laser research establishment, producing lasers than can regularly carry more than 100 times the energy of any other laser. The 500 terawatt firing hits a milestone set in the late 90s when the facility was being planned, and takes researchers a step closer to the goal of igniting hydrogen fusion.
“NIF is becoming everything scientists planned when it was conceived over two decades ago,” NIF director Edward Moses said in the release. “It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward achieving ignition and providing experimental access to user communities for national security, basic science and the quest for clean fusion energy.”

[American Patriot]

To give you an idea of the amount of energy this is.... the sun generates a lot more, however, the Earth receives about 400 trillion watts of energy from the sun in a second.

[Malsua]

The best weapon would be a space based Solar Array Pumped Laser. If you haven't read John Ringo's Troy Rising series, you might be interested. He uses a the sun to generate massive lasers which create a space station out of an asteroid by heating it and spinning it. The space station them becomes the final focuser for the SAPL which generates multi beams in the 10s of petawatt range. It's great fun.

[American Patriot]

Nice. I'll look up the book.

I visited the NIF a few years back at LLNL. I was out there for a Technical Interchange Meeting and got to tour the facility. At the time it wasn't yet complete.

The cool part about the facility were the lasers they were using. They were in the milliwatt range and then there were lenses and prisms that split beams and brought them all to this huge ignition chamber.

The purpose of this thing ultimately is to hit a dot of fuel inside with lasers from all directions causing compression of the fuel and a fusion reaction.

They have test fire this thing a lot (and I guess even with the milliwatt laser systems it was pretty amazing).

Once they figure this out they should (according to the scientists there) be able to "sustain a fusion reaction".

I spoke to the director and told him my belief was they couldn't do it in a gravity well like earth and it would eventually have to be done in space.

They thought I had a great idea and were going to actually investigate it mathematically to determine gravity or lack-thereof requirements for a sustainable fusion reaction. hehe

Maybe I made my mark.

[Malsua]

The only Fusion generator I have any faith in actually working is the Polywell. The Tokamak will never work.

[American Patriot]

I don't know much about either of those.

We're talking fusion generation on a massive scale, enough to power a starship

[Malsua]

The Polywell is the brainchild of Robert Bussard. It already _WORKS_. The problem is that a full scale generator will take millions to build and the DOE will not fund any fusion project that doesn't involve the Tokamak. Too many people depend on the Tokamak project for their living and it has become a sacred cow.

[American Patriot]

I'm not sure about the funding thing you mentioned.

NIF is DOE. And this design is not a tokamak type construction actually. I didn't know much about the types so I looked it up.

NIF has no magnetic fields, coils or anything like that.

It's a simpler design and it's sole purpose is to place an ignition material in the center of a giant sphere with hundreds of lasers aimed at the fuel and blast it in one, big POOF.

I believe the theory from what I read of this thing is they will be able to eventually feed the fuel in some kind of consistent manner and continue firing lasers to give this thing a blast. The heat generated from this would be used to heat water, and run turbines or whatever.

The idea is to make it a non-radioactive device.

Anyway, NIF is owned and funded by DOE, and is sitting in a HUGE assed facility at Lawrence Livermore Labs in Norther CA.

[American Patriot]

'Step towards clean energy': Biggest laser pulse fired in human history could power new kind of nuclear reactor - and solve energy crisis forever

• 'Shaped pulse' of energy generated 500 trillion watts of peak power
• 1,000 times more than the whole United States uses at any given moment
• Array of 192 lasers aims for 'laser fusion' - a 'Holy Grail' of clean energy
• Facility aims to ignite controleld version of reaction found in heart of stars, and in hydrogen bombs

By Rob Waugh

PUBLISHED: 07:47 EST, 16 July 2012 | UPDATED: 07:47 EST, 16 July 2012

The most energetic laser shot in mankind's history was fired at the stadium-sized National Ignition Facility in California this month.

On July 5, an array of 192 lasers filed a pulse of ultraviolet laser light that deliver generated 500 trillion watts of peak power - 1,000 times more than the whole of the U.S. uses at any given time.


The pulse is a historic moment for the 'fusion' facility, which aims to generate power using a nuclear fusion reaction - similar to what happens in hydrogen bombs.



NIF Director Edward Moses said. 'It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward the quest for clean fusion energy.'

The future of energy? NIF Director Edward Moses said. 'It is fully operational, and scientists are taking important steps toward the quest for clean fusion energy.'



The pulse only lasted for 23 billionths of a second. The laser array was not firing 'at' a target - but within two years, scientists will fire the 192 lasers at a 1mm pellet of hydrogen









An artist's impression of a reaction using the 192-laser array at NIF. The pulse fired this month was not aimed at a target, but scientists will eventually aim the lasers at a 1mm pellet of hydrogen to ignite a fusion reaction
‘The 500 TW shot is an extraordinary accomplishment by the NIF Team, creating unprecedented conditions in the laboratory that hitherto only existed deep in stellar interiors,’ said Dr. Richard Petrasso, senior research scientist at MIT.
‘For scientists across the nation and the world who, like ourselves, are actively pursuing fundamental science under extreme conditions and the goal of laboratory fusion ignition, this is a remarkable and exciting achievement.’
‘Already the most incredibly tightly controlled and most energetic laser in the world, it is remarkable that NIF has achieved the 500 TW milestone - quite a significant achievement,’ said Dr. Raymond Jeanloz, professor of astronomy and earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley.
The pulse only lasted for 23 billionths of a second. The laser array was not firing 'at' a target - but within two years, scientists will fire the 192 lasers at a 1mm pellet of hydrogen.
The NIF scientists hope that it will 'light the fuse' for a fusion reaction - the reaction that powers stars - which will release more energy than the lasers put in.
'Controlled' nuclear fusion - the reaction in a hydrogen bomb is uncontrolled - is a Holy Grail of clean energy that scientists have sought to crack since the Fifties.



A worker inspects equipment at California's National Ignition Facility: The stadium-sized NIF aims to be the first plant to 'break even' with a fusion reaction, generating as much power as the lasers put in



The huge high-energy facility will attempt laser fusion within the next two years. The technology is seen as a 'Holy Grail' of clean energy

Because of the incredibly short duration of the pulse, the total amount of energy required is not as huge as it sounds, and is stored in huge battery-like capacitors at NIF.
‘This event marks a key milestone in the National Ignition Campaign's drive toward fusion ignition,’ said NIF Director Edward Moses.

‘While there have been many demonstrations of similar equivalent energy performance on individual beams or quads during the completion of the NIF project, this is the first time the full complement of 192 beams has operated at this sound barrier.’
Ignition would be a self-sustaining reaction that would release vast amounts of energy far surpassing the 'break even' point.


Equipment at the National Ignition Facility: The result on March 15 shows scientists could be close to the goal of 'fusion ignition'



The lasers only fire for 23 billionths of a second, but produce 1000 times as much power as the entire United States uses in any given moment



The facility uses pellets of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium - found in 'heavy water' - and tritium, and fires lasers to compress the pellets to a few hundredths of its starting size.
The reaction fuses the atoms into helium atoms, and releases fast-moving subatomic particles called neutrons which can be used to heat water and drive steam turbines.


Fusion is not, however, uncontroversial.

The NIF is also associated with weapons programmes in the US - the process of fusion is also used in hydrogen bombs, and NIF works with America's Stockpile Stewardship and Management programme, designed to ensure its nuclear arsenal stays active.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that research into fusion diverts funding from research into proven technologies such as wind and wave power.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz2152gzwmr

[Malsua]

if it's being funded by the DOE, chances are good that it has no chance of ever working.

The DOE has become a works program for science PHDs.

There is simply no incentive to make anything that works. There is no downside to spending your entire life on a project that pays very well as long as it's a project. Once it gets into an engineering rollout phase, all those guys are out of jobs.

[American Patriot]

Facility has been there around 10 years, maybe longer. I visited there in about 1999 and the building was built but not all the equipment was in place yet.

It's been funded by them for a long time now.

They are just now to the point of making it fully operational. I know it has been tested many times.

[Malsua]

Mark my words. When you check back on them in 2025, they'll still be "moving into the operational test phase"

[American Patriot]

Hahaha. I believe you. I wasn't arguing, just telling you what I have first hand knowledge of.

They developed the security systems I work on. We're on the 26th base line version since 1985. The systems used to be mainframes back in the day. Now we use a lot of small computers and all the hardware and software is pretty much up to speed in comparison to other things on the market.

So I know they do a good job on some things.