Comments on: Sandia nuclear-fusion liners break even in tests

By: WADE

WADE — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:02:07 +0000

great! i thought from the headline it was saying this stuff breaks… even in the tests it is breaking. i was disappointed thinking of fusion fail. yet no, its break-even looks very possible now. they should really fast track this stuff now…. but i guess big oil is paying huge money to slow down & stall this development. my guess is we won’t see fusion until the last drop of oil is used up & the oil cartel finally dies!

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 01:58:59 +0000

Ahh ok :)

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:19:17 +0000

Sorry, the edit plug-in was buggy. Looking for a substitute.

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:05:07 +0000

Hmm, where’s the edit button?

By: Chrispium

Chrispium — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:03:19 +0000

The Saudis have decided to increase their production in order to get the price to fall from about $120 to $100 per barrel. While this will alleviate the constraints on the markets here and now and even increase economic activity, in the long run it will mean the Saudis will run out of oil faster, leading to seriously rising prices in just a few years. Expect this change to happen about 2015 or so, by then solar will be king.

By: Conrad Green

Conrad Green — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 00:39:44 +0000

cake is a lie

By: asiwel

asiwel — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:11:07 +0000

I tend to agree with DeBee on this one. That was my thought too .. why publish now? Of course, the answer is often quite practical – the researchers have a life and lots of other things to do. This is an interesting concept and there is surely room for advancement in the liner materials, the force fields, the “fuel” mix, etc. Something to keep watching. What was not apparent is how the excess power would be sucked out of the fusing system?

By: JFH

JFH — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:02:24 +0000

I understand your frustration. I was a child in the 70′s when i visited the Princeton fusion project. I though that by the time I was and adult fusion would be viable. Turns out its much more difficult than anyone imagined.

However, Watson and Crick Discovered the double Helix in 1953 and only in the last decade have we seen the true potential of this science emerge. When they started the genome project they though it would take decades to decode. Then…it accelerated…phenomenally.

I still have hope for fusion. ITER is a decade away. Commercially feasible fusion is doable within this century IMO. Until then, cheap, efficient Solar (its coming) and serious advances in battery technology will take a big bite out of fossil fuels in the domestic and industrial arenas. Sometime soon oil will become more expensive than even current solar tech at which point solar will proliferate.

By: Bri

Bri — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:47:34 +0000

I think it’s called The National Ignition Facility. They’re still blasting away.

By: Mr.X

Mr.X — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:49:28 +0000

To teach them a lesson they should do it themselves!That will learn them some discipline.

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:35:56 +0000

Wisdom instead of brute force. Step by step, aneutronic fusion reactor is also ever closer to the practicality. It is the most well-designed reactor and can demonstrate its technological feasibility with simple and consistent calculations. http://youtu.be/ro5-QYqqxzM

By: Marcos Marin

Marcos Marin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:34:05 +0000

Such lazy slaves! Off with their heads!!!

By: Felix

Felix — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:05:05 +0000

LOL, he better not eat it.

By: Marcos Marin

Marcos Marin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:05:25 +0000

lol, he will have a hard time blowing out those candles. :-D

By: DeBee Corley

DeBee Corley — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 14:14:44 +0000

OK, we start a fusion ignition. For apparently a few nanoseconds.
Cause I’m dumb, so what. Maintaining a fusion power supply is what another couple of hundred years away?

I’m now an old man, I have been reading about fusion experiments for 50 years. Apparently, this is a make work project. They are going to try the “sweet spot” ignition in 2013. What the hell are they waiting for?

By: SpottedMarley

SpottedMarley — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:14:09 +0000

This is pretty exciting. Reading this brought me to realize that it’s been a long time since I heard anything new or positive about the National Ignition Facility (NIF) project that was creating some buzz sometime in the last couple years. Using something like 72 high powered lasers to simultaneously strike and compress a small cannister of… some kind of fuel… to ignite a fusion reaction.

What ever happened to that?

By: Vin

Vin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:29:23 +0000

Looks like his birthday cake :D