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HANS YOLO
20-09-2011, 11:19 AM
Nerds – just got this from my cousin in the US...he used to work for NASA but as you know their operations have been scaled back significantly


*from his email...
For anyone who's interested. This is what I'm doing in San Fran now. It's way more interesting that I first thought. Cutting edge. The future of energy. Nuclear Fusion. Clean, limitless. We'll achive ignition next year, meaning producing more energy at a nuclear level than we put in. After that it's a matter of developing the technology to the point that it's sustainable and economical. Currently we shoot one Hydrogen target about once a week. We need to get to 10 in a minute, then eventually several per second with multiple reactors. First production facility to tie into the grid should go on line in 20 years if properly funded. This clip is from BBC. It's about 12 minutes long. It does a awy better job of describing the process than I do. My part of all this is maintaining, troubleshooting and testing the cryogenic target position system. We freeze the Hydrogen target inside a small sphere to 20 degrees K using liquid Helium and position the target precisely where all 192 laser beams converge. We use isotopes of Hydrogen (Deuterium and Tritium) and convert them through nuclearfusion to Helium in 20 billionths of a second with 500 trillion Mega Watts of laser energy, 500 times the Earth's power grid output during that amount of time. If you care about the nerdy stuff.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DyB7Ho_W9RE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This will be bigger than the integrated circuit (acknowledged that it wouldn't be possible without the integrated circuit) and will change the world...No more coal, no more fuel oil, gasoline, nuclear waste. The world a hundred years from now will be very different.

Tom
20-09-2011, 11:23 AM
Interesting stuff. I always liked Nuclear Physics at school.

SimonR32
20-09-2011, 11:34 AM
Once a week to ten a minute is a long way to travel but still exciting stuff :)

Joe
20-09-2011, 11:37 AM
Fuckin awesome.. I can't wait for nuclear fusion, gonna turn the whole world on its fuckin head.

adzmerc
20-09-2011, 11:44 AM
WOW! Definetly looking forward to seeing results!
Its going to change a lot of things!!

Mad_Aussie
20-09-2011, 11:46 AM
The Chinese are investing billions into this too, sort of a clean-energy race is happening like the cold war space race... It'll be interesting to see who achieves stable ignition first.

SimonR32
20-09-2011, 11:49 AM
The Chinese are investing billions into this too, sort of a clean-energy race is happening like the cold war space race... It'll be interesting to see who achieves stable ignition first.

Probably more interesting to see who achieves unstable ignition first haha

Gleeso
20-09-2011, 12:04 PM
Just reading this "500 trillion Mega Watts of laser energy" and you know its going to be cool. 20 degrees K is fucking COLD!

HANS YOLO
20-09-2011, 12:07 PM
what is the waste element with Fusion? i didn't think that there is one

Gleeso
20-09-2011, 12:17 PM
what is the waste element with Fusion? i didn't think that there is one

Sorry was thinking something else. My mistake.

to4garret
20-09-2011, 12:19 PM
20 degrees K is fucking COLD!

reminds me, "The race to absolute zero" is a fantastic doco

Gleeso
20-09-2011, 12:45 PM
reminds me, "The race to absolute zero" is a fantastic doco

Gonna give that one a go, thanks.

EDIT: Actually Im pretty sure I watched it at TAFE, no harm in watching it again I suppose.