Reality Check Time: Thread Reader On National Ignition Facility Fusion Announcement

[hatrack]

EDIT

NIF uses inertial confinement fusion, which involves shooting ultra high-powered lasers into a small capsule containing a deuterium-tritium fusion fuel pellet. The surface the pellet heats, causing an implosion that crunches the interior until (hopefully) fusion is achieved

In this particular instance, it appears that NIF successfully induced a fusion reaction that generated more energy than was originally delivered to the pellet via the lasers.  This is Net Gain, a milestone that fusion engineers have been pursuing for half a century.  So as a scientific and symbolic achievement, this is huge. But how much closer does it put us to ‘limitless clean energy’?  Unfortunately not much closer at all. For inertial confinement fusion, there’s a VERY long way to go between net gain and viable electricity generation. 

To explain just how far, let’s look at the power balance of this experiment. If the reports are correct, the fusion reaction generated 2.5 MJ, compared to 2.1 MJ of laser power.  BUT, the huge lasers at NIF are less than 1% efficient, so to generate more fusion energy than actual input energy to the facility, you’d need to increase the yield 100x… 

Plus, the fusion power is in the form of heat and radiation, and needs to be converted back to electricity. Assuming a 40% steam cycle efficiency, that’s another 2.5x increase in required yield. So we need a fusion reaction *250x MORE POWERFUL* to achieve true electric net gain.

Now, future lasers might be able to achieve something like 10% efficiency. That’s still a 25x increase in fusion power needed just for NIF to break even from an electricity standpoint. And to actually *generate* power, you of course need much more. This of course doesn’t even get into the cost of that power, which requires an absolutely enormous facility running shots in rapid succession.

NIF’s huge lasers need their optics serviced after only a few shots, but even if it could perform one shot per second…..the gross continuous power generation at the current yield level would be just 2.5 MW. 

Ed. - And so forth.

EDIT

https://climatecrocks.com/2022/12/12/breakthrough-or-more-con-fusion/#more-80937

[rurallib]

1. Thanks for the dose of reality

[hunter]

2. Buried deep in the equations of thermodynamics and information theory...

... we may discover that fusion can never be a commercially viable energy source.

Or maybe not. We just don't know.

But we can be 100% certain it won't be here in time to save the world.