HiPER 1 billion pound effort begins

jmc · Post by **jmc** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:55 pm

Skipjack wrote:I am not to sure about future versions of HiPER, but having seen the size of the lasers (plus power supplies), I doubt that it will be possible to use them for any space- based technology. One might be able to use ground based lasers for launching spacecraft, but that has a lot of additional challenges. So I kinda doubt this has any space applications. I would be happy to be proven wrong though.

I'm not so sure. Lasers seem to be one of those technologies that always seem to be getting better. And ignoring the lasers, the reaction region of an ICF facuility can be made very small indeed.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:02 pm

Yeah, problem is that we already ignored the power supply for the lasers, now we are ignoring the lasers too?
I do agree though that lasers have been getting better. I am wondering whether the fact that they are nowadays used so frequently (and with enough power to light a cigarette) in many consumer electronics.

gblaze42 · Post by **gblaze42** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:18 pm

Skipjack wrote:Yeah, problem is that we already ignored the power supply for the lasers, now we are ignoring the lasers too?
I do agree though that lasers have been getting better. I am wondering whether the fact that they are nowadays used so frequently (and with enough power to light a cigarette) in many consumer electronics.

I'm not sure why the power supply is a concern? it's not necessarily that large.

Nanos · Post by **Nanos** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:22 pm

I would have thought based on the UK's long history of laser based weapons, that the government are keen to explore building ever larger ones.

Even though on the website someplace it mentions how the research is not for weapons

Pity they scrapped the forum there, I wonder what their wiki is like..

MarkHB · Post by **MarkHB** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 3:34 pm

Here's a little visualisation work that I was involved with detailing HiPER's operation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7655016.stm

Frankly, Polywell solution just seems a lot more elegant to me, but admittedly I got out of physics back in '93.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:38 am

/agree with jmc.

Lasers by themselves are just an expensive science project. No chance of a net power machine this way.

jmc · Post by **jmc** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:38 am

I would never say there is no chance of a device that can achieve a viable net energy fusion plasma of becoming economic someday. Let us leave it at not in the near future. Still worth investigating, if only for the benefit of future generations.

JohnP · Post by **JohnP** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 2:20 pm

Doing a quick google lookup of laser efficiency, the best ones out there seem to be around 30%. I don't know if that applies at all to the class of laser we're talking about, but even if it's 30%, that's a big handicap right off.

jmc · Post by **jmc** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:20 pm

For ICF to work as a net power source, the hardware would have to be improved and streamlined by orders of magnitude at every level. I don't think there's any point in judging the feasibility of ICF by today's hardware standards. We would have to hope a lot of things it used go down steep learning curves.

I still think the process is worth investigating though, if only for the sake of future generations..

MarkHB · Post by **MarkHB** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:33 am

By the way, EMC2 guys - I'm entirely available to help visualise your process, really quite good (14-year animation veteran) at animation, and thoroughly believe in what you're doing. If you need any visuals, for any reason... *grins*

Hello