National Ignition Facility

[mvanwink5]

space exploration

It will open the entire solar system to habitation as energy from the sun (solar cell derived power) will no longer be a restriction. It is a really big area.

[Skipjack]

Yeah, I was only mentioning those that are less than 2 years away (potentially!). CFS, GF and TAE will be longer. CFS Q>1 attempt has shifted to the right to 2026 as well.

Skipjack, I did not know that the SPARC Q>1 target year has moved to 2026. Where did you see that?

I can't remember where it was. Might have been the recent NRC presentation? SPARC completion is planned for NET 2025. Q>1 attempts for NET 2026.

[crowberry]

OK, thanks Skipjack!

[ladajo]

Not to drive off topic, it is this movement into the next great age which does worry me a little.
With each great age through history, we see a massive upheaval in the balance of power for the existing civilizations, which also manifests in war(s) as those who seek to capitalize the change, or those who seek to maintain relevance while being behind the curve on the change seek to take other peoples stuff for their own benefit.
I suspect there will be some measure of conflict as the world repoints to a non-carbon based energy foundation when this change initiates. We've already seen some stresses with the 'green revolution' which is largely minor in global energy significance to date.
Maybe it'll be our kids dealing with the fallout. We shall see. Either way, moving into the energy age from the information age is going to be upheaval.

[mvanwink5]

Commercial Fusion = Space Age, Humanity freed from Earth's gravity well.

[ladajo]

I don't think we can claim Space Age until we figure out a better way to get out of the gravity well. This chemical thing is clunky and expensive (so far).
SpaceX seems to be a step in the right direction with full reusability. However, we are still highly restrained for deep space access.
The Energy Age will enable us to not only redefine terrestrial civilization, it will also enable our sustained presence in deep space. Once we are permanently established in deep space (with realistic energy sources), and establish a means to move people and stuff at volume into and out of the gravity well, then I think we can claim Space Age. I don't think this will happen for a while, and certainly won't happen without an energy solution.

[mvanwink5]

Yes, a glass half full looks different to different people and the future is promised to no one.

[ladajo]

The heart of the story of the pursuit of net power fusion based generators.
I have wondered a few times if our approach to fusion energy generation suffers a similar issue.
While we focus on 'slowing it down', should we not only consider letting it run at speed and figuring out how to capture the energy?
We know how to make 'net' power with fusion, we just don't have a way to capture the net gain for further use (yet).

[usesbiggerwords]

should we not only consider letting it run at speed and figuring out how to capture the energy?

I think that's a completely different kind of materials problem. And I doubt you could sell the public on "power generation by fusion bomb".

[ladajo]

You may not be wrong in that. Perceptions run the world.
That said, water absorbs tremendous amounts of energy. It is not far fetched to consider heating large water volumes with low yield detonations, then recovering the energy from the water. If done in an isolated or remote area, might be sellable.
Another option, already on the table is fusion detonation based deep space propulsion. There also may be deep space options to do the heated water energy recovery option as well, especially if we could locate a large ball of ice somewhere.
I am really just spit-balling here on alternatives to the standard mindset.

[JoeP]

Don't typical fusion bombs require a fission bomb to get it going? Thats probably a hurdle.

[93143]

Livermore was supposedly working on this in the '50s. Apparently the original idea was to use a large cave full of water with clean H-bombs; one bomb would run the turbines for a week. Eventually the project converged toward a much smaller bomb with a non-nuclear trigger in a purpose-built chamber. Attempts to work around the difficulty of achieving a high-gain D-T explosion with a massive tamper gave rise to what eventually became the Ripple concept, resulting in the Dominic Housatonic shot being about 99.9% fusion, and the work on the non-nuclear compression pulse seems to have continued on into what we now call ICF.

In other words, if my information is correct, this line of discussion is completely on topic.

[ladajo]

You speak of Project Gnome, under the Plowshare program, executed in 1961.
The idea was to use underground detonations in a salt formation to melt the salt, then capture the heat with water piped through the salt slag, and then use this for steam turbine power generation. As I understand, the molten salt heat capture was estimated to be about 40% of the generated detonation energy. However, test site drilling was some what inconclusive, where they found salt heat pockets of 200F, and a few concentrations of 1400F. The follow-on test to pursue this idea was Project Coach, however that was cancelled.

I think a water volume energy capture would likely be a better approach. Just my 2 cents.
Consider use of a large salt cavern, like what we use to store strategic oil, filled with water, then a means to circulate the post shot heated water to a power generation facility and recirc it back down to the cavern once the energy is extracted. Kind of like a home-grown geo-thermal plant.

A low yield (<10kt) fusion detonation looking for 5kt/kg of material efficiency levels could be economical and provide for energy spike management mitigations. The question would be cost / benefit. How much energy could be captured for use to generate (and at what efficiency) over the cost of the 1kt to 5kt device. It would come down to simple $/kWh.

Here is a link to a video of the Gnome test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo4Ue4VwrUA