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This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:18 pm
by Nickswitz
Spider Man 2 was a tiny bit too close for my comfort. How does Hollywood get that close to right?

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:22 pm
by Captain Seafort
Because the basic principles of laser-initiated fusion have been around for donkey's years.

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:49 pm
by Nickswitz
Is donkey's years some sort of British slang? But besides that, it's still really awesome that we're getting this close to Fusion power, if this doesn't completely kill us, it will eventually revolutionize the energy we use.

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:22 pm
by Lighthawk
Best of luck to them, hope it works out.

And for god sakes, will the news media get over all this "scientists are going to blow up the earth" nonsense already?

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 10:40 pm
by Graham Kennedy
Nickswitz wrote:Is donkey's years some sort of British slang?
Yeah. It means for many years.
But besides that, it's still really awesome that we're getting this close to Fusion power, if this doesn't completely kill us, it will eventually revolutionize the energy we use.
There's absolutely no way fusion like this could kill us.

Few years back I was at a lecture from a couple of physicists, of whom worked on laser fusion and the other on D-T toroid types. They were both very confident that fusion power would be here in a couple of decades - and yeah, I know physicists have been saying that for 60 years now, but they did make a good case. The laser guy's approach seemed a bit more pie in the sky, though.

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:08 pm
by Tyyr
It's the sustaining a laser based reaction I wonder about. The toroid guys have a hell of a time getting things in the positive but sustaining the reaction is conceptually a lot more doable than sustaining a solely laser based system.

Re: This sounds too much like Spider Man 2

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 4:57 pm
by Thorin
Can't believe I didn't see this earlier. I've being semi-specialising in the physics behind this (lasers, photonics, and various theoretical and applied nuclear physics modules). At the moment the magnetic plasma confinement approach is winning the race, particularly with ITER coming online relatively soon, while the laser guys are suffering from a lack of funding.

Don't expect to have a serious fraction of your country's power grid coming from nuclear fusion for another 60 years, though.

The laser based system is essentially a series of thermonuclear explosions that lasts of order nanosecond at increadibly high density. It makes it increadibly hard to keep the pulses effective.