ICF is intrinsically pulsed (magnetic confinement like ITER is completely different). You use a laser to spherically compress a 1 mm diameter spherical capsule. The capsule implodes, stagnates, and blows (releasing…
"50-100 more energy out than in to make up for inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme." Completely true. Theoretically, the NIF target has enough fuel to produce 10-20x the amount of laser…
I've worked in ICF for a nearly a decade. I think NIF research is a necessary step to a ICF based power source. If NIF demonstrates ignition, it can be used to validate our physics models of ICF (turbulence, fusion…
I can think of two off the top of my head. Low temperature plasma processing (used in semiconductor fab) got it start as the-mess-created-when-a-plasma-confinement-experiment-fails. Adaptive optics were developed for…
The showers continue. Budget pressures have NIF down to shooting three days a week. To make matters worse, DoE has decided to cut funding for high energy density physics, ie the field covering the physics needed to make…
ICF is intrinsically pulsed (magnetic confinement like ITER is completely different). You use a laser to spherically compress a 1 mm diameter spherical capsule. The capsule implodes, stagnates, and blows (releasing…
"50-100 more energy out than in to make up for inefficiencies in electricity generation using this kind of scheme." Completely true. Theoretically, the NIF target has enough fuel to produce 10-20x the amount of laser…
I've worked in ICF for a nearly a decade. I think NIF research is a necessary step to a ICF based power source. If NIF demonstrates ignition, it can be used to validate our physics models of ICF (turbulence, fusion…
I can think of two off the top of my head. Low temperature plasma processing (used in semiconductor fab) got it start as the-mess-created-when-a-plasma-confinement-experiment-fails. Adaptive optics were developed for…
The showers continue. Budget pressures have NIF down to shooting three days a week. To make matters worse, DoE has decided to cut funding for high energy density physics, ie the field covering the physics needed to make…