Merged How Close is power from Nuclear Fusion

[Steve]

Well, I'm convinced!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Well, I'm convinced!

Funny. I have a small, niggling, residual reservation or two.

 

[shemp]

Pardon me if I have severe doubts.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

“A fusion rocket could allow us to send people to see the rings of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter,” stated Dr. Adam Baker

Such a lofty goal - I can't think of anything more important right now than sending space tourists to Jupiter!

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Such a lofty goal - I can't think of anything more important right now than sending space tourists to Jupiter!

You think so? Trips to the bottom of the sea all being sold out and that.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This showed up in the Brilliant Light and Power thread but it deserves to be here too.

Fusion developer hits world-first independently verified generation milestone - ENG8

Fusion energy specialist, ENG8, has demonstrated an electrical energy output five times greater than the energy used in this ground-breaking, independent validation at Culham Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire, one of the top five leading fusion centres in the world, and home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority.

During each of the three tests, lasting approximately 10 minutes each, ENG8’s ‘EnergiCell’ consistently scored an electrical energy output of five – one unit of electrical energy in, and five units of electrical energy, created by fusion, coming out.

The testing was conducted by Underwriters Laboratories, the largest independent US certification agency.

Alan Smith, CEO/Sec. International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ISCMNS), said: “I visited Culham Innovation Centre to observe three test runs. All three concluded with higher temperatures in the output side calorimeter than on the input side, so it is clear that comparative thermometry indicates an energy gain. This new work is supported by many previous studies going back decades.

“Most encouragingly, a representative of Underwriters Laboratories also attended and said that their tests of the device indicated a COP (Q) of five plus the possibility to improve that figure even further.”

This is sufficient to enable the EnergiCell-powered power plants to be self-powering in 2024 and capable of commercial sales of emission-free energy. Still to be determined by manufacturing and distribution costs, ENG8’s EnergiCells are on track to provide a low-cost and secure source of energy for both domestic and commercial users.

Sell your coal, oil, gas, and nuclear stocks now before the collapse.

 

[Puppycow]

The link is to the company's own web page.

Some people on reddit seem to think it's a scam:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/com..._aflutter_about_eng8_and_their_new/?rdt=41137

The "International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science" that "verified" it is a cold fusion group that runs meetings for cold fusion people.

Looking in LinkedIn, there appear to be two CEOs, one of whom is a salesperson and the other a finance person, the later of which says they are "part time". All of the people listed are business and marketing people, and the CTO is only listed as "LinkedIn Member".

https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/17n185d/is_eng8_for_real_or_snake_oil/

Yea, I dug deeper, and the "science" they claim it is based on is 700 pages of literal lunatic ramblings, claiming to have solved all the major outstanding issues in modern physics. At best, this is a front company, and at worst, it is a funding con with unsavory interests.

Seems very dodgy at first glance.

 

[Puppycow]

Oh, and some of the people involved have a history of fraud:

The linkage I found was between this and a man with a history of fraud, Haslen Back.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

A couple of YouTube videos that "explain" everything.

EnergiCell from ENG8, Investigation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n58D1-Ycdao

ENG8 EnergiCell Q-value 5 validation at Culham Science Park


The comments show a healthy dose of skepticism.

"If wishes were fishes, no one would every go hungry."

 

[Dr.Sid]

Wait, somebody is taking it seriously ?

 

[theprestige]

This showed up in the Brilliant Light and Power thread but it deserves to be here too.

Fusion developer hits world-first independently verified generation milestone - ENG8



Sell your coal, oil, gas, and nuclear stocks now before the collapse.

The company's own web page points to a YouTube video. The video is 99% people talking, with a couple very brief clips of a contraption... contrapting? Contraptioning? Whatever. At no point is an actual test shown. It's not even stage magic. It's not even camera and editing trickery pretending to be stage magic.

And I have no doubt at all that as long as you pay their fee, the UL will happily send a boffin around to test whatever black box contraption you have on the workbench, and happily confirm that the black box does in fact do more calories out than in. UL aren't scientists doing independent experimental verification of claims. They're engineers, verifying that a given device or component performs to the specifications claimed by the manufacturer.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The company's own web page points to a YouTube video. The video is 99% people talking, with a couple very brief clips of a contraption... contrapting? Contraptioning? Whatever. At no point is an actual test shown. It's not even stage magic. It's not even camera and editing trickery pretending to be stage magic.

And I have no doubt at all that as long as you pay their fee, the UL will happily send a boffin around to test whatever black box contraption you have on the workbench, and happily confirm that the black box does in fact do more calories out than in. UL aren't scientists doing independent experimental verification of claims. They're engineers, verifying that a given device or component performs to the specifications claimed by the manufacturer.

But look at the pretty blinking lights!

 

[theprestige]

But look at the pretty blinking lights! : cool :

Those aren't lights, those are anti-darks. They extract energy from ambient light and add it to the reaction. This is how ENG8 gets an energy surplus. The anti-dark appears to be a "light" because it's more optimal to reject a few wavelengths while extracting energy from the other wavelengths. And they blink because ENG8 is still working on smoothing out the capacitance through-flow profile.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Those aren't lights, those are anti-darks. They extract energy from ambient light and add it to the reaction. This is how ENG8 gets an energy surplus. The anti-dark appears to be a "light" because it's more optimal to reject a few wavelengths while extracting energy from the other wavelengths. And they blink because ENG8 is still working on smoothing out the capacitance through-flow profile.

I think that is exactly what Valeria said. And who to know better?

 

[arthwollipot]

JAPAN AND EUROPE INAUGURATE LARGEST TOKAMAK IN THE WORLD

It was 6:00 a.m. in La Bergerie, a former sheep barn located a few kilometres from ITER in the vast Château de Cadarache domain, and that had been converted in 2021 into a high-tech "remote experiment centre" by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and EUROfusion. Some 40 people, belonging to ITER, EUROfusion and the French Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA-IRFM) had their eyes glued to an array of large screens. They were waiting in excitement for a momentous event in the history of fusion research: the official inauguration of JT-60SA—"the world's largest tokamak" located 10,000 miles away in Naka, Japan—where the clock was just striking 2:00 p.m.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

In we are going to have progress, this is as good as any (December 21, 2023):

Scientists successfully replicate historic nuclear fusion breakthrough three times

Last year on a December morning, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California (LLNL) managed, in a world first, to produce a nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it used, in a process called “ignition.”

Now they say they have successfully replicated ignition at least three times this year, according to a December report from the LLNL. This marks another significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

and

The energy produced in December 2022 was small — it took around 2 megajoules to power the reaction, which released a total of 3.15 megajoules, enough to boil around 10 kettles of water. But it was sufficient to make it a successful ignition and to prove that laser fusion could create energy.

But still a long way to go.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

In we are going to have progress, this is as good as any (December 21, 2023):

Last year on a December morning, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California (LLNL) managed, in a world first, to produce a nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it used,

The energy produced in December 2022 was small — it took around 2 megajoules to power the reaction, which released a total of 3.15 megajoules

But still a long way to go.

LLNL scientists took advantage of a modest increase in NIF’s laser energy output to 2.05 megajoule

I'm calling BS. I can't find anywhere where they say the lasers are over 65% efficient. Typical ultraviolet laser efficiency is ~10%, which means the actual input energy is probably more like 20 megajoules.

A power plant that 'produces' less than 16% of the energy put into it is worse than useless, and I can't see any way they are going to improve on that without going to even higher laser power. But they already burn lenses at a rate of several per 'ignition'. A power plant that only produces enough energy to heat 10 kettles before needing to have the lenses repaired is worthless.

All due respect for managing to create a miniature fusion bomb in the laboratory using an insanely precise ultra-high power laser array, but I don't see this becoming commercially viable any time soon. As you say, still a long way to go - a lot longer than that article implies. No, it did not release more energy that it used - not even close.

The silly thing is that anyone can make their own fusion power generator right now just by buying a few solar panels. We already had sustained ignition 4.6 billion years ago, all we have to do is collect the energy it is sending to us.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I'm calling BS. I can't find anywhere where they say the lasers are over 65% efficient. Typical ultraviolet laser efficiency is ~10%, which means the actual input energy is probably more like 20 megajoules.

A power plant that 'produces' less than 16% of the energy put into it is worse than useless, and I can't see any way they are going to improve on that without going to even higher laser power. But they already burn lenses at a rate of several per 'ignition'. A power plant that only produces enough energy to heat 10 kettles before needing to have the lenses repaired is worthless.

All due respect for managing to create a miniature fusion bomb in the laboratory using an insanely precise ultra-high power laser array, but I don't see this becoming commercially viable any time soon. As you say, still a long way to go - a lot longer than that article implies. No, it did not release more energy that it used - not even close.

The silly thing is that anyone can make their own fusion power generator right now just by buying a few solar panels. We already had sustained ignition 4.6 billion years ago, all we have to do is collect the energy it is sending to us.

I'm not exactly expecting controlled nuclear fusion to solve the World's Energy Problems any day soon. The engineering required to extract the heat (presumably) energy and turn it into electricity seems at least as big a problem as getting a process that produces net energy. If not bigger. Whatever the eventual solution is, it will however work after dark.

But these guys soldier on. The referenced 49 page paper is here: The Age of Ignition. Your objections may be answered in it. I don't have the energy to look.

Your tax dollars at work.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Whatever the eventual solution is, it will however work after dark.

Fission reactors work after dark. Hydro dams work after dark. Wind turbines work after dark. Batteries work after dark. We have so much that already works and just need to make more of it. Any resources put into fusion power research are resources we could putting into making clean energy now.

I'm pretty sure they won't ever get to true 'over-unity', but if they did it could be a disaster. Imagine if they managed to get 1% more out than they put in. Cool huh? Nope. It would mean 100 times more energy wasted than net power generated. A planet full of these 'clean energy' generators might produce so much waste heat that it's a wash.

An even worse scenario might be if they cheat by sneaking in a bit of electricity to push it over the top. Then you would be paying for 'fusion' power that is just regular old electricity passing through a hugely expensive Heath Robinson contraption. But with all the hype surrounding it and billions sunk into its development, it might be years before the scam is uncovered!

But these guys soldier on. The referenced 49 page paper is here: The Age of Ignition. Your objections may be answered in it.

Yes, I read that already. Once you get past them patting themselves on the back for achieving the impossible, you realize how insane it is. Terawatts of UV laser light smashing through huge lenses that must cost a fortune (ordinary glass doesn't work at that wavelength) and need constant repairing. The deuterium pellet is suspended between cryogenically cooled superconducting coils - right next to a miniature fusion bomb going off at millions of degrees. A huge supercomputer is needed to calculate how to drive it. It's an amazing feat of engineering for sure, but it's a million miles away from being a practical device - and I don't see how it can get there.

 

[angrysoba]

Yay! Way to go Britain!

Scientists in Britain announced Thursday they had smashed a record for generating fusion energy in the final experiment using the Joint European Torus (JET) machines.
Nuclear fusion is the same process that the sun uses to generate heat. Proponents believe it could one day help tackle climate change by providing an abundant, safe and clean source of energy.

A team at the JET facility near Oxford in central England generated 69 megajoules for five seconds using 0.2 milligrams of fuel, beating its previous record set in 2022 by 10 megajoules, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said.

That is enough to power around 41,000 homes for five seconds.

Link