Forbes – Dec 14, 2022
Key takeaways
- On December 5, U.S. scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California generated more energy from a nuclear fusion reaction than they put in
- The experimental result is a massive nuclear energy breakthrough in a century-long quest to unlock the power of the sun on earth
- With more research and financial investment, researchers believe we’re within four decades of producing 100% clean, limitless energy
“Monday, December 5, 2022 was an important day in science.”
This understatement was delivered by Jill Hruby, undersecretary for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), at a December 13 press conference.
The subject: A nuclear energy breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California.
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Dr. Arata Prabhakar heralded the achievement as a “scientific milestone” and an “engineering marvel beyond belief.”
“This duality of advancing the research, building the complex engineering systems, both sides learning from each other, this is how we do really big, hard things, and this is just a beautiful example,” she added.
The net energy gain from the fusion reaction is the first in human history. While more research (a lot more research) is needed to make the technology replicable, scalable and more efficient, it’s an essential step on the path to clean energy.
And for investors, that represents decades of opportunities ripe for the plucking.
What is nuclear fusion?
Nuclear fusion involves combining atoms into a single, larger atom. The process generates enormous amounts of energy, and is the core reaction that drives our sun.
Nuclear fusion differs from nuclear fission, the process used in nuclear power plants. Fission splits atoms, rather than combines them, generating dangerous radioactive waste in the process.
By contrast, nuclear fusion is far more efficient, generates almost no waste, and runs off hydrogen atoms readily available in seawater, rather than radioactive materials buried in the ground. That makes it the ideal candidate for powering everything from houses to manufacturing plants…if it could be scaled.
Since fusion was discovered a century ago, scientists have raced to unlock and replicate the mechanics in a lab. But running a fusion reaction that requires less energy in than it puts out, a process called ignition, has eluded scientists…
Until now.
The nuclear energy breakthrough in a nutshell
December’s nuclear energy breakthrough occurred at the National Ignition Facility, which uses a process called “thermonuclear inertial fusion.”
Essentially, the $3.5 billion laser complex shoots 192 lasers at a tiny capsule. The capsule contains two hydrogen isotopes that, when bombarded with energy, vaporize almost immediately. The fusion process releases enormous amounts of energy.
In the past, the energy input from the lasers far exceeded the energy output from the fusion reaction. But on December 5, researchers tried something new.
The shell around the capsule they used was thicker than in past experiments, meaning that small flaws effect the experiment less. This simple – and incredibly replicable – change allowed something incredible to happen.
Dr. Marvin Adams, NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, described the process at Tuesday’s press conference. He noted that the process began with a spherical cylinder containing a small capsule, “about half the diameter of a BB.”
“192 laser beams entered from the two ends of the cylinder,” he said, “and struck the inner wall…. X-rays from the wall impinged on the spherical capsule. Fusion fuel in the capsule got squeezed, fusion reactions started. This had all happened before, 100 times before. But last week for the first time, they designed this experiment so that the fusion fuel stayed hot enough, dense enough and round enough for long enough that it ignited. And it produced more energies than the lasers had deposited. About 2 megajoules in, about 3 megajoules out. A gain of 1.5.”
The importance of this breakthrough
A gain of 1.5 sounds small, and in energy terms, it is. But it’s not the size of the reaction that matters – it’s that it happened at all.
December 5’s nuclear fusion breakthrough was the culmination of a century of research, funding dollars and failures. Though there are many steps between today and commercial viability, without this step, fusion as an energy source was little more than a science fiction gimmick. Today, it’s a reality.
And the long-term potential of a fusion-heavy future is simply staggering. Unlike coal and fossil fuels, fusion reactions generate no CO2 emissions or other byproducts. And since it runs on hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, it’s virtually limitless in its production potential.
With that much energy, we won’t just reduce our emissions footprint – we could reverse it.
Unlimited power would make it possible to advance all kinds of technologies faster, cheaper and cleaner, from climate change solutions to better laptops.
Fusion energy could relieve energy blackouts, power water treatment plants, and help us discover better ways to recycle and dispose of trash.
New technologies could pull CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, mitigating climate change and reducing pollution-induced human casualties.
Battery technology could advance, allowing for mass adoption of clean energy production and storage for homes, vehicles and more.
On a grand, long-term scale, fusion energy could eliminate humanity’s emissions, allowing for a cleaner, greener, healthier planet – not to mention, elevated living for all of humanity.
If that sounds a bit idealistic, you’re not wrong. But then again, the prospect of fusion energy was idealistic 50 years ago. This month, scientists proved fusion is possible. Why can’t the other long-term benefits come true, too?
Physicists discuss fusion breakthrough
Elizabeth A. Thomson, News Office
Publication Date:January 5, 1994
https://news.mit.edu/1994/fusion-0105
Yawn.
This was a great and uplifting article until I read the piece about “pulling CO2 from the atmosphere”. Since the whole of Natures creations and human crops depend as critically on carbon dioxide as we depend on oxygen to breathe.
“You might not believe this, little fella But it’ll cure your asthma too”
Frank Zappa
All the wonderful gifts for mankind. “Elevated living for all of humanity”. Tell me, what government/corporation has our best interest at heart?
If this ever bears fruit, it’ll be used to protect us from today’ “Hitler of the month”.
like the inventor of the deisel engine
and the inventor of the water powered cat
nicola tesla and others
before it can come online the inventor dies mysteriously and of all people Rothschild then holds the patents
Sure.
One thing is for certain, it will NOT be cheap to the customer.
LOL! This is the type of article that instantly brings out Flat Erfers and assorted inbreds to claim that “noo-keeler energy be fake”.
On three … two … one!
The difficult part is the politics–we had Cold Fusion in 1989, but it got denied, as Free Energy always does
Convenient that this has happened right now, eh?
Won’t this guarantee the demise of the internal combustion engine and mandated electric vehicles for one and all? As well as police robots and drones that never need run out of juice? Maybe not such a good development! After all, we got along just fine on Horseback!
The last question on this page is the money quote: “What does this mean for investors?”
Unlimited or free energy? That defies a core principle of physics, don’t believe a word of it. Nuclear fusion is the core reaction that drives our sun? Well no, Eddington was a fraud, Chandrasekhar was another fraud claiming that he left India early in his career to come to America because he was inspired by another fraud, Einstein.
The sun is massive field generator surrounded by a photosphere, the process is electrodynamic and it’s impossible to claim it will eventually fizzle out. Eddington lied about detecting the sun’s gravity bending light during a solar eclipse in Príncipe in 1919. You can look online for images of the glass plates and see for yourself. They were unusable images and the idea the later ‘computerized’ evaluation confirmed the experiment is another lie.
Despite stormy weather and the sun appearing at 30 degrees declination (above the horizon), he claimed he caught a glimpse of the solar eclipse through the clouds with a 4 in. refractor and a hand-cranked mirror! He claimed he brought a 16 in. refractor but it was unusable. Maybe he did but that’s a big refractor and with the rapid temperature drop during an eclipse the air would churn, making usable photographs very unlikely. The 4 in. refractor is a joke but the point is the potential resolving capabilities of the telescopes to detect gravity bending light around the sun is nil. He faked it and Jewish media, especially the NYT, created a media storm claiming Eddington’s experiment confirmed Einstein’s theory of relativity. The entire fraud was prepared in advance. Stephen Hawking, another fraud, claimed Eddington got extremely lucky. He would say that now, wouldn’t he? The Arrow of Time reversing when the expanding universe ceases to expand and begins to contract? Hawking said time itself will start running backward, we will hop out of our graves, live life in reverse then go back into our mother’s womb. Can you believe it? Such garbage and yet they lapped up the book A Brief History of Time. Black holes pulling bodies into a strand? Get out of here with that ****.
Getting back to ‘what does this mean for investors’? Take a good look at the face of Dr. Arata Prabhakar or Dr. Marvin Adams and ask yourself if you would trust anyone with a face like that. Go back in time and look at the face of Eddington, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller and again, would you trust anyone with a face like that. Oppenheimer and Teller sound like banking family names then we get to the faces of Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried. Would you let any of these people hang on to your wallet while you get back to your day job? Remember the 90’s era ‘Cold Fusion’ breakthrough of Berkeley scientists Pons and Fleischmann? Free energy is another Jewish scam from start to finish.
It’s all hype. The NIF made excess energy BFD! The Chinese did it earlier this year. ITER did it years ago. These BIG ASS projects are money wasting boondoggles. The Oil companies will make sure it never sees the light of the Sun pun pun. If you want to see an interesting approach check out Helion. As Hyman Rickover the father of the US Nuclear navy once said: “Atomic Energy is the most expensive way yet invented to boil water”
Did you take a look at the faces of Pons and Fleischmann? They were once hailed as brilliant scientists who discovered Cold Fusion, they became overnight sensations, more energy went in than went out. Not much more but there it was, a giant leap for mankind. All you had to do was take a good look at their faces. Faces that drip with the filth of ten thousand years of perjury.
Spell check corrects ‘Fleischmann’ as “Leishmaniasis, a wide array of clinical manifestations caused by parasites of the trypanosome genus Leishmania. It is generally spread through the bite of phlebotomine sandflies, Phlebotomus and Lutzomyia, and occurs most frequently in the tropics and sub-tropics of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and southern Europe.”
Pons, that would be “pons (from Latin pons, “bridge”) is part of the brainstem that in humans and other bipeds lies inferior to the midbrain…”
Bloodsuckers, ticks and inferior brainstems!
QUOTE:
“….With more research and financial investment, researchers believe we’re within four decades of producing 100% clean, limitless energy.”
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I’m not buying it….this seems like another bullshite “false hope”…they even submit it may take 40 years?
This is nicely timed propaganda is like the latest “moon mission”….. simply more hopium amidst existing global turmoil
What happened to Cold Fusion…???
The Elites (Pshycopaths) will have depopulated the planet before we see this! look at what they did to Tesla and his free energy plan!
The notion of FREE radiant energy is older then any other technology.. Tesla, Tomas Henry Moray, Tom Bearden, Don LSmith, Floyd Sweet, Gabriel Kroon, only to mention a few..
@ Bob Smith et al
At 6 minutes and 20 seconds, Bill Bailey’s thoughts on the genius of Stephen Hawking,
https://youtu.be/q-NgNvq5e_g
Happy Christmas, y’all.
It is far more advanced than they are admitting. Not that it matters as it will never be available to the stupid goyim. Only when the goy masses have been exterminated will the true level of technology be seen.
l much prefer ‘doom and gloom’…it’s so much more honest…
and l’m sure you would agree…
The main enduring insurmountable problem with the fusion snipe hunt over its last decades of unfulfilled promises and moving goalposts is not simply net energy, or production minus inputs, making it net uneconomical to produce. The input/output calculation that Forbes claims has now been solved in a lab, has not really been done, since their data ignores all the billions wasted on this junk science to date including all the money spent frontrunning propaganda in the usual house organs. The money down the drain on fusion will never be repaid and have to be born as debt and stagflation by “citizens” too stupid to understand the facts in front of them about their various massive swindles and deracinations.
The crux enduring insurmountable problem with insanely still trying to develop fusion power, despite its obvious shortcomings as a waste of investment at a critical time of collapsing systems, is not the EROEI number but the temperature inside a fusion reactor. It would run over 300 million F, way beyond tolerance of any containment material known.
I would steer clear of any budding partnership with Forbes, Rixon. they are some really stupid people.
@lewis jones Free Energy ??? Not possible, because you can’t put a Linky Counter on it …
Right up there with “lightning in a bottle”
A TRILLION DOLLAR/EURO GRAVE
FROM THE BEGINNING !
@ chris powiis “water powered cat” I would love one!!
The 2 major sources of power on earth is the sun and gravity. If the researchers ever stop and think (that’s next to impossible in big business) and harness these two energies, we’ll have continuous energy and the source is free.
All the energy humans “produce” is negligible compared to the sun’s energy, which, from our point of view, is “free”. We see that billions and trillions of other stars produce comparable energy, and that our bi-polar scientists would nevertheless prefer to speak about “entropy” or the “economy” and destroy our prospects as an advanced society
@Andrew Smith 12:14 pm
That’s exactly what I was thinking. CO2 is a blessing not a curse. I don’t know about this fusion breakthrough. I think I’d rather have them release ALL of Nikola Tesla’s files which the US gov’t seized after his death. There might be something even more breakthrough worthy in them.