I saw this article, and thought it was very interesting. My company is sending two 8 unit signal conditioners to Larwence Livermore Labs, but I don't know how they will be using them. They are designed to be used with extremely sensitive tilt meters.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/tech/innovation/energy-fusion/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Major breakthrough, good news!

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Most interesting!! Thanx SciManStev:)

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rOZZ
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Yes, very interesting.

Cheers.

Maybe this is the breakthrough they have been hoping for. Over the last 45 years I have read from time to time that controlled fusion is right around the corner.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

What you get from fusion are 14 MeV neutrons. Then you must use them to heat water and get vapor to power the turbines. There must be a simpler way to boil water.
Tullio

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For potential nuclear energy sources for the Earth, the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction contained by some kind of magnetic confinement seems the most likely path. However, for the fueling of the stars, other fusion reactions will dominate.
For elements heavier than iron, fission will yield energy.

Fusion reactors have been getting a lot of press recently because they offer major advantages over other power sources. They will use abundant sources of fuel, they will not leak radiation above normal background levels and they will produce less radioactive waste than current fission reactors.

We'd rather spend more money on nuclear fusion than trying to reproduce something we will never be able to comprehend, like the Big Bang. I think nuclear fusion is THE energy source for the future!

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rOZZ
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ITER was to work in 2020. Now it is delayed to 2025 and it is only a proof of concept, not an energy source. It has already cost 15 billion euros and is foreseen to cost 25 billion euros.There are huge engineering problems, because every material bombarded by neutrons is damaged and must be substituted after a period. But is radioactive. I have worked with a neutron source while still a student at Trieste University and I know the problems. They are not seen by a Geiger counter being neutral and you must use special tools. I was helping to build one of them for the International Atomic Energy Authority.
Tullio

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CONTROLLING fusion, and not just being able to achieve it, shall probably be the next major advancement in science and our world as we now know it.

Being able to turn it on and off, to truly harness it's amazing potential.

I give it another 5 years.

Of course, we shall still then have to deal with the matter of distribution.

Our current (no pun intended) power grids are already being stressed to near maximum capacity. And most are above ground, making them susceptible to both acts of God and terrorist alike.

Perhaps.....
Another dream stage. Whatever new energy source that fusion may provide could be distributed by fibre optics with little or no loss. Little or no disruption of the environment. Not susceptible to EMT bombs. As it's pretty hard to dissuade a beam of light to get to where it is going in a fibre optic cable.

Hmmmmm... would not that be something.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Electrons do not run inside fibers. Only photons do. The power lines could be made of superconducting materials, if we find one that is superconductive at ambient temperature. That would be a big progress.
Tullio

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...why not just keep the power lines we have to distribute the power generated by fusion reactors, which could then be converted to electricity for distribution...?

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That is a problem for tomorrow. First you have to get some electric current from a fusion reactor, which produces only neutrons, which are not charged particles. So you must heat some water with the neutrons, witch all the machinery of Fission reactors (Boiling water reactors, Pressurized water reactors, Advanced gas reactors, CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium), etc. Luckily fast breeder reactors like Superphenix, cooled with liquid sodium, were abandoned.
Tullio

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>fusion reactor, which produces only neutrons
all 100% energy goes into neutrons? :-O
there must be a general outcome in a heat, i think - in any way, as i understand, i h-bombs, and in sol, general fusion reaction outcome is high temperature?
it is not the best energy - temperature - but it can be converted.
very strange for me is that fact, we have nuclear stations, but way in what we convert nuclear reactions energy is ancient - throught boiling a water and drive a steam turbines, who load a alternators. i think, that way of converting energy have at most, a 40 - 45 percent efficiency - really more than half energy go wasted, who is totally unwise, i think.

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...why not just keep the power lines we have to distribute the power generated by fusion reactors, which could then be converted to electricity for distribution...?

That's the way we've been doing it but everyone knows how dangerous Nuclear fission reactors are... We've been using a lot of wind a water energy as well. The tariff at Luminus that most customers have now is Ecofix, 100% green energy, they call it. It's the same 'grey' energy because it comes from the same plug. but that way you invest in greener energy, a good concept imo.

Nuclear fusion reactors are still a dream at this moment I'm afraid

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rOZZ
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What you get from fusion are 14 MeV neutrons. Then you must use them to heat water and get vapor to power the turbines. There must be a simpler way to boil water.
Tullio

There are several "easier" ways to boil water but according to the experts we are using up those fuels. Controlled fusion, if mastered, should be the answer to our power needs.

Boiling water to spin turbines to run generators may be old but it is still the best way known to man to generate electricity that can be distributed to the public. Power sources the size of a 5lb. can of coffee that can generate power to a single residence are still the province of science fiction and may never be realized.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Fusion reactors of the Tokamak model (Toroidal Kamera Magnetika) have high vacuum inside the vessel and the only result of the fission are neutrons and, possibly, neutrinos. H bombs explode in the atmosphere and can transmit energy through blast waves.
Fission reactors work at relatively low temperatures (around 300 C) and have a very poor thermodynamic efficiency. Attempts to rise this temperature limit have produced disasters at Windscale in 1957 and Chernobyl.
Tullio
PS Italy last year has reached 26% production of electricity by renewable sources, including hydroelectricity, solar, wind and geothermal power.

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At Windscale in 1957, in a military reactor, the chief engineer and the chief fireman, after sending all others away, flooded the reactor's core with water, which raises the nuclear reactivity, and spent the fire.

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What you get from fusion are 14 MeV neutrons. Then you must use them to heat water and get vapor to power the turbines. There must be a simpler way to boil water.

I was going to reply about neutron damage but then I saw you covered that...

...There are huge engineering problems, because every material bombarded by neutrons is damaged and must be substituted after a period...

Neutron damage is the kiss of death for Deuterium + Tritium fusion like this to be a viable energy source. As noted, the entire reactor would have to be replaced every few years(?) to prevent it from breaking spontaneously.

Happily, there are plenty of energetic reactions that don't have a high neutron flux to research. The Proton + Boron one is considered promising. Perhaps the discoveries and techniques of this project are applicable to future projects that could be used for practical power generation.

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dont know about Windscale, but in tshernobyl catastrophe be induced by idiots.
i have a lot of interests about nuclear reactors, submarines and so on. i be a amateur with very limited knowledge, sure, but i reading alot, and also variuous nuclear direction academics stories about tshernobyl incident, and looks like that are a result of dumbness ( about who Einstein say very good -humans dumbness is endless), and a hurry. i think, hurry never does not end well, and when deal is with potentially dangerous things, from time to time we got incidents like as on submarine k-19 in 1961, when hurry, diagnostic without take in care all data on situation, enduce in fact, a radiation avary on one of submarines reactor - crew be sure, there no pressure in first cooling contour, and cut in it. but there in that moment really be 100+ atm pressure, and result be very worse. in tshernobyl too - in a hurry he start to lost reactor power ( looks like because of reactor iod poisoned), he blocking reactor emergency protection, and get out all regulator rods from reactor. in the same time reactor cooling pumps get power not from main grid, but from disconnected turbogenerators on roll-out. what happen next, all we know.

if any interesting in radiation avaries in sieviet submarines, i there save a some interesting material - on russian.

http://submarine.sten.lv/api.shtml

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Nuclear safety depends much on the skill of the operators. France has 54 nuclear reactors and never had a major accident, because France has good technical schools and universities.
Tullio

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