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saltyhasp t1_j3u3m8o wrote

Reply to comment by kyoko9 in After 50 years, fusion power hits a major milestone by Possible-Judgment-39

I do not think it was seconds. Probably much less. It was not energy positive either except in a very narrow sense.

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derKonigsten t1_j3u7bxy wrote

Unless this is a different experiment than from a few weeks ago i remember watching a press briefing where the white coat said they input .5MW, and achieved an output of 1.5MW, albeit for like a few micro seconds (10^-6 seconds), but i think he also said their ignition pulse was in the hundreds of nano seconds. So very energy positive, just not sustained for any real world application

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Independent-Ad-8531 t1_j3u9y1f wrote

And don't confuse the unit, they where talking about MJ not MW.

1MJ = 0.27 kWh

Edit: In more common units this reads like 0.14kWh of light energy produced 0.42kWh of fusion energy.

Edit2: To produce the amount of 0.14kWh of light energy the amount of 14kWh of electric energy where used. And an infinite amount of energy (in comparison) to produce the "fuel"

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TerpenesByMS t1_j3uniff wrote

NIF's "COP>1" run that you joke about here points out how its style of fusion generation will never scale economically. Check out Helion's design and approach. Lofty targets, but my fave design among all I've reviewed by a lot. Electrolyzed heavy water? Direct-to-electric operating principle? Now we're talking

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Independent-Ad-8531 t1_j3u9hst wrote

And the energy positivity is just the energy of the light hitting the target. Not the energy of the particle accelerator to separate the different hydrogen isotopes nor the electric energy to generate that light via lasers with a efficiency of about 1%.

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