Scientist explains promise of a nuclear fusion breakthrough

Energy Department officials are promising to share details on what's billed as a major breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion. CBS News' John Dickerson explores the potential significance with Professor Anna Erickson, who teaches nuclear and radiological engineering at Georgia Tech.

#news #nuclear #energy

[oduntola]

Even if it takes another 100 years to begin to harness this technology it represents a major ray of hope for mankind.

[HPPalmtopTube]

For those who don't want to wait till tomorrow's announcement: The breakthrough occurred at NIF, the National Ignition Facility, owned by the government (Department of Energy), it's composed of many very powerful lasers (the size of buildings) that all converge their beams onto a tiny target the size of a needle head in a special chamber. This facility has been in use for nearly a decade and has hundreds of scientists working on it. It has been used mainly for simulating the conditions that occur during the detonation of nuclear/fission weapons as well as inertial fusion research (the kind used in this process).
Since the process has been used for years now, the breakthrough probably has to do with them managing to engineer a more efficient target (holder + fuel) for the laser beams to converge onto, and some way of capturing the energy released from the tiny target. The target is a tiny pellet of a deuterium/tritium fusion fuel inside the small copper cylinder with the beams shining into it from the sides, as shown in the video.
Fun fact: The facility and it's laser target chamber was actually used as a movie shooting scene for shooting some of the scenes of the USS enterprise's core engine / reactor in the first of the new Star Trek movies that came out a few years ago... (because it looks so futuristic and complex)

[bendershomediscountorphan]

This is a giant step forward but they still have a long way to go may they receive all the funding they need

[JohnJaneson]

Well done. Fusion is our great next step in everything.

[RamblinJer]

God forbid, but that scientist has a good chance of mysteriously falling from a 15 story window or something ridiculous like others who have developed potentially cheaper cleaner fuels.

[patrickday]

One small step for man one giant leap for mankind!

[fredbassett]

the energy industry will never let us have cheap energy...never...

[bigdog]

We need fusion power in order to sustain future worm holes so we can travel to distant galaxies!

[spacetimemalleable]

Although this is a crucial first step, we have a LOOONG way to go for commercial fusion to become available.

[MultiPtest]

The second time they tried to restart it, it didn't work as same capacity was expecting and minutes later, it shutdown. It doesn't work.

[ydne]

With this new hope and automatic washing systems on solar panels, is getting crude oil fully into only chemical, drug and plastics manufacturing more reasonable?

[jordenrisley]

technology has been frozen for a the last 80 years because black book ops keep tech from the public . We still use fossil fuel as we have for the last 100 years . No progress ? It’s just now starting to come out because war profiteering is coming to a end so they need another thing for the public to cling on to and support with there tax dollars . Like the space force, nuclear fusion etc

[LogicAndReason]

We have had the clean energy solution for many years already; it is called revenue neutral carbon taxing. Simply raise taxes on fossil fuels and lower other taxes equally. This way it costs the consumer nothing, and gives the market advantage to ALL alternative energy technologies. On top of that it creates millions of great jobs from the increased investments. Best part: we don't have to wait, we can start right away.

[jeffjames]

Nice to know that the engineering section in the Enterprise was responsible for the breakthrough. HAHA!

[oddersisadog]

Everyone thank the aliens for giving us this new tech.

[jasonthurston]

But where do we get enough of the required tritium?

[ag]

This is an incredible breakthrough. Humanity is now only a few years away from real life teleportation devices, force field technology, warp drive, and even real life "lightsabers" thanks to this breakthrough. Far off technologies are now possible we leapfrogged several centuries into the future thanks to this.

[jolank]

Isn't it true though that there's only a few hundred kilograms of tritium available worldwide? And that we're barely producing a few dozen kilograms a year and the production has been steadily going down?

[dyu]

Household energy expense in pennies will never happen because energy companies will not make money.

[marsspacex]

Fusion is really crucial for future spacecraft solar is much more cheap on earth.