possible fusion energy

California fires up laser fusion machine

from Guardian UK:

"The $3.5bn National Ignition Facility (NIF) sits in a 10-storey building covering three football fields and will harness the power of lasers to turn tiny pellets of hydrogen into thermonuclear energy."

About fucking time.

it's like someone said

"guys, there's this music genre called IDM and we need to build something that physically embodies that definition"

That's nuts. Sounds too good to be true.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090530/ts_al..._20090530082418

best quote:

  Quote

"We have invented the world's largest laser system," actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said

  Braintree said:

That's nuts. Sounds too good to be true.

what i dont get is how the world's largest laser system just sprouts out of nowhere and the only people reporting on it are yahoo and the guardian.

i read an article on wired nearly a month ago about it

  kaini said:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090530/ts_al..._20090530082418

 

best quote:

  Quote

"We have invented the world's largest laser system," actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said

Here's some footage of them what the factory looks like inside.

i nearly attended this. i heard obama was going to be at the dedication ceremony so wanted to but then he didnt so I didnt. I did the online registration for the whole event. pretty much paid my rent this year so far.

exciting news if it works, but I think the chance of it working efficiently is unlikely

why did they build it on three football fields?

https://news.yahoo.com/climate-hope-scientists-uk-set-120014685.html

Some interesting info on the UK project and the related France-located international consortium.

  Quote

Deuterium is freely available in seawater

Not sure how "freely available" the process is for extracting deuterium from seawater.  Some googling says it's a proven process; I'm guessing it's not energy efficient but you surely get that back on the back end since you only need a tiny amount to fuse to create a huge amount of energy.