U.S. Laboratory Breaks Laser Record (npr.org) |
U.S. Laboratory Breaks Laser Record (npr.org) |
Still cool though.
That said, one application of the NIF is as the ultimate incinerator. Using it to literally rip apart hazardous waste (either the nuclear or more mundane variety) into lower atomic number atoms which are not a problem.
And of course if they can get out more than they put in, then an energy neutral (and fast) disposal system.
That said, the physics of the place are astounding, I got to tour the place about 10 years ago when it was still being built and man, it is right up there with the LHC in terms of extremely large and at the same time precise physics machines.
How?
PS: That could actually work, at 5% thermal efficiency a Castle Bravo device ~= 63,000TJ = 17500000000.014kwh *.05 = ~1GW for 1 month.
In particular, I never hear anyone talk about the laser technology in anything but instrumental terms. (Instrumental to understanding the nuclear physics.)
[1] https://www.llnl.gov/about/tours.html [2] https://lasers.llnl.gov/multimedia/photo_gallery/overview/?i...
Can someone explain this a little bit? They were able to put 500 terawatts into this beam, I think I understand that part. But that's 1,000x more energy than the US is using right now.. so did they actually create that much energy to begin with? This is where I'm failing at understanding.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28500e12+Watts%29+*+%2...
*Edited because of wrong numbers
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/how_nif_works/power_condit...
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Jul/NR-12-07-01....
I guess that "any other laser" similarly may be made of a bunch of other lasers. So, tha factor 100 is more "a hundred times as much power as any other coherent beam ever produced"
Fire at will, Commander -- The Emperor
Moreover, about 2/3rd of the energy in that device were from fission (not fusion), so for any possible claimed advantage of fusion over fission, it's not here. The lowest fission-fraction test to date was Tsar Bomba, at 3% yield from fission. That was also the largest explosion to date (50 megatons!), which makes it even less feasible.
I think this is a fundamental tradeoff: you can't make a mostly-fusion weapon unless it is extremely large, as there's some minimum size for a fission explosion that achieves fusion conditions.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Castle.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba#Design
There was research project at Los Alamos about this general idea (Project Pacer), but it didn't go anywhere. According to Richard Garwin, they thought it was hopelessly uneconomical.
However that really puts it into perspective, thank you.
They have been working on laser fusion since the 1970s, when they could test bomb designs by just setting them off. Indeed some of the early inertial confinement research was conducted using nukes as the radiation source.
Yes, it is true that the NIF data can be used to design and maintain bombs, but it is not required. We could provide a deterrent force without it. Therefore the real reasons are something else, my guess a combination of laser research, commercial and rocketry fusion research, and a large serving of national prestige.
That's stretched well over a decade. The US's stockpile stewardship program cost billions per year; only a fraction of it goes to the NIF.
> That is enough money to completely remanufacture the entire arsenal several times using existing designs that are good enough.
That's not an option. The US has been sticking to a policy of not building new nuclear warheads. All of our warheads are at least 20 years old.
That's real but that's not NIF or anything resembling it. The temperatures to tear apart molecular bonds are less than 10,000 degrees. NIF operates at nuclear fusion temperature s -- 100,000,000 degrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/gasification/...