Fusion Based Electricity Is Now A Reality

Laser induced fusion of hydrogen and boron into helium:

"A nuclear reactor without chain reactions, radiation or radioactive waste? Marvel Fusion from Munich promise exactly that: lasers designed to heat hydrogen and boron so that they fuse into helium. A lot of energy is released during this fusion. But nothing else, no radiation worth mentioning, about the same amount as in a radiography practice, no radioactive waste; nor is there a potentially uncontrollable chain reaction. Fusion stops when the laser is switched off. Top researchers from all over the world are working on this project. Currently, Marvel Fusion are looking at possible sites for an experimental power plant costing around two billion euros."

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More innovations from Germany:
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Reply to
Fred Bloggs
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"A lot of energy"??? That seems rather imprecise. So they are not reaching unity power and they want to spend 2 billion of someone else's money. I get that. More work is needed. But how is this different from other fusion projects?

Reply to
Rick C

Two billion is absurd to prove that it works. I wonder if it does work.

NIF blasts frozen hydrogen pellets with megajoules of UV light. People make EUV for lithography by hitting tin droplets with a blast of IR. Both use much longer modulated pulses to preheat and shape and then blast the target bits. (We do the timing for both.)

Nice pic of the NIF target chamber, but they can't take credit for that.

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New Frontiers in Funding.

Reply to
jlarkin

"Now a reality?"

Reply to
jlarkin

If it worked people would be throwing money at them.

If they are asking then they don't have anything but an ad campaign, and that ending showing a picture of some kid with their nose under water is not ideal IMHO. What is the message here?

John :-#(#

Reply to
John Robertson

As a means of converting energy to less energy it works great!

Reply to
bitrex

"What failed at the multi-billion National Ignition Facility is now on the agenda of a Bavarian startup: Marvel Fusion “… will provide a novel approach that is suited for commercializing baseload fusion electrical power. The Marvel Fusion path to commercial fusion energy is based on short pulse, high energy and electrically efficient lasers” "

Having a Nobel Laureate physicist backup is pretty good marketing.

Marvel fusion wants to erect a first test site in the Bavarian community of Penzberg. Construction of the buildings is scheduled to start in May 2021, it should be running in 2023 as local newspapers report. They plan to invest 200 to 300 million euros, which is about the sum that was invested in each of the ELI sites. 150 people should work there in the beginning, they say. A real power station producing a real energy output would cost about two billion Euro and construction could be operational in 2030. The whole endeavor is backed by private funding. Gérard Mourou is member of the Advisory Board, one of the founders of the whole ELI project, Georg Korn, is hired as Chief Technology Officer.

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US and other big government funded boondoggles are behind the curve.

The technology, Marvel is not alone: https://hb11.energy/

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Reply to
Fred Bloggs

It works a billion times better than expected!

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

I've posted about an Australian version of this idea here earlier - it's neutron free fusion, which has lots of advantages.

It does depend on a rather specialised ultrashort pulse laser. which makes the US laser fusion arrangements look a bit unsubtle.

https://hb11.energy/our-story/ I heard a lecture on it from Heinrich Hora a couple of years ago . He seemed pretty confident that he would be able to eventually get it to work, if he could suck in enough venture capital.

Reply to
Bill Sloman

People are throwing money at them. We're talking Germany, not U.S.

Recipe for failure: US government overfunding and university or government administration of project.

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

If a boron-hydrogen pellet can be ignited with a laser shot, and the released energy ignites the rest of the pellet, it's a nuclear bomb.

Let's hope it doesn't work.

More innovations from Germany!

Reply to
jlarkin

Right- I found them. The idea is being enabled by new developments in ultra short duration high intensity laser technology. It's now quite workable.

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

Two billion give or take exchange rate is about what the US military spends in a day. About 1/300th what it'll cost to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal over ten years. About 1/10th what it would cost to house every homeless person in America for life.

PReTTy sooN yoUre talKing reaL moNEy

Reply to
bitrex

That was the claim back when I first posted about the idea, more than a year ago. Demonstrating that it is actually workable is the time-consuming and expensive bit, and it doesn't seem to have happened yet. It's still venture capitalists looking for more money.

Reply to
Bill Sloman

NIF didn't fail. It has other uses than power generation; that's almost a cover story. NIF did exceed break-even from optical input to thermal output.

NIF is still firing shots, and upgrades are planned.

If you're ever in the neighborhood, check out the visitor center.

Reply to
John Larkin

Photovoltaics have been used to convert fusion energy to electrical energy for 50+ years.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well at night.

boB :)

Reply to
boB

<snip>

Which they seem to think that they can get. There's quite a lot of experimental background that suggests that their scheme can be made to work, but there's a lot of development work (which may not work out) between the concept and a commercial source of power. "Purely theoretical" is a put-down, rather than a meaningful comment.

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Reply to
Bill Sloman

If anything it suggests that there are so many ways for fusion without achieving a high pressure, high temperature equilibrium, that one of them is bound to succeed.

The direct conversion to high voltage electricity was already used in practice, if I remember correctly using a plutonium wire in a cylinder. That was in behalf of a spacecraft. It is certainly attractive over molten salts that contain beryllium

Groetjes Albert

Reply to
albert

Example for a Petawatt Laser:

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Timo

Reply to
timo.k...

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