Isn't the word of reputable scientists from our NIF at Livermore,California good enough for you. When us Americans say we are going to do something we are going to do it. Other countries I do not know. We have the resources and the funds to pull it off in 2012. This 2012 date you can find all over the internet, no links needed because we have advertised it and it is going to happen.

"Isn't the word of reputable scientists from our NIF at Livermore, California good enough for you."

Yes but that's not what we have going on here. All we have is an unknown guest stating that the NIF said that they would have a sustainable nuclear fusion reaction going by 2012.

"This 2012 date you can find all over the internet, no links needed because we have advertised it and it is going to happen."

That may be so but unless it is coming from the same source that you are claiming it does then it's nothing more than yet another hollow claim, so please, could you supply a link to the NIF page, person or web site, that confirms that the 2012 date is in fact coming from the NIF itself and not some overzealous reporter that misunderstood what the scientists were saying.

"...When us Americans say we are going to do something we are going to do it..." - even when the mere suggestion of Cold Fusion is a physical or conceptual fallacy ?

Imagine not just the Americans, but the whole human race with all it's available funds and resources, try to do the impossible, say, try to build a Perpetual Motion Machine

Is it then possible?

Here are several links www.unexplained-mysteries.com and www.dailynewslink.com .

Here are three of the more than thirty links; 1. www.unexplained-

mysteries.com 2.www.dailymail.co.uk 3. news.softpedia.com

In case you don't already know, Israel,Japan and India are also quietly working on fusion technology.

Since the announcement of Pons and Fleischmann in 1989, cold fusion has been considered to be an example of a pathological science. Two panels convened by the US Department of Energy, one in 1989 and a second in 2004, did not recommend a dedicated federal program for cold fusion research. In 2007 Nature reported that the American Chemical Society would host an invited symposium on cold fusion and low energy nuclear reactions at their national meeting for the first time in many years.

Unfortunately the links you have given us so far are not specific enough and are pretty much like directing us to a newspaper without giving details. It makes it pretty much impossible to find the articles you are referring to.

What we need are links to specific articles preferably from reputable scientific sources that present the information directly from the source rather than somebody saying I heard it from so and so who heard it from whatshisname.

By the way, sites like "Unexplained Mysteries" do not qualify as reputable scientific sources.

If we go to Wilipedia for reference to the subject of "Cold Fusion", at the end of the article we may find the following links:

- List of experimental errors and frauds in physics

- Pathological science

- Scientific misconduct

- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

Nuf Said

You may not believe me but fusion energy to many nations is like the Holy Grail to Christian. They want it badly here are a list of countries that are spending tons of money on it::: Russia, India, China, USA, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Japan, France, England, Germany et al. A breakthrough in this will rock the world. Four countries says they can do it in less than four years, with todays knowledge very few things are impossible.

The four countries that said they can do this within four years are:

China says they can achieved this sometime this year. USA says 2012. Iran and North Korea say it is a piece of cake,easy. Not that easy my friends in Iran and North Korea many have tried and have not succeed but it is possible and probable with todays advances thanks America and China.

Yuval and Masu, if you two think that people are sitting on their butts and not work working on fusion you are truly mistaken. It is the "Holy Grail" of energy production, one big fusion reactor can powered the needs for many.

Who said anything about people sitting on their buts not doing research into nuclear fusion? What we are sceptical about are the claims that they will have a stable fusion reaction by 2012 and that's why we keep asking for hard evidence of these claims.

Now if you were talking about getting more energy back than is put into triggering the reaction then yes that I would say was possible by 2012, but a stable fusion reaction is a whole different thing and may actually be impossible using the current containment techniques.

If the USA and China say they could then I believe they could. With today's supercomputers and advances many things that were not possible several years ago are now possible.

Say you first heard it from me here----sustainable fusion by 2013 I think that 2012 is too quick. Actual operational fusion reactor by 2015 and a commercial fusion reactor by around 2018 to 2020. I have done enough research to believe that this claimers are credible. Even Iran and North Korea say they can do it and it makes it more simple to say that the USA and China can do it.

• "I have done enough research to believe that this claimers are credible."

Good, than show us the research with links to the source data, that's all we are asking.

You want names it is easy just go to the NIF at Livermore California

The team has over 50 scientists and countless technicians at work.

That project employed a lot of people and they are not going to fail.

In fact I know some of them and I will not divulged their names,in fact they are confident it is when not if. I think 2012 is a little optimistic perhaps 2012.

I mean to say 2013 for the NIF. 1.3 million mega joules from just a little speck of fuel. The energy potential is great we want it, China is so secretive we don't even know what is going on. But Livermore even show in many words and pictures what is going on. Go ahead and be a skeptic, I am going to keep on writing my politicians and encourged fundings for such works.

Any more in that direction?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989llnl.rept.....T

Ok, I had a look at the NIF web site and found a reference to an article entitled NIF to Achieve Nuclear Fusion Within Two Years.

Now if you read this article you will find that the NIF believe that within 2 years they will have achieved nuclear fusion ignition and that's all. Nothing about more return energy than being used in the ignition process and definitely nothing whatsoever about attaining a sustainable fusion reaction.

Here's another article entitled NIF clears latest hurdles towards laser fusion that says pretty much the same thing and that they hope to achieve ignition within the next two years.

In fact the NIF system can't produce a sustainable reaction period as it's not designed to, it's a research tool that is to be used to create short term nuclear fusion reactions that will ultimately be used to develop the next generation of machines.

So sorry folks, were not even close to achieving a sustainable fusion reaction and it's definitely not going to happen at the NIF within the next 2 years.

You can also read a whole host of similar articles by following this link to the NIF In the News web page.

I don't know what articles you are reading but the ones that I am reading say it is going to be done--sustainable fusion by 2012 and I believe they can. We invented the atomic bomb and we are going to take care of business, fusion reactor definite.

Then give us a link to the article so we can read it ourselves and judge whether it plausible.

However, before that have a think about the NIF equipment. The whole thing is based around heating a small grain of rice sized pellet of fusible material to fusion temperatures. Now considering the miniscule quantity of fusible material how on earth could you make the darn thing sustainable.

I'm sorry but the NIF facility is not designed to produce a sustainable reaction but rather demonstrate a principle. At best all that can be hoped for with the facility is to get more energy back than is being used in the LASERS that are triggering the fusion.

A sustainable fusion reactor would need some way of replenishing the fusible material and removing the fusion products and the NIF isn't designed to do this.

There are many links talking about this do your own research or talk to my friend at NIF Ed Moses. If you want to also talk to John Holdren,Ralph Cicerone,David Sandalow et al. We are going to triple our national budget for fusion research and development. sit on your butt and let others do your research no way. By the time you finishe sitting on your butt the fusion reactor will be out.

If you know so much about the NIF can you please explain how on earth are they going to sustain the fusion reaction with a fuel pellet that is the size of a grain of rice?

It really is tiny and the fuel would be exhausted in microseconds not hundreds to thousands of seconds and there is no way of reloading the system on the fly so how are they going to do it?

• "do your own research"

I have and from what I have read the NIF is not aiming for a sustainable reaction but rather a net gain in energy or in other words more energy from the fusion process than they used in the LASERS that trigger the fusion.

So if you have something that contradicts this please give us a link.

Read the latest on fusion, Science News under the section the heading Physics. Warwick, we are making progress Masu and Yuval.

We Americans are not sitting around, our timetable is 2012 but I feel that 2013 is more like it. This article was published Jan 10,2011 at 10:30 AM.

Can you please give us a link to the article, trying to find a specific article in the several billion on the internet is nigh on impossible and you can never be sure we are reading the same thing without a link.

I think he has no reference to give, truth talks, BS walks...

Based on what I have been reading in articles, sustained and controlled fusion is possible in three years or less, marked my word on it, I am very confident if my country tells me that I will have to believe. I am a positive person not a skeptic.

Based on what I have been reading in articles, sustained and controlled fusion is improbable in three years or less, marked my word on it.

I am a positive person but always sceptical of outlandish claims especially when the claims of sustainable fusion are being made for equipment that is in no way designed to create a sustainable reaction.

The NIF set up is designed to trigger nuclear fusion in a small grain of rice sized fuel pellet by bombarding it with a whole host of LASER beams all focused on the fuel pellet. The whole idea is to demonstrate that in principle fusion can be triggered with lasers rather than the compressed magnetic fields one finds in tokomak type fusion reactors. At best it will be able to demonstrate that it is possible to get more energy from the fuel pellet than is used to trigger the fusion but that's as good as the current NIF facility can go. That's just the way it's designed and constructed.

A sustainable fusion reaction would take a completely different design that had both a way of adding more reactants to the fusion core as well as a method of containing the reaction in a useful manner. Now considering the construction of the current NIF setup ran 5 years behind schedule and that they don't have the equipment for a sustainable reaction even on the drawing boards makes it pretty much unlikely that we will see a sustainable fusion reaction from the NIF in the next 2 to 3 years. Going by past performances 10 to 20 maybe but even that would be a push.

As for other facilities I do not know, however, I would be extremely surprized if North Korea or Iran even managed to trigger a fusion reaction in the next decade let alone a sustainable one. China and the USA Tokomak type reactors might get to the sustainable reaction in the next decade but even if they do a workable nuclear fusion plant would be at least another decade or two past that.

Don't get me wrong, I think nuclear fusion is definitely the way to go, however, the technology is in its infancy and to date nobody has been able to trigger then sustain a fusion reaction that returns more energy than is taken to trigger it.

It's a bit like trying to start a fire with a match. So far we have been able to get the match burning but before we can set fire to the real fuel the match keeps going out.

We will get there I am certain of that but it's definitely not going to be in the next two years.

Good thing about fusion is that, we know about its existence. Even if it takes five decades to get hold of the working method for power generation, it is still worth working on various plans to catch the key of controlled fusion. Acquired knowledge to production of power will not take much time.

Underestimating the capability of bottom level countries bound to come with surprised results. What about uncontrolled fusion experiments?

• What about uncontrolled fusion experiments?

Aren't they called hydrogen bombs.

Yes, those experimental bangs were named so.

The USA does not lie, if we say 2012 then it is 2012. Go talk to Ed Moses,the director of NIF at Livermore.

Shiva LASER firing experiment on Hydrogen capsules experiment started some 30+ years ago. I am tracking it from that long. I think you are born much later.

Exactly. But even an H-Bomb is not sustainable in the sense that these guys hope for.

It's like, we know how a photon-pulse engine could work, but this doesn't mean we can carry a future human colony to the nearest star-orbiting planet...

These are all about wishful thinking, not an evolving technology for the foreseeable future.

Is it that fantasy is so easy, or that reality is so hard ?

Some say within three years, I say within five years we are going to have a workable fusion reactor, Iran says even faster and China say this year. But tell them you first hear it from me. I talk to some of my buddies in that field and they are true optimists.

Several of my friends who are nuclear physicists, just came back from a trip to China and visited other nuclear physicists, and said that China is very confident that sustained and controlled fusion will be achieved in the very near future. Whatever that means. To me it means one or two years.

Read the article,"One Step Closer to Fusion", www.articlesbase.com

http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/one-step-closer-to-nuclear-fusion-4029258.html

Judge for yourselves:

One Step Closer to Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion, the process of fusing two atomic nuclei together thus releasing large quantities of energy, is a power that the energy sector has long sought, but to little applicable avail. It is literally the power of the stars, but here on Earth it has been a struggle to try and contain such a fusion reaction, which requires extensive energy to create the magnetic fields necessary to contain the fusion plasma. This results in limited energy output since much of the energy created by the fusion reaction is utilized to run the very equipment that creates the magnetic fields that contain it.

However, Researchers at the University of Warwick's Centre for Fusion Space and Astrophysics and the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy believe they have uncovered a way to finally make fusion energy viable. Using computer simulations that allow researchers to look inside a plasma reaction they have discovered what they have long pondered to be true: that the alpha particle waves researchers have observed and channeled on the exterior of a fusion reaction are also present within the reaction and increase in strength throughout the life of the reaction.

"These large scale computer simulations capture the plasma dynamics in unprecedented detail and have opened up an exciting new area," said University of Warwick researcher Professor Sandra Chapman.

Retrieved from "http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/one-step-closer-to-nuclear-fusion-4029258.html"

(ArticlesBase SC #4029258)

CR4 Admin: Modified Post

Copyright Violation: Reduced copied text according to copyright law. Please see Section 13 of the CR4 FAQ about posting copyrighted material.

The race for nuclear fusion power is on, the experts in the USA have ask for a ten fold increase for this year's budget for fusion, they think that they are on to some thing. China you know what they are doing, they are not sitting on their butts, they are on heavy pursuit of the "Holy Grail".

Read another article by Green Tech, Jan 28 2011. Fusion is moving from the lab to reality in a few years, said Wal Van Lierop.

Iran says it will have an operable fusion reactor no later than 2020.

• "Iran says it will have an operable fusion reactor no later than 2020."

Be realistic, Iran can't even get the F-14 Tomcat fighters the US sold them before the revolution to fly, so what chance have they got of getting a fusion reactor to even initiate by 2020 let alone build a stable reactor that is usable.

Besides Iran's nuclear projects are more directed to nuclear weaponry rather than the peaceful use of the technology to generate electricity.

Keep in mind, when you are talking about Iraq you are talking about a regime hat denies that the holocaust ever occurred so how much faith does that give you in what they say.

I just spoke to some of the experts in this field, they say the hardest part is initiating the reaction now the USA already done it. 1.3 mega joules for several billionths of a second, that means if this was sustained it would be enough energy to supply 55% of the the world's energy needs. Now with the help of the super computers they can design something that can keep this reaction going indefintely--- they say 2012, I will be happy 2013.

"...if this was sustained ..." - need we say more ?

Several billionths of a second is a long way from a sustainable reaction and in all the reactors I have seen they haven't even thought about how to keep up a continual supply of reactants let alone how they are going to convert the several million degree kelvin heat source to some sort of usable energy.

Fusion reaction is definitely the way of the future but it's a hell of a lot more than a couple of years away.

A couple of decades maybe, but considering the complexity of the problem and bureaucracy that needs to be overcome to build a commercial fusion reaction power generating plant I very much doubt we would see one within at least 30 years.

However, I do sincerely hope that I am wrong and that a viable fusion power plant is achievable much sooner.

Several billionths of a second is also controversial as to the validity of findings given, because it gets to the validity of the measurement-methodology, as well as beyond doubt, to be well above "quantum background noise".

It is mind boggling, several billionths of a second with 1.3 million megajoules which can powered almost the entire world or five times the USA. The race is on between China and us,this is a serious matter, we are after the Holy Grail. We will spare no amount of money nor time. The super computers will lead us to pay dirt dirt.

If an event is in the order of Picoseconds it is still ttheoretically measurable. Keep in mind that the theoretical limit of physical event measurement is 12 Attoseconds (10⁻¹⁸ second).

Validating findings in such orders of magnitude is very controversial as to the validity of the measurement, and as to the interpretation of such findings. This is by no means definite, or "something to write home about", because such finding, even if they are honest, are within the margins of error regarding any available, agreed upon technology.

Furthermore, even if confined fusion, at any temperature whatsoever, is controllable for a whole second, or say even an hour, it is still not viable for energy production, because a continuous, reliable energy-exchange system has to rely on the reaction's durability and stability, to the realm of industrial-scale production.

We are not even nearly there, except for in our wishful thinking.

As Masu stated, confining such high temperature (and resulted pressures) is even more critical than achieving continuous reaction, so, as we are not here nor there in that respect, we are allowed to dream on, but not to expect anything in the foreseeable future, and some say, never at all, regarding confinement that is.

In other words, some physicists say, that even if we somehow achieve a continuous fusion, we will never be able to produce the means to confine and control such phenomenon to anything usable other than "a bomb" - which is already done, some fifty years ago.

The Chinese are very tight lipped about a lot of things. But on Sept.

7,2006 or thereabouts, it was sustained for 3 seconds since then from all we know they have improved on that. If the Chinese can do it so can we. In fact some time this year China hope to master sustain fusion indefinitely. I hope that they can do it. It will be good news for everyone. But I hope that we can do it first.

But where are they going to get all the uranium they will need to run these reactors particularly if other counties like Australia are thinking of put limits on the amount of uranium that is exported.

Personally I would like to see more work being done in getting thorium reactors up and running as they don't have the potential problems with thermal runaway and meltdown or long life highly radioactive spent fuel that needs monitoring for hundreds of millennia.

Thorium reactors have numerous advantages over uranium reactors and could be up and running producing commercial power in less than a decade if the bureaucrats got off their fat arses and started treating our future energy needs with the urgency that is required.

PS: I apologise for the brief and skittish post but I'm stuck in hospital at the moment and have pipes and probes coming out of me which are making typing posts somewhat problematic .However I do strongly recommend following the link to the thread on thorium reactors and reading the thread thoroughly as it's a real eye opener.

Regards masu

The fuels people are using now are deuterium and tritium which are very plentiful. In fission we use uranium but in fusion we can use elements that are more plentiful. Sorry to hear that you are not feeling well,hope you get well soon.

When you are talking about hydrogen deuterium makes up approximately 0.0156% of the total while tritium is extremely rare and usually formed in the atmosphere due to interactions with cosmic rays.

Now that does mean that there is a lot of deuterium in the worlds oceans but you have to remember extracting it is extremely difficult to get hold of as it is chemical identical to hydrogen. Tritium is even harder to get hold of because of its extremely low concentration and again its identical chemical properties with hydrogen.

That's why heavy water costs so much and is handled like liquid gold.

By the way, the fusion reaction that is currently under development for the most part uses two deuterium nuclei which is different from that in the sun which in a convoluted way fuses four hydrogen nuclei.

The problem with getting a fusion process up and running is overcoming the repellent forces due to the positively charged protons in the deuterium nuclei. Every time you halve the separation of the two nuclei you double the repulsive force and you have to get them close enough for the nuclear forces to take hold and bond the protons and neutrons together.

Unfortunately that means really high temperatures and pressures which makes the process extremely difficult to contain. In fact it can only be contained in magnetic chambers where nothing comes in contact with the exquisitely hot fuel.

Unfortunately this means that a workable fusion power station is several decades away and while worth developing will probably be too late to alleviate the damage we are doing to the Earth's troposphere.

The reason I brought up the thorium reactor was that somebody mentioned that Chine was planning to build over 100 new uranium fission reactors with all their hang ups, problems, potential dangers and extremely dangerous spent fuel .

On the other hand given enough research money a workable thorium power station could be up and running within 10 to 15 years and give us the time we need to develop the fusion reactors properly. Unfortunately most of our politicians don't even know what a thorium reactor is nor what its advantages are over conventional fission reactors.

I really do recommend people reading the article in my CR4 Future Energy blog on Thorium reactors then come back to this discussing and tell me whether we should be giving the development priority to fusion reactors which will take decades at a minimum to be operational or Thorium reactors that could be up and running in a fraction of that time.

Thorium reactor, not in America, uranium, deuterium and tritium is hard enough.

This is a guess but I don't think you are following thinks and particularly so with the ones on thorium reactors and reading what they have to say.

So for your benefit I have coped the entire article into this thread, my pologis tothose that have followed the links.

Thorium fuelled fission reactors.

A ²³²Th reactor uses fission like the ²³⁵U reactors but there is a subtle difference in the way the reaction is moderated. Unlike ²³⁵U, ²³²Th will not sustain the fission reaction by itself. ²³²Th needs to be forced to fissile by bombarding it with slow moving neutrons. A ²³²Th reactor uses a core of ²³²Th and a neutron source. The neutron source is used to bombard the core and causes the ²³²Th to fissile and release vast amounts of energy. The reaction is a little more complex than the ²³⁵U fission so I will not go into it in depth.

The important factor is ²³²Th will not fission unless it is bombarded with neutrons from an external source and this makes the process inherently stable. In the event of a problem all you need to do is shut off the source of neutrons and the fission stops. This makes it impossible to have a runaway chain reaction that could result in an explosion or melt down.

Thorium ²³²Th reactors have several other advantages as well.

• They produce far less radioactive waste, about 3% compared to a ²³⁵U. The waste also remains radioactive for 500 years compared to the 250,000 to 20 million years for the ²³⁵U reactors.
• They can be used to burn Plutonium in the core as well as ²³²Th. This makes them a very effective way of getting rid of one of the most toxic substances known while reducing the amount of material available for the construction of nuclear weapons.
• ²³²Th is more abundant than ²³⁵U and requires considerably less processing to make it suitable for use in reactors.

It's not all good news however and one of the disadvantages of ²³²Th cores is that they need to be about twice the size of a conventional ²³⁵U core and this adds considerably to the cost of construction.

Currently there are reactors under construction in Spain and India and considerable further research needs to be carried out before the technology is ready for wide scale use.

²³²Th reactors would appear to have the potential to play a major part in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. We have however heard this before and the use of ²³⁵U reactors was once touted as the ultimate non polluting energy source.

What do you think? Are ²³²Th reactors the answer to our energy needs or are they just another form of nuclear power? Is the concept of storing the waste for 500 years acceptable or just as difficult to achieve as storing the waste for 250,000 years. Considering they can be used to destroy much of the waste from existing nuclear reactors and weapons, can we afford not to build and use them?

Read article by Kirk Sorenson, speaking about Thorium MSR, Jan 30,2011--Coal Strategy.

Fine, give us a link to them and I will be glad to.

http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/01/30/china-initiates-tmsr/