#104 Why Achieving “Fusion Ignition” Is Not Relevant to Practical Laser Fusion Progress
By Steven B. Krivit
February 4, 2022
On Aug. 8, 2021, researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, performed a laser fusion experiment that produced a fusion energy yield of 1.3 megajoules from 0.23 megajoules of energy delivered to the fuel capsule.
According to the NIF scientists’ definition, ignition occurs when the fusion process generates “energy equaling or exceeding the energy delivered to the capsule.” Thus, the experiment achieved ignition. It exceeded the ignition milestone by a factor of 5.6 times.
From a practical perspective, the Aug. 8, 2021, NIF experiment produced 1.3 megajoules of energy and consumed 400 megajoules.
Even though the NIF experiment demonstrated a burning plasma, the fusion device lost 99.7 percent of the energy it consumed. Also, it lasted for just one-billionth of a second.
This is an improvement from the prior year’s experiment, which lost 99.9 percent of the energy the device consumed.
The lab publishes this claim on its Web site: “Achieving ignition would be an unprecedented, game-changing breakthrough for science and could lead to a new source of boundless clean energy for the world.”
Now that the lab has achieved ignition according to its own definition, we know what that means in real numbers: 400 megajoules of electricity pumped into the device and 1.3 megajoules of fusion energy yield.
Now we know what ignition means in real numbers: The NIF device produced one-third of one percent of the energy it consumed. Now we know that the lab management’s claim that achieving ignition in laser fusion “could lead to new source of boundless clean energy for the world” is specious, at best.
For one-billionth of a second, NIF, funded by U.S. taxpayers at a cost of $3.5 billion, achieved ignition. In doing so, NIF lost 99.7 percent of the energy it consumed.
Every scientist at NIF knows that it was never intended for energy research but for nuclear weapons testing. But the lab has made little effort to stem the breathless news reports proclaiming that NIF is “one step closer to proving fusion as an energy source.”
– and they only needed 400,000 kilojoules to do it!
