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Thread: Has the 5 trillion watt laser been discused yet?

  1. #1
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    Default Has the 5 trillion watt laser been discused yet?

    http://gizmodo.com/380291/inside-the...r-in-the-world

    I dunno, I dont think making a star inside a chamber is a good idea.

    I feel the same way about this as I did about the big bang machine

    http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archi...20/231148.aspx

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    Deuterium (Hydrogen-2) was used in high power chemical lasers for over 30 years now. Burst from that laser can actually destroy all optical sensors and optical elements (shattered lenses!) on Earth orbiting satellite. Also Deuterium is a great source of fusion energy. Only problem it is BLOODY expensive and very rare element on Earth! (theory sugest that Moon is a great source of Deuterium) and No it'll not solve energy crisis.

    Actually Hydrogen is expensive to produce too. So don't expect Hydrogen powered vehicles in your neighborhood by 2010!

    And yeah Oil reserve will run out in about 40 years...So we are doomed!
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

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    Quote Originally Posted by dream beamz View Post
    I dunno, I dont think making a star inside a chamber is a good idea.
    Meh... They've been shooting lasers at deuterium pellets for a long time now. No real risk there. Personally, I have more faith in the tokamak reactors than the laser-induced fusion process. Having to re-load the chamber is just so cumbersome... (Not to mention powering up the lasers after each shot takes a shitload of energy.) But then again, magnetic confinement hasn't done very well either. Sigh. As the old saying goes: Sustainable, net positive energy fusion reactors are just 20 years away, and have been so for the last 40 years!

    Only problem it is BLOODY expensive and very rare element on Earth! (theory sugest that Moon is a great source of Deuterium) and No it'll not solve energy crisis.
    There is a shitload of Deuterium in the world's oceans. (Even when you're talking about a small fraction of a percent, it adds up when you're talking about 75% of the surface of the planet.) However, it's a bitch to separate it.

    If they crack the fusion nut, it will go a long way towards solving the energy crisis. However, heavy investment in concentrated solar energy would do it too, and that wouldn't require any new technology. (Just motivation and money.) We could do it right now if we weren't pissing our money away on other things...
    Actually Hydrogen is expensive to produce too. So don't expect Hydrogen powered vehicles in your neighborhood by 2010!
    For sure! Hydrogen is a storage medium, not a fuel. People always forget that you can't just pump hydrogen out of the ground like you can with oil. One day we might see a hydrogen economy, but I seriously doubt it will be anytime soon. (Maybe not even in my lifetime.)
    And yeah Oil reserve will run out in about 40 years...So we are doomed!
    Bullshit. *Cheap* oil may very well run out in 40 years. However, there is more oil locked up in the tar sands and shale deposits in North America that has *ever* been pumped from the ground in the entire span of recorded history.

    The difference is that in the Middle East, you expend 1 unit of energy to pump out anywhere from 28 to 35 units of energy, where as with tar sands you expend 1 unit of energy to unlock just 4 or 5 units of energy from the soil. So it's much more expensive. But to say we will "run out of oil" anytime in the next 100 years is totally false.

    That's not to say that we shouldn't be working on other solutions, mind you. But the sky certainly isn't falling. Don't forget the Fischer-Tropsch process either; when we finally *do* run out of oil we'll still have shitloads of coal to use as feedstock for synthetic fuels. (Hey, maybe by then controlled, sustainable, energy positive fusion will be just 20 years away.)

    Adam

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    Well ok "cheap" oil but do you know how much is to extract oil from sand. It's up to 5 times more expensive. Who will pay that much money. Fusion...they already cracked it. But it's too expensive to produce Deuterium (This is only safe fusion so far) (there is a believe that Moon has it in pure form). Even expensier then it's bigger brother. It's bigger brother can be only made by electrolysis or chemical reaction. If someone discovers cheaper way...this someone will be the riches person on Earth. Solar panels are not efficients enough to provide any meaningful power. Wind turbines? You need shitload of them. Plus oil corporations kill anything related to discover and use of alternative sources. So we are doomed
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

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    soforene is offline The Troll formerly known as Herbert Von Poople-Futtocks
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    Smile

    I've just come back from the pub and was in good spirits (or should I say good spirits were in me) until I read this post.
    We're all doomed ya say?

    40 years eh?

    What do I care.
    I'll be an old man pissing my pants and dribbling down my T shirt (so no change there) so not being able to pay £500 per gallon for petrol won't matter one jot to me.
    My Electro-Hover mobility scooter will have enough charge to get me between the old folks home and the pub so I'll be OK.

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    Deuterium isn't that expensive and certainly not rare. The cost of making heavy water is around $300/kg, this can be compared to the cost of extracting gold from rocks at over $6000/kg (though deuterium is 6 times as abundant as gold on earth). Deuterated compounds are commonly used by chemists, especially as solvents for NMR spectroscopy (I have only used heavy water and deuterated chloroform myself, but there are many more available).

    If by deuterium's bigger brother you mean tritium it is one of those synthetic isotopes. This means you need a nuclear reactor to make it; only trace amounts of it is found in nature. Small amounts are produced in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation, but the steady-state global inventory is estimated to a mere 2.65kg. By comparison 225kg of tritium was produced in the US from 1955 to 1996. The current tritium concentration in the atmosphere is highly elevated due in no small part to the nuclear tests however.

    What you must remember when it comes to fusion is that a tiny amount of fuel goes a long way. To give you an idea, thermonuclear bombs typically contain around 4g of tritium, of which only a fraction of a gram is actually needed in the reaction (the rest is just there to compensate for the fast decay of tritium). Fuel cost will be the least of your concerns when it comes to fusion power.

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    For sure! Hydrogen is a storage medium, not a fuel. People always forget that you can't just pump hydrogen out of the ground like you can with oil. One day we might see a hydrogen economy, but I seriously doubt it will be anytime soon. (Maybe not even in my lifetime.)
    Actually, on my recent trip to Disney, GM had a little display. They had 1 turbo charged hydrogen powered Hummer called the H2H. They also had a small SUV powered completely by hydrogen. I talked to the lady there and she said they will be on the market in 5-10 years and that the biggest delay is having places to fill them up. Pricewise, she said it would cost 1.90 per "gallon" to fill up. Per "gallon" meaning the amount of hydrogen it would take to equal what a gallon of gas can produce. I also asked here what would stop someone from building a device in thier garage to produce the hydrogen to fill up the vehicle, she said, "nothing!"

    I guess we'll see!

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    Well, well, well, ....
    I watched the 1st vid, and I think they're going to blow something up; whether it be so.cal or just the block, i dunno. Y'all sound like like CR4- (It's a compliment) with the intelligent conversation going on here, but I just dont know.. hydrogen fuel cells that run at astronomical temperatures or fusion or fission .. or solar. The best thing would be to derive a more efficient solar cell.. bloody f'in hell--we've had the same 'solar-cell' technology now for what.. 20 years??? of those little blue-black squares with the solder looking silver lines in the middle? If we took all that money and invested it in a new solar cell technology in order to derive all the energy from the sun, we could store it, use it, have it and do it all!! ... day or night ...

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    Quote Originally Posted by buffo View Post
    Meh... They've been shooting lasers at deuterium pellets for a long time now. No real risk there. Personally, I have more faith in the tokamak reactors than the laser-induced fusion process. Having to re-load the chamber is just so cumbersome... (Not to mention powering up the lasers after each shot takes a shitload of energy.) But then again, magnetic confinement hasn't done very well either. Sigh. As the old saying goes: Sustainable, net positive energy fusion reactors are just 20 years away, and have been so for the last 40 years!
    My problem is, creating an actual star has so many unknowns, what if it lives like a normal star and dies like one. What if it creates a black hole when it dies and sucks us all down with it.

    Also, I have always had a problem with nuclear energy of anytype even if it is not radioactive. The thing is, you are going against the way the earth was meant to sustain itself and actually adding to the planet where something didnt exist. Its like going and grabbing a ton of energy off another mass in space and bringing it to the earth, it messes up our over all equilibrium. I am sure in time our earths orbit actually suffers due to this although i have never bothered to google it.

    I could be way off in my theories but there is a chance that I am right. Who knows, long live the earth, well at least long enough for me to be on it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tocket View Post
    Deuterium isn't that expensive and certainly not rare. The cost of making heavy water is around $300/kg, this can be compared to the cost of extracting gold from rocks at over $6000/kg (though deuterium is 6 times as abundant as gold on earth). Deuterated compounds are commonly used by chemists, especially as solvents for NMR spectroscopy (I have only used heavy water and deuterated chloroform myself, but there are many more available).

    If by deuterium's bigger brother you mean tritium it is one of those synthetic isotopes.
    What I ment is Hydrogen

    And to produce Gases for research is one thing...Other thing is to mass produce it. Plus you need to put an efford to make it. Thats where the problem is. Dropping a zink plate in sulfuric acid works great for a lab but would not work as a mass production method.
    Last edited by Dr Laser; 04-23-2008 at 18:29.
    I hired an Italian guy to do my wires. Now they look like spaghetti!

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