Hey all, just saying you should watch our kickass video about our kickass fusion magnet. 24 tons, 4.3 meters tall, made with 300km of high-temperature superconducting tape, strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.
https://youtu.be/4PItOlY6_xE
#CES2016 #FusionEnergy #magnets
@stshank Things have sure changed since I worked on the magnetic fusion energy (MFE) project at the Livermore Labs in the mid 1980s.
It always made me nervous when I was in my office, just across a roadway from the both the small and the large (and I mean large in a big way - a city block long and eight stories high!!) magnetic chambers. I always wondered what could happen should that hot ball of plasma bouncing around over my shoulder were to escape.
@karlauerbach Well, our hot donut of plasma would puff out if it came into contact with air — it'll be hot but not dense, and we have to make it inside a vacuum vessel — so there wouldn't be any bouncing, rolling, or other acrobatics.
Interesting that LLNL ended up with inertial confinement fusion (lasers) at NIF.
@stshank I walked over to the inertial confinement project - it was not easy to get there because it was in the "inner sanctum" (more secure) part of the labs while we were in the less secure area.
The "ball of hot plasma" reminds me of the A. C. Clarke story "Out of the Sun" - https://www.quotev.com/story/13834974/Out-of-the-Sun-by-Arthur-C-Clarke
It was really spooky to be waking across the alignment (red) beams of the big laser tubes (they had gates that let one walk cross the beams). I remember everything being blue colored - our goggles, the windows, the floors - and the floors were intentionally sticky to minimize dust that could land on the color-changing lenses and would explode and create pits during a firing.
@stshank ok, that was cool. But now I want to actually see it lift an aircraft carrier.
