The CERN game is huge in every respect

The giant piece of equipment in the photograph above, dwarves a man standing beside it. The photo was taken during the construction of the CMS detector for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  The photo shows a super-conductor magnet that one of 15 such sections that are a part of the Compact Muon Solenoid  (CMS) experiment that will form a magnetic field, 100,000 times stronger than that of the Earth, focused on two opposing beams of protons traveling at the speed of light towards each other, that, as it is hoped, will collide. The experiment is designed to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. In every case the research is without practical value as the pursuit is for objects that do not exist in the real world, but are imagined elements that are inherent the dream of an entropic Universe. 

The CMS experiment is one of six similar experiment stations (ALICE - ATLAS - CMS - LHCb - TOTEM - LHCf ) which are all parts of the Large Hadron Collider complex.  The collider complex consists of a 27 Km long complex of two circular vacuum chambers that are surrounded by 1,600 superconductor magnets, most of them weighing 27 tons each, which are cooled with  96 tons of liquid helium to a temperature colder than outer space. The giant accelerator ring feeds the experiment stations. The entire gigantic facility is constructed more that 160 feet underground and exists for only one purpose, to accelerate two proton beams to 99.999999% of the speed of light, in opposite directions, and then collide them into each other in various different ways, at the various experiment stations located around the gigantic ring. A collision velocity of 14 trillion electron volts is expected to be achieved, in order to force protons to collide, which naturally repel each other with one of the strongest forces in the Universe, the electric force. The collision is intended to break them apart. This kind of process does not occur naturally anywhere in the Universe as far as can be determined, but is naturally guarded against by universal principles.
 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN) 

Here the world of strange exotic questions begins.

One question is whether the protons can be forced to collide at all. Protons are nuclear particles that carry a positive electric change, and a basic law of the electric force is that particles of the same charge repel each other. The protons should get out of each other's way and should not collide. But can this natural principle be over-powered with brute force? While protons are 100,000 times smaller than the smallest atom, it is believed that the two opposing beams of protons can be magnetically concentrated sufficiently so that some protons will collide, and that the resulting collision will break the protons apart. A proton is known to be made up of three parts, called quarks. A proton may thus be likened to a garlic bulb made up of three gloves. However, it is believed that there may exist a fourth clove, a theorized particle, a "boson." The searched for theorized particle (theorized by a man named Higgs) is believed to give matter its quality of mass. 

The three quarks that make up a proton are deemed to have  no 'substance,'  but exist as but fast-moving points of energy, which therefore should have no mass. Indeed, particles without mass are known to exist, such as the photon. So, where does the mass of matter come from? It is hoped that by smashing two protons together, by which their 'cloves' (quarks) will separate, so that the Higgs boson will separate with them, that the Higgs boson will pop out and can be detected. The problem is that the quarks are held together by the nuclear strong force, the absolute strongest force in the Universe that nobody has ever been able to break. The six experiment stations that have been constructed at CERN are designed to observe in different ways what happens when the 'impossible' is happening. 

The Higgs isn't the only object for the research conducted at CERN, other objectives include the science fiction type discovery of "extra dimensions" and the nature of "dark matter" that no instrument has ever been able to detect, but which is deemed to exist to justify the theory of a gravity-only powered Universe that is centered on the Big Bang model, an intrinsically entropic Universe-model.

Are we looking at a trap?

The effort that is expended in CERN's unnatural quest is enormous. The largest of the experiment stations ( ATLAS  ) is so enormous that it dwarves a person standing beside it into insignificance. The question that presents itself from this scale alone, is a simple one: is it all worth it? As of December 2009 more than 2900 scientists from 172 institutes in 37 countries are working on the ATLAS experiment all by itself. Are their talents wasted? Mankind doesn't have an infinite supply of leading-edge scientists. Since 'success' is by no means guaranteed, one of the scientists has joked that the entire gigantic installation may turn out to be merely the largest piece of exotic art ever created. Such is the nature of the quest of exploring the unnatural, that which should not be possible, and even then would have no purpose that applies to living in the natural world. 

We may be looking at a trap that is designed to consume a dimension of our humanity without which mankind has no future, in order to prevent a bright future from being created by mankind in which the masters of empire and their unnatural environment would have no place. Empire is after all nothing more than the chaotic outcome itself, of 'active' research - an unnatural consequence of powered interventions that create unnatural environments. Empire and its monetarism is of this type of intervention, just as the Nazi Death Camp experiments have been, and the Salem Witch Trials of the late 1600s, and so on. The coerced devolution of science by means of unnatural pursuits matches this type of profile and its consequences.

The CERN experiment may well turn out to be a giant flop, and may thereby also serve its objective 

In physical terms it may well be that the force of mass in the Universe is simply a basic quality of intention of the Intelligence that is reflected in the construction of the Universe, as are all the other forces, such as the nuclear strong force, the nuclear weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the force of gravity. The current insistence in nuclear physics is, that every physical effect must have a physical cause. But ultimately, a border is crossed where this logic no longer applies, where the underlying stratum for physics has to be some form of pure intention, which underlies the harmonized vast chain of constructs that serves the ultimate intention of the Universe, which evidently is, for it to exist. 

It cannot be said that everything that exists has no purpose and simply fell together strictly accidentally by physical reactions. The orders of complexity of everything that exits is immensely too great for one to assume that it all resulted as the construct of accidental accretion. Thus, the question of what is truth really begins at this point. 

On this issue the Large Hadron Collider effort becomes questionable. All the objects of its investigation are built around the Big Bang theory of an accidental explosion that created the Universe out of nothing in a sequence in which everything somehow fell into place in such a remarkable manner that a vast Universe resulted with a harmonizing complexity that defies the imagination. This approach to reality doesn't make sense, but this is the bases that the LHC effort is built on. It thereby has all the hallmarks of an intentional dead-end effort along the Sarpien, Fabian, Wellsian line of policy direction.

The Higgs boson, for example, is deemed to have resulted in the Big-Bang explosion out of nothing, and is deemed thave then attached itself to the quarks that became the protons, neutrons, and the electrons that formed the atoms of the Universe. The dark matter theory is likewise inherent in the Big Bang theory of the Universe. Dark matter is like the fudge factor that the ancient astronomers had required to construct in their mind a Universe without gravity, imagining epicycles and equants, and the like, in order to make the observed phenomena in the Universe match their perception of it. This is still being done. In today's world, blindfolded science imagines a Universe that exists without the electric force, that is governed by gravity alone. Dark matter thereby becomes the modern correlative to the imagined epicycles that astronomers had played with, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, to explain the orbits of the planets that had defied the basic postulate in astronomy at the time, which degreed that the orbits must be along perfect circles. It took astronomers fifteen centuries to snap out of their ignorance of the existence of universal gravity, which Johannes Kepler accomplished in the early 1600s. The Big Bang 'epicycles' (dark matter) may persist for some time yet, until the already known truth of the electric cosmology becomes accepted, which has no need to explain the observed phenomena in the Universe with the mystical concept of "dark matter" (which no person or instrument can see, such as the black holes). The LHC  research project at CERN, unfortunately, is totally committed to proving these exotic physical mythologies, the imagined 'epicycles.'

The danger is that the hoped for proof can also be imagined, by imaginary interpretations of the results. Then it will be said that the proof exists, which proves the Big Bang theory as fact, which thereby would hide the truth more intensively, rather than lay it bare so that it can be universally understood.

Black Arts Fantasies and Epicycles

The most common fantasy of the black-art 'science' is that of the existence of black holes in space.

Black holes are deemed to be the result of collapsed stars that have shed their energy when by the force of gravity its atomic structures collapsed, leaving in their wake the electrically neutral "neutrons"  that by gravity condensed into a neutron star, a star with half its original mass condensed 100,000 times. The resulting gravity is deemed to be so great that not even light can escape from it.

That's a fascination fairy tale, that only exists in the realm of fantasy, not in the real world, because neutrons do not exist in stable form outside of their function within an atomic nucleus. The neutrons that are expelled by nuclear fission reactions, in a nuclear power reactor, or elsewhere, decay within minutes into protons, unless they collide with something else by which they become absorbed and fulfill their original function. Free, stable neutrons simply don't exist. The decay of the neutrons into protons appears to be the Universe's protection against the forming of neutron stars that would eventually consume the Universe. For this reason the Universe has wisely designed for its self-protection a principle by which stable neutrons don't exist, so that neutron stars cannot happen, which are therefore sheer fantasies. Neither are proton stars possible. Protons carry an electric charge that forces them to repel each other. And this force is 39 orders of magnitude greater than gravity.

The Wellsian fantasy

A key element in the entropic world-view, that empire deploys, is the entropic Universe represented by the self-consuming Sun. A lot of what comes out of the chambers of imperial science (so-called), is promoting the notion that everything is entropic. This train of thinking that chokes science follows precisely the direction outlined by H. G. Wells who had warned the empire of his time of the danger that the advance of science poses to its existence. Thus empire champions the perversion of science, the pursuit of black-art mysteries in the name of science, such as the fusion-sun, the astrophysical black-hole (fantasy), the dark-matter (epicycles), and of course the gravity-driven and power-devoid, decaying Universe that itself has no future.  H.G. Wells would have hailed the Large Hadron Collider project, for example. With his flagship novel, The Time Machine, Wells was saying to the masters of empire of his time, you fools! Can't you see that if you don't curtail the natural advance of science, and turn it upside down, the Morlochs will eat you for breakfast? 

Wells' warning is being heeded 

If one considers the devolutionary pressure that the force of empire naturally brings to bear on science, it is not surprising that the empire's flagship of science, the Large Hadron Collider is designed to focus on dead-end issues and black-art mysteries, big-bang related stuff, including the search for "alternate realities." The LHC is 'consuming' the cream of the leading edge scientific talents by directing their focus onto dead-end pursuits, rather than developing these talents for the realization of productive pursuits. 

Not too long ago, a great problem arose for the masters of empire that nearly wrecked everything at the very core. It had greatly endangered their cherished entropic theory of the fusion powered sun . The problem was that the Sun didn't produce the huge amounts of neutrinos that a nuclear fusion engine with the power output of the Sun should be producing. Only a trickle was forthcoming. Electron neutrinos are generated whenever neutrons decay into protons, or protons are converted to neutrons - called beta decay. The neutrinos that should be detected coming from the fusion-powered Sun were glaringly missing. Neutrinos are high-energy particles that have almost no mass, which are deemed able to pass clear through a planet. An extensive network of 192 sensors had been deployed deep under water at a depth of 3,600 feet at the bottom of Lake Baikal in Russia (the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope facility  - NT-200), in search for the neutrinos. The sensors could be made supersensitive, being isolated into total 'silence' from all but extremely high-powered particles. But the expected neutrinos could not be detected. 

This 'dangerous' problem, which had deeply challenged the fusion-sun theory, was eventually solved with a new theory that states that the Sun is powered by an exotic type of fusion reaction that produces its power by creating free protons instead of neutrons. Protons don't decay, so that the expected flux of neutrinos was no longer required to keep the fusion-sun theory alive, thereby salvaging the theory. The salvaging of the theory was essential for empire, lest anybody would dare to think that the vast electric power flows, that power the Sun externally, might be tapped into as an inexhaustible power-resource for mankind's use. 

See: The Electric Universe - classes of perception

The myth of helium-3 being an ideal nuclear fusion fuel appears to be linked to the new fusion-theory that has salvaged the model of the fusion-powered Sun, while it has not been demonstrated than an actual power production plant, based on helium-3 fusion, is possible. Helium-3 is hailed as the "clean" fusion fuel, because it produces protons instead of neutrons, of which it is said that they can be converted directly into electricity. This conversion process, too, has not yet been demonstrated as being possible on a practical scale. As will be presented later, the only experimental helium-3 reactor that is operating in the world requires a million times greater energy input than it gives back. The reason for this will be developed later on this page.

The lack of practically useful results throughout the entire field of fusion-power development, so far, appears to be not for the lack of imaginary approaches. Many different approaches have been tried: Tokamak, Levitated Dipole, Riggatron, Field-Reversed Configuration, Reversed Field Pinch, Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor, Spheromak, Laser Fusion, Z-machine, Focus Fusion, Farnsworth–Hirsch Fusor, Bussard Polywell, Muon-catalyzed Fusion, Heavy Ion Fusion, Magnetized Target Fusion, Colliding Plasma Toroid Fusion, Cold Fusion, Sonofusion, Pyroelectric Fusion,  and others. A rather novel approach is the proposed "crossfire fuser" that is built on getting around some of problems inherent in the above approaches, which too, will be touched on once more later.
 see: http://www.crossfirefusor.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html

Nuclear-fusion power-production isn't happening naturally in the Universe

One fundamental aspect might prevent the entire concept of fusion power from becoming realizable. This is an aspect that one would rather not consider, though it appears to be ultimately the key consideration. The consideration is that nuclear-fusion-power science may be a trap that places science into an unnatural pursuit of a process that doesn't happen anywhere in the Universe, which the Universe has in effect created a natural barrier against, for its self-protection. While nuclear fusion is technologically possible and has been achieved, the resulting power also extinguishes the 'flame.' If this principle did not exist, runaway fusion might extinguish the Universe. 

Another question is, why would the Universe operate a nuclear fusion-power process that is inherently entropic, by which the Universe becomes self-consuming in principle? The Universe evidently doesn't operate on this platform, but is expanding, nor does it need to create power. It is flush with it. The Universe is power. Vast flows of electric power pervade the Universe. This fact is well known, and has been known for quite a few decades already. The 'unnatural' promise for nuclear fusion power may have been a diversion intended to keep mankind tied into knots, looking for new power sources in all direction but the most obvious one, the one that powers the Universe, the electric power that powers the Sun.

When seen in the light of helium-3 nuclear fusion:
 Is fusion power on Earth a panacea or delusion?

A notion has been started in the sciences that helium-3 is the ideal fuel for nuclear-fusion power-reactors on Earth, because the fusion process results in kinetic energy for direct electricity production, rather than fast neutrons that are destructive and can only be used for energy production by their conversion to heat. Fast neutrons from fusion reactions are destructive, because they are typically 100 times more intense in a fusion reactor than in a fission reactor. Their enormous intensity makes the surrounding metals of a reactor's structure radioactive and rapidly weakens the metal's structural lattice. This so-far unresolved problem has created a barrier against the practical usefulness of nuclear fusion-power systems, should the fusion process itself become practical.  

This rarely-mentioned barrier is so great that helium-3 fusion is now being hailed as an ideal fusion fuel, because its fusion produces only kinetically energized atoms whose motion energy, when the atoms are ionized, can be converted directly into electricity. The direct conversion offers a three times greater efficiency (90% vs 30% over steam powered conventional electricity generation). However, helium-3 fusion doesn't happen easily on Earth. It takes immense amounts of energy for the helium-3 to fuse. Helium-3 doesn't fuse well, because its two protons give it a significantly higher Coulomb barrier (energy barrier) that requires a dramatically greater energy input for helium-3 fusion to happen, than is encountered with the 'conventional' deuterium-tritium fusion fuel that is presently used for all fusion experiments, which still doesn't fuse  well either, though it fuses far more readily than helium-3 does. 

Currently the fusion fuel is a D-T mixture  - consisting of deuterium (hydrogen-2) and tritium (hydrogen-3). Both are 'heavy' isotopes of hydrogen that have atomic structures that are supercharged with an extra neutron or two, which makes them, being 'heavy,' easier to fuse. However, the resulting neutron damage that is caused by the fusion process is so great that after a single series of D-T tests at the currently largest experiment at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility, which is able to produce 10 megawatts of fusion power sustained for half a second, has caused the vacuum vessel to become so intensely radioactive that remote handling needed to be used for an entire year following the tests. The neutron-caused damage is one of the factors that makes D-T fusion impractical, for which helium-3 is now hailed, because it doesn't cause this damage, even while it doesn't fuse well and has to be imported from the moon. The helium-3 fusion hoopla is essentially an emergency-type response to save the fusion-power concept, which appears to be doomed by the neutron damage.

Since Helium-3 does not fuse well, a compromise options is being considered for which only deuterium would be used as fusion fuel. If D-D fusion would cause less neutron damage, because of its lower neutron energy (2.45 MeV versus 14.1 MeV). However, for this fusion to be possible the energy confinement would have to be 30 times better, while the power produced would be 68 times less. This inherent inefficiency makes the D-D fuel impractical too. 

Another alternative fuel to helium-3, which would likewise produce no neutrons, which would be the cleanest of them all, would be a mixture of normal hydrogen and boron. However, for this fuel to fuse, the energy confinement would have to be 500 times better than what is required for the D-T reaction, and the power density would be 2500 times lower than for D-T. This even greater inefficiency makes the fuel even more impractical.

Considering that the only helium-3 test reactor that is operating on the planet today requires a million times more energy input than the fusion gives back, and that the helium-3 fusion is nevertheless hailed because of its zero neutron damage, gives an indication of how great a problem the neutron damage is creating. Apart from this problem the D-T fusion's on inefficiency in fusing creates another large barrier.

While the thermal break-even point has been crossed with D-T fusion for short periods in the most leading edge magnetic-confinement fusion systems, a three-fold gain in continuous operation is required for any practical system just to reach the break-even point. This 3-fold larger fusion power is neccessary due to the inefficiency in the thermal to electricity conversion. 

In magnetic confinement systems, the big problem currently isn't located in causing the D-T fusion to happen. The problem is to get enough of it to happen, and then to contain the reaction in a steady state as it happens without the fusion process 'blowing itself out.' The greater the fusion- power-level is, the more difficult it becomes to contain the plasma in which the fusion takes place. And since the D-T fusion creates helium, the fuel mixture becomes diluted, preventing continuous operation. In order to combat these two problems, the machines are made bigger. In bigger machines the plasma confinement becomes less critical as the reaction chamber becomes lager in volume. However, for the larger machines, an even greater containment power is required. This puts the effort into a vicious circle as if the Universe had natural laws established against the fusion-power process from succeeding. We are literally fighting against the Universe, and this fight is fast getting gigantic in scope, and we aren't winning.

In considering the ever-increasing barriers that are continually thrown up against our best technological capabilities, the practical realization of nuclear fusion as an energy source may never be attained. But then, we don't really need it, as is demonstrated later on this page.

But first, let's look some more at the scope of the problems, and what has already been achieved in efforts to overcome the problems associated with D-T fusion.
(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power )

The ITER - The world's leading edge planed experiment for magnetically confined nuclear fusion

The leading edge magnetic confinement fusion experiment, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, (ITER) is designed to be a giant magnetic-confinement fusion reactor. When completed in the 2020s, it will be standing 120 feet tall - a quarter the height the Great Pyramid of Egypt - and weigh 23,000 tons - three times the weight of the steel in the Eiffel tower.  

To date, only a scale model has been been built, see below, or an artist's rendering.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

The giant facility is currently designed to produce approximately 500 MW of fusion power when it is completed and is tweaked to its maximum in 30 years time.  It is expected that it will eventually be able to sustained its fusion burn for up to 1,000 seconds (16 minutes) with a hoped-for 5-10 fold energy gain (a 3-fold gain is required to break even if the thermal-to-electricity conversion is included). If the experiment is successful in 30 years time (10 years for the construction and 20 years for the refinement) this gigantic effort will demonstrate that 150 MW of electricity can be produced for short periods with a facility that will be the largest technological construct of all times, stand a quarter as tall as the great pyramid. Can this be called a success? It really can't, can it? 

If it takes a gargantuan infrastructure, the largest scientific instrument ever to be built - a quarter the height of the great pyramid in Egypt - to produce 150 MW of useful power, or the equivalent of 15% of what of a commercial (1000 MW) nuclear fission reactor power plant produces in uninterrupted power (which fusion has not yet been able to duplicate) then it unlikely that any practical machine built on the magnetic confinement principle can be scaled up for a commercial output of 1000 MW. Such a machine would likely have to be several times larger than the great pyramid in Egypt.

In addition another critical factor is now being recognized that is slowly being considered, which is structural damage. One concern is that the 14 MeV neutrons that are produced by the fusion reactions, will severely damage the materials from which the reactor is built. Research is in progress to determine how, and/or if, reactor walls can be designed that last long enough to make a commercial power plant economically viable in the presence of the resulting intense neutron bombardment and very high operating temperatures. The structural damage in the metals is primarily caused by high energy neutrons knocking atoms out of their normal position in the crystal lattice of the metals.  A new research facility is being planned for this materials research to begin in the early 2020s, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility ( IFMIF ).

Apart from neutron flux density, and its intensity, in a fusion reactor being extremely high (typically 100 times greater than that in a nuclear fission reactor) the resulting high-power environment is posing a huge problem for designing materials that can maintain their structural integrity for long enough periods and under extremely large thermal loads, such as occur in a fusion reactor (up to 10 MW/m˛acting on the materials facing the plasma). The material must be able to withstand such an extreme thermal flux without melting at the surface over the coolant, and for very long operating periods in the order of years rather than seconds. 

The actual research activity, for solving the materials problem, is not expected to even begin operation until far into the future, - currently 2017 the earliest when the IFMIF facility may begin operation, for which the construction has not even begun. When completed, the IFMIF (expected to be a 40-year long research project) will operate two parallel accelerators, each about 50 m long, producing beams of deuterium nuclei. These, on contact with a lithium target, become converted into high-energy neutrons that are used to irradiate materials specimens and to test components. Results from this research won't be available for the first-generation of the ITER reactor, but it is hoped that it will provide important contributions for the construction of commercial fusion reactors after the ITER project has run its course. Such construction, if it becomes feasible at all, won't happen until the 2050-2080 timeframe.
For details of the IFMIF, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFMIF  
- http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/e98/PAPERS/FRX03A.PDF  
- http://www.frascati.enea.it/ifmif/

To date, it is not possible to predict if the many problems inherent in magnetic confinement fusion will ultimately be solved, or even can be solved. 

Inertial confinement fusion at the National Ignition Facility

Instead of the fusion fuel being heated in a magnetically confined plasma, laser light can also be used to create a heat-shockwave that compresses a fuel capsule whereby is atoms are beginning to fuse.

Immense problems are likewise standing in the way of this type of laser-powered fusion-ignition systems (inertial confinement). Nevertheless some progress has been made on the road of demonstrating that fusion ignition is possible by simply compressing the fuel on the anvil of immense power being applied to it. The first laser-confined fusion ignition may be achieved by this method, this year (2010) at the National Ignition Facility, (NIF). But this doesn't mean that a practical power plant is on the horizon, or will actually be possible. 

To give you a sense of what sheer power means, let me illustrate the process. The process starts with the immense power of xenon flash bulbs (an electric arc confined in a gas plasma). A single one of these is so bright by itself that it could be seen from the moon. NIF employs some 8,000 of them, which together require nearly 400 MJ of electrical energy to pump up the laser lines. These flash lamps are of the largest type ever produced. (Photo by the U.S. Department of Energy)

The flashbulbs are used in groups powered by capacitor banks in the rooms beside the laser bays. Their light is fed into 192 large lasers, where the light's intensity is combined and amplified. The 192 lasers beams are then combined into groups of four, to form 48 beam lines (blue), where the beams are focused and filtered and then sent on to the switch yard (red) where they are timed and guided to arrive all of them together from different directions, at the 30 foot wide target chamber - a sphere weighing 130 tons - where, before entering the chamber, each beam is focused by a final optics system.

The NIF is a giant facility (which can been seen by scale of the people shown). It is three times larger than a football field. It is the most complex optical facility ever created. It is designed to produce altogether a 500 trillion-watt flash of light, precisely focused onto  a target smaller than a pea, with the light arriving from 48 directions simultaneously within picoseconds.

The fuel target is made up of a thin 2 mm wide shell of beryllium with a layer of solid deuterium-tritium deposited on its inner wall. The deposited fuel, weighing 0.238 mg, is frozen to minus 255 degrees Celsius,. The above photo (a mokup) indicates the size of the target capsule. 

The target capsule itself is located inside a 10mm long gold-plated tube (hohlraum) the size of the tip of a finger.  (See: http://fire.pppl.gov/fpa07_lindl_icf.pdf )

The 48 beams are focused to enter the hohlraum through a 2 mm hole on either end. 

In the hohlraum the light is converted to x-rays  that couple with the exterior of the fuel capsule. The thereby absorbed energy is creating a shockwave that compresses the fuel to roughly 75 times the density of lead. It thereby causes a fusion explosion with an energy release up to 11 Kg of TNT (dynamite) exploding (one thousands of the energy of the Hiroshima bomb, but concentrated to an en extremely short timeframe). The resulting explosion takes place inside a 30 foot wide target chamber. - See the image below. Note the construction worker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NIF_target_chamber.jpg

If ignition is achieved, the 365 megajoules (MJ) of electrical energy that powers the over 8,000 flash bulbs by way of 216 giant capacitor banks, and whatever additional energy is required to amplify the laser light, is expected to produce about 20 MJ of fusion energy - produsing a 15-fold energy loss (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility ). Improvements in both the laser system and the hohlraum design are expected to be possible, with which to improve the compression shockwave, which would increase the fusion energy to a theoretical 100 MJ.  The current hohlraum design is rated at 13MJ, but will likely be increased to 20 MJ. For the NIF, the baseline design allows for a maximum of about 45 MJ of fusion energy release, due to the design limits of the target chamber. If the maximum limit was achieved, the result would nevertheless amount to a nearly 7-fold net energy loss. 

see: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/C011127/TUAI001.pdf 
also: View Document of DOE amd OSTI http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.jsp;jsessionid=FB2EABB214F9DBA08760EAF2B833BF80?purl=/435064-dnjREm/webviewable/  - 
DOE -US. Department of Energy Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information  // OSTI  - Office of Scientific and Technical Informationhttps://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/
see: https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/
and: Optimization of the holeraum - Energy and Work Converter

It is unlikely that the large inefficiency in the system can be overcome, especially if one considers that a 3-fold gain is required just to achieve break-even (considering that the neutron to thermal to electric conversion is typically only 30% efficient). This means that at 21-fold increase in energy gain needs to be achieved, beyond the best that the facility is designed for, just to break even. And to top it all off, the facility produces an extremely low power-flux density. With the current hohlraum design, rated at 13 MJ, a total of 3,000 such firings would be required to meet the monthly energy need of a single-family home (typically 13 GJ - 13,000 MJ), with the conversion inefficiently of 33% from neutron to thermal to electric energy, included. A hohlraum, rated at 45 MJ which is only theoretically possible, corresponding the maximum yield that the target chamber is designed for, would still produce (with 100 kw/hrs input) only 12.5 kw/hr of output energy, the amount that an average home furnace produces in 42 minutes. (In automotive terms, the 45 MJ of fusion energy adds up to 16 horsepower hours.) That's not exactly a gigantic power production, although the facility that is required to produce this 16 horsepower/hr fusion output, is truly gigantic.

Actually the National Ignition Facility was not designed to reach the break-even point, or to produce power. It exists to merely demonstrate that fusion ignition is possible on the inertial confinement principle. The prospect for commercial fusion power on this principle appears to be dismal, considering the vast difference between the produced power flux and the size of the infrastructure for it. Commercial power production on this principle will likely not be possible - (even windmills are vastly more efficient). 
(about NIF see: https://lasers.llnl.gov/multimedia/publications/pdfs/pk_fun_facts.pdf )

Another major stumbling block that puts the entire process in doubt, is that the heat created within in the laser system itself, is so large that the system needs to cool down for roughly a day for the thermal distortion within it to disappear, before it can be reactivated. One of the goals for NIF is to reduce this time sufficiently to allow 700 firings a year. That's infinitely far from meeting the needs for a commercial plant. We are evidently miles away from constructing a viable power plant on a platform of the laser-confinement type, if it is indeed possible to do so. Presently the main mission of the NIF is to assure the viability of America's nuclear weapons stockpile. Fusion-power research appears to be a sideline project. 

It was known before the first stone was laid for the facility that the maximum fusion power obtained, would not exceed 1/7th of the power needed to ignite the fusion. This is the parameter the facility was designed for. However, the facility is an ideal tool for testing different fusion-fuel combinations and methods for laser ingnition. The deuterium-tritium fuel, that is currently used as it presents the slightest resistance to fusion, comes with a lot of problems attached. As stated earlier, a number of different fusion-fuel combinations are possible, that should not have this problem. They would produce atoms with high kinetic energy instead that might be directly converted into electricity. These are called aneutronic fusion fuels. As has been proposed, such fusion fuels:

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is one of the greatest technological marvels ever created. It aimed for the near impossible and achieved it. If it is radically upgraded, it might be made sufficiently powerful to test some of the more basic alternatives, like D-D fusion. Helium-3 fusion might not be achievable by the laser confinement method as it lacks the power to overcome the larger coulomb barrier. Thus, NIF, only fails on one count, that of not being able to achieve what the Universe has made no provisions for, or which the Universe itself has not achieved, or has created principles to inhibit for its self-protection, such as for preventing natural fusion 'explosions'.

Do we have any hope left, for nuclear fusion power to ever be possible?

If fusion power is ever to become practical, NIF may play a role as a tool for evaluating more readily available fusion fuels (such as the hydrogen/lithium-7 combination) and other fusion methods as the "fast-ignition method" (see below), and methods that have not yet been considered. It is extremely unlikely however, that laser compression will ever become a commercial fusion driver. The problem here is not located in the inefficiency of the fusion system itself, but in the inefficiency of the driving system. The present world record for any type of produced fusion power still clocks in at only 10% of the power required to achieve the fusion. In most of the publicized cases the fusion gain is overrated, which is easily done by 'dishonest' measurements.

- The fusion gain rating depends on what is measured

In rating the fusion energy gain, it all depends on what inputs one measures, and what is being ignored.

For example, the NIF facility can be said to achieve a more than 5-fold fusion power gain, if one considers only the 4 MJ of light energy as input that comes out of the laser lines, which one then compares this with the resulting 20 MJ fusion power output. 

The problem with this kind of measurement is, that it ignores the fact that it takes 350 MJ of electrical energy to produce those 4 MJ of light energy in the beam lines. But the fusion gain measurement can be further obscured, because the 4 MJ in laser light energy, is converted to 1.8 MJ of UV light before it enters the target chamber, and is converted again to a mere 900 KJ of x-ray energy in the hohlraum. So, what does one measure then? The conversion to x-rays is needed, because nothing but x-rays can cause the high energy absorption (coupling) to happen that is needed for fusion, which is the actual input to the fusion ignition. For this reason the fuel capsule has been constructed as a hollow shell to give it as large a surface area as possible in order to absorb the x-rays. For this reason the fusion-fuel capsule is made of a material that readily absorbs x-ray energy. Once this is done, in the end, only 140 KJ of energy is physically transferred to the fuel in the form of a heat-driven compression shockwave. Does one count this as the emery input? It is after all this last bit, those 140 KJ of energy that gets coupled into the fuel, which ignites the 20 MJ fusion burn.  All the rest is lost on the way. So, what does one measure if one talks about fusion energy gain?

For example, if the fusion energy is measured against the 4 MJ of light produced in beam lines, one can talk about a 5-fold energy gain. 

If the fusion energy is measured against the 1.8 MJ of (UV) light energy that is sent to the target chamber, then one can speak about an 11-fold fusion-energy gain. This appears to be the typical standard for measuring fusion efficiency.

If however, one measures the fusion output against the 900 KJ of x-ray energy that is produced inside the hohlraum, then one can talk about a 22-fold energy gain. 

Finally, if one measures the fusion output only against 140 KJ energy of the compression shockwave that acts on the fuel itself, then one can talk about a 142-fold energy gain. 

On the other other hand, if one is honest and considers the entire process that takes 350 MJ of electric energy as input to power the process, then one faces a 15-fold energy loss. 

This huge difference between the 142-fold fusion-energy gain and the 15-fold over-all loss, reflects the effective physical inefficiency of the entire operating system that in a practical application would have to be considered when judging the factors involved in an operational fusion power plant. 

At present it takes enormous floods of energy to overcome the numerous natural barriers that the Universe has set up against nuclear fusion to happen. And this is the case with the most-readily fusing fuel that exists, which is the D-T fuel, a 'dirty' fuel. The NIF research has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the wall of barriers that the Universe has created against fusion power is formidable.

The "fast-ignition" HiPER fusion

Some gigantic attempts are being proposed in the UK, ostensibly to overcome some of the inherent inefficiency problems experienced at NIF, with a new experimental project called HiPER - the proposed European High Power laser Energy Research facility.  This proposed project is just as large in size as the NIF facility but aims to address all of the problems that stand in the way of a practical commercial fusion-power facility on the platform of laser ignited fusion. While the goal appears noble, it displays the same quality of science-fiction unreality that is evident at the CERN project and may well be intended to consume talents and resources for an effort that is a dead-end effort from the start. 

Let's explore the challenges, which are all exciting but appear fundamentally unattainable, especially the critical challenges.

 - the OMEGA - type fusion

In order to overcome the inefficiency inherent in the design of the NIF,  the HiPER project aims to use less powerful lasers, but in a two-stage ignition process, called the "fast ignition" process. In this process the first stage towards ignition will surface heat a fuel pellet directly, causing not a shockwave but merely a 'moderate' thermal compression. Then a second and more powerful beam -- operating at a vastly larger energy density, but for a shorter duration, typically 0.5 pico seconds, up to 10 ps, called the "peta watt" laser,  will penetrate the compressing plasma and create a plasma within the fuel that is expected to release a shower of electrons, which in turn will start the fusion process. The penetration of the compression plasma can be accomplished by placing a gold cone funnel on one side of the fusion pellet for the penetration by the peta laser. A second method that is considered for fast fusion is to simply overpower the compression plasma and cause a spot-burn at the surface to start the ignition. The principle has been demonstrated at the OMEGA facility at The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) of the University of Rochester, that produced a 0.01 fusion gain by this methode (a world record).

The process is deemed to be 15 times more efficient. But will it work? It may be just a dream. The process has not been demonstrated, and cannot be demonstrated for another 15 years or more, until the facility has been completed.
( See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiPER )

The efficiency of the light source is also expected to be increased by HiPER. Since light emitting diode systems (LED) achieve the most efficient conversion of electricity to light, a 15-fold efficiency gain is expected for the light source. At NIF, the big inefficiency is in the light production that employs 8000 giant xenon flash lamps. Considering that 350 MJ of electrical energy is needed at NIF to produce the 1.8 MJ of UV light energy that is transmitted into the target chamber, the efficiency of the system reaches barely above the 1% mark. HiPER intents to achieve a 10% to 15% efficiency.  Whether this can be achieved remains to be seen. The dream may yet come true.

With the two factors of increased efficiency combined, a more than 200-fold increase in power-gain is expected. The actual fusion energy produced, per ignition, is expected to be the same as for NIF, about 20 MJ per burn.  This all means that NIF's 17-fold net power-loss can be turned into an overall 12 to 15 fold power gain.

  However, for this gain to be realized in a practical power plant, a rapid fire process must now be developed. In a 1 GW power plant the ignition process would have to be repeated 6 to 10 times per second. For this to be possible, a diode-laser system is now being developed that produces less heat and might enable a fusion repetition rate of 10 times per second, provided that the dream comes true.  And that's a big if, considering the power level that is needed on a sustained basis.

At the fifth International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA2007) an international demonstration plant was proposed: The International Laboratory Inertial Fusion Test facility (i-LIFT) operating 100-kJ, 1-Hz implosion lasers and another 100-kJ, 1-Hz heating laser that would generate 10-MW of thermal power at the energy gain of 50. Of the thermal output, 40% of the energy would be converted to electricity by a power generator. A half of the electricity, 2 MW, would be used to drive the laser with 10% efficiency, whereas another half would be transferred to the grid. It is expected that the power and stability of such an experimental reactor would be comparable to those of a typical wind power machine. However, the net electrical power production would be a landmark achievement in fusion energy development. If enough funding is given, power generation could be expected with this type of demonstration plant by 2030.
 See: http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1742-6596/112/1/012002/jpconf8_112_012002.pdf)

Of course, the biggest and most 'impossible' exotic problem for this principle is that the fusion pellet injection into the target chamber has to be absolutely precise, so that the tiny fusion target of two tenth of a milligram in weight, after possibly a 15-foot injection trajectory, becomes positioned at the exact center of the laser system's focal point with extreme accuracy for radial compression, and at precisely the time when the lasers are fired. This super-precise kinetic positioning also needs to be achieved in rapid succession up to ten times a second in the volatile high-energy environment of a fusion flux chamber that is powered by continuous nuclear explosions. All this adds up to a daunting engineering task that makes fairy tales seem rational, but which may never be achieved in the real world. At NIF and other experiments the fusion target is always statically positioned and aligned with great precision. This has yet to be achieved in flight with a tiny mass of a fraction of a milligram and in a volatile environment. This demand puts the project into the realm of miracles and evidently out of reach for practical power generation.

Furthermore, it is uncertain whether a target chamber can be built that is capable of extracting multi-megawatt of continuous power and to carry that heat out of the target chamber for power production, while at the same time protecting the facility from the 100-fold stronger neutron flux of the D-T fusion reactions.  And the final challenge is to place sufficient quantities of lithium close enough to the neutron stream to enable the production of tritium from the neutron flux, with which to produce more fuel for the reactor.

The most optimistic estimate that has been tabled recently is that a 100 - 200 MW demonstration plant might be possible by 2035 with the development of a new generation of high gain target designs.
( see: http://j-parc.jp/Transmutation/ws/pdfen/3-3_Mima.pdf )

Since the HiPER fusion project, and other similar projects, have so many basic characteristics in common with the Large Hadron Collider of CERN, one one wonders if this direction of high-energy research has been intentionally initiated as just another dead-end effort along the Wellsian/Fabian road of keeping science tied into knots and ineffective for the common benefit of mankind. This possibility needs to be considered, especially in the light of the high cost and complexity of producing the D-T fuel for the rector, and the cost-efficiency of the total system in comparison with thorium fission power system that produce the same energy output per ton of fuel in radically smaller, simpler, less expensive, and already designed reactors, and for which a couple of million tons of fuel are easily accessible with vastly more available.

The final question: Would fusion power be worth the effort should it ever become possible? 

Per ton, the current nuclear fusion fuel, a deuterium/tritium combination, contains 5 times the energy per kilogram than uranium 235 ( 481 TJ of  energy per kilogram for D-T, versus 82 TJ of energy for uranium) This is not a huge difference. The small advantage in the fuel is more than used up by the inherent inefficiency of the fusion power process in which the fusion 'explosion' blows the fuel apart before all of it is used up. At NIF the fuel capsule typically contains 0.238 mg of fuel for an expected energy yield of 20 MJ, which will likely be achieved. This, however, adds up to only 17% of the energy contained in the fuel, as a result of the ignition process. At this rate of low efficiency the fusion fuel output is roughly equal to the fission fuel output in a thorium fueled nuclear fission reactor. At this rate, a ton of either fuel is required of (D-T fuel for fusion, or thorium for fission) to power a 1 GW reactor for a year. The difference is that of the thorium fission fuel, two million tons are readily available in known deposits, while the D-T fusion fuel does not exist at all in any useful quantities, and requires expensive and cumbersome processes for it to be produced.

The D-T fuel is made up of two parts. The deuterium ( D ) portion of the fuel is heavy hydrogen. It exists plentifully on the Earth. It is found in large quantities in seawater. However, it is highly diluted. In the oceans, 'heavy hydrogen' ( D ) amounts to a mere 0.015 percent of the hydrogen of the water molecules. Deuterium is 'heavy' hydrogen, because it has a neutron attached to its nucleus.  The presence of 'heavy' hydrogen produces 'heavy' water. At current technologies 340,000 tons of seawater are required for the extraction of a single ton of heavy water, from which the deuterium can be extracted. Since the hydrogen (deuterium) component of 'heavy' water makes up only 20% of the weight of heavy water, five tons of heavy water are required to produce a ton of deuterium. (In the D-T fusion fuel, 40% is deuterium). In other words, it takes the processing of 680,000 tons of water (and desalination if seawater is used) to produce the deuterium for a single ton of fusion fuel. The fuel production on this scale adds up to a rather expensive and energy intensive process, considering that 1 ton of D-T fuel is required to power a 1 GW reactor for one year. 

Between 1979 and 1997 Canada had operated the world's largest heavy water plant, the Bruce Plant, located at Douglas Point in Bruce County on Lake Huron, where it had access to the waters of the Great Lakes. The heavy water plant was a part of an integrated complex of 8 CANDU nuclear reactors that supplied the plant's process heat and electrical power. The giant heavy water plant had produced 700 tons of heavy water per year, (containing 140 tons of deuterium, enough for 350 tons of D-T fuel, or half the amount needed to power the USA for a year with nuclear fusion reactors).  The Bruce heavy water plant was shut down in 1997 because of environmental concerns, since it utilized the Girdler process that involves large amounts of hydrogen sulfide. After the shutdown the plant was gradually dismantled and the site cleared. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is currently researching other more efficient and environmentally benign processes for creating heavy water. The production of heavy water is essential for the future of the CANDU reactors since heavy water represents about 20% of the capital cost of a CANDU reactor. The case of Canada is mentioned here as an indicator of the high production cost of the D-T fusion-reactor fuel. It may well be less expensive to import the fusion fuel from the moon, should helium-3 fusion, and indeed nuclear fusion power in general, ever become commercially feasible.
(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water)
Heavy waters is currently used in CANDU reactors for its excellent efficiency in moderating the neutron propagation without absorbing the neutrons themselves. (See table )

The other component of the fusion fuel is tritium. It is extremely rare on Earth. It takes a million tons of seawater to extract a single ton of tritium from it. Tritium can also be produced in nuclear reactors by irradiating lithium with neutrons. This too, is a slow process. Since 1996 only a quarter ton of tritium has been produced. The production has been largely shut down under the nuclear weapons control treaty. Tritium ( T ) is an even 'heavier' isotope of hydrogen, which is also slightly radioactive and has a half-life of only 12 years. Tritium is currently the key element in the D-T fusion fuel. Its nucleus contains one proton and two attached neutrons. (Normally, hydrogen contains no neutrons.) 

Unfortunately the D-T fuel is rather costly to produce. To help the production process of the tritium for the fuel, it is envisioned that commercial fusion reactors will be designed in a manner that some of their fusion-derived neutrons will strike lithium, which thereby breeds tritium, in order that the tritium can subsequently be extracted to produce more fuel. This adds another level of complexity to the fusion reactor design and operation.

Helium-3 is not the savior of fusion-power on Earth!

Since all atomic nuclei, regardless of their makeup, repel one another, because of the positive electric charge of their protons, it has been discovered that at high enough temperatures and pressures, they can be 'forced' together to such close distances that their electrical repulsion (called the Coulomb force) is overcome and the nuclei collide. At this point the strong nuclear force becomes the dominant force and binds the colliding nuclei to form a heavier atom. Now, with the tritium nucleus containing two (additional) neutrons, while having the same electric charge as the nucleus of ordinary hydrogen, the electrostatic repulsive force is more easily overcome, as the tritium offers a two-fold mass advantage. This happens, because the (additional) neutrons in the tritium nucleus, which do NOT add to the repulsive force, do however increase the attractive strong-nuclear force that initiates the fusion. As a result, the tritium atoms do more easily fuse with other light atoms, especially with deuterium that has also an extra neutron. This basic characteristic makes the D-T fusion fuel the most-ready-fusing fuel that is known to exist.

With helium-3 the situation is reversed. The helium-3 isotope has two protons and only one neutron. This means that the repulsive electric force that must be overpowered is twice as strong per mass as in the D-T fuel. This doubly-strong Coulomb force, which must be overcome for fusion to happen, requires a significantly greater energy input than is necessary with D-T fusion. It is unlikely that a magnetic confinement reactor (such as ITER), which is already stressed to the limit, can be up-scaled for the energy input that is needed for helium-3 fusion, and then produce power past the break-even point. Those requirements put practical fusion power from helium-3 via magnetic confinement fusion far out of reach. 

Nor is it likely that the NIF laser fusion facility, that has not yet achieved D-T fusion, but will likely do so (barely), will achieve the large needed increase in power input to overcome the large Coulomb barrier of helium-3. As I said earlier, the only reactor that has demonstrated helium-3 fusion, to my knowledge, is an electrostatic confinement reactor designed by Professor Kulcinski, a member of the NASA Advisory Council. This reactor requires a 1,000,000-fold greater energy input than the fusion gives back. Professor Kulcinski’s design uses "an electrostatic field to contain the plasma, instead of an electromagnetic field. His current reactor contains spherical plasma roughly ten centimeters in diameter. It can produce a sustained fusion with 200 million reactions per second producing about a milliwatt of power while consuming about a kilowatt of power to run the reactor. This is nuclear power without radioactive nuclear waste or neutron caused radiation." (see: A fascinating hour with Gerald Kulcinski )

The inverse ratio of the number of neutrons to protons in the helium-3 atom (in comparison with tritium, hydrogen-3), makes fusion hard to achieve. It is theoretically easier to cause ordinary hydrogen or ordinary helium to fuse, than it is for helium-3 to fuse. The current hoopla over helium-3 fusion appears to be just another global-warming type scientific hoax on the Paolo-Sarpi platform of driving scientific development into a dead-end ally, intended to block the potential for real power development. Helium-3 fusion appears to be possible only in the vacuum of space and by the same principle by which helium-3 is created in the first place, the principle of kinetic fusion and for kinetic fusion-energy output such as is useful for space propulsion. On earth efficient kinetic fusion is inhibited by air molecules getting in the way. No natural principle exists for nuclear fusion to happen in a planetary environment.

The principle for nuclear-fusion power is entropic and therefore not natural as a prime power resource

Fusion in the Universe is a building process, and not a consuming process, such as the fusion-sun that is deemed self-consuming. This may be one of the reasons why nuclear-fusion energy production is failing in principle, because the Universe is anti-entropic in principle. 

It needs to be repeated here that the fusion-power concept is built on the assumption that every sun in the Universe is powered by nuclear fusion, whereby the Universe is rendered self-consuming and winding down, rather than being self-developing and expanding in every respect. Since no evidence exists that supports the assumption of universal entropy, the nuclear-fusion-power concept that is built on this assumption is built on a false premise and becomes an unnatural pursuit that is inherently bound to fail. Helium-3 fusion, on the other hand, would constitute a natural type of fusion, a kinetic fusion, that the Universe operates at the surface of the Sun, which is powered by galactic plasma electricity. Helium-3 is an incomplete product resulting from excessive energy input during the creating fusion process, which through further fusion can be regained, like the electricity in a charged battery can be utilized. The utilization of this fusion process (which is naturally kinetic) would then not mimic a primary entropic process, but merely a secondary completing process. The kinetic product would then be useful in the space environment in which it occurs naturally, as for space travel propulsion. Electrically driven kinetic fusion is natural. It happens on every sun. Gravity driven, heat and compression powered fusion, is unnatural. It doesn't happen anywhere and is not the power-source for the Universe. So why would we bother with it?

Nuclear fission is a natural nuclear energy source, and is highly efficient 

In comparison with all the natural physical blocking factors that are encountered in developing fusion-power into a useful energy-producing infrastructure, the utilization of thorium 232 for a nuclear fission reactor is a relatively easy process, including the conversion of thorium 232 to uranium 233. Also, the thorium fission fuel provides the same practical energy yield as the D-T fusion fuel, while zero energy input is required. Nor does it require reactors that are comparable in size with the pyramids in Egypt. And best of all, there are two million tons of thorium fuel readily available in known deposits sitting unused on the ground. And to top off the list of advantages, the thorium fission reactors are 'inexpensive' to build, are simple in design, and are scalable to any size desired. Furthermore, the thorium fuel, that is equal in practical energy yield with the D-T fusion yield, is universally available in the crust of the earth in every country. And in addition to all that, the thorium reactor design is sitting on the shelf, ready to be implemented if anyone cares to do so.  

For example, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) - (see more information below), has been successfully operated for five years in a test run, between 1964 and 1969, until the design was scrapped for political reasons, since the thorium reactor does not generate by-products that are essential for producing nuclear weapons. Also, inexpensive nuclear power was not allowed to be developed in those days, and is still not allowed under the rule of empire. This, however does not alter the fact that the well-tested LFTR principle is still available. Because of its great passive safety feature, low radioactive waste, near total consumption of its fuel, non-pressurized working environment, its 60-second self-regulating response to load changes, and its ability to actually burn up high-level nuclear waste products that have accumulated from uranium reactors, the LFTR principle will most certainly power our future until we get into the final phase of energy development that promises to supercede everything. This final phase involves creating the means to simply tap into the galactic plasma/electric currents that power the galaxy and also our Sun. Electric power production cannot get anymore efficient than that. (see: Absolute Power )

One thing seems certain, that since nuclear-fusion power production isn't happening anywhere in the Universe, it will likely remain a dream mankind. Sure, nuclear fusion happens on the surface of the Sun, but this appears to be a constructive type of fusion by which plasma component are combined to form new atoms. The outcome is thereby a power-consuming fusion - a constructive process in which new atoms are formed. The Universe evidently isn't concerned with producing power. It is flush with power. It IS power. And it is using this power towards its creative self-expansion. And so can we.

With natural processes the sky is no limit

Nuclear fission power, involves the utilization of a natural process that is constantly happening in the crust of the earth. It didn't have to be invented. Roughly 80% of the earth's internal heat is produced by radioactive decay, and only 20% is residual heat from the planet-forming process. The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232, which together make up most of the heat-loss of the planet that is estimated to be in the order of 42 million Mega-Watts (the equivalent output of 42,000 large nuclear power plants). With the few hundred nuclear power plants that have been built so far, we beginning to utilize a tiny bit of the potential that the Universe is using on the gigantic scale. In contrast with that, our nuclear-fusion power development isn't getting us anywhere, but to a dead end, because we aim to utilize a principle that evidently doesn't exist. We don't see it being applied anywhere in the Universe. 

The above presented table of energy output per type of fusion fuel shows that in the very best case (that of pure heluim-3 fusion) the projected energy output is barely four and half times larger than the output of a conventional thorium powered nuclear fission reactor that clocks in at 13 GWh/kg of fuel (based on the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor - LFTR), and in this comparison, the fission reactor requires zero energy input. This means that fusion really doesn't offer the sky, if it can be made to work at all. The relatively small advantage in fusion fuel efficiency becomes  negligible in considering the huge size of the facilities that are needed for fusion, and considering further that the power input (which presently far exceeds the power produced) also counts against the fuel efficiency. With all this considered, the physical reality functionally closes the door to fusion power for a long time to come, if not forever, while the advanced nuclear fission thorium reactors that have already been demonstrated for a few years running, produce the high-flux power results that fusion had once promised. In other words, the 'utopia' that fusion had promised, is already at hand, except in a different form. One should not be surprised at this, since fission power systems utilize naturally occurring processes, while fusion power systems do not.

As an added bonus, one does not need to go to the moon to obtain the needed fuel. As I said before, for thorium-based nuclear power, there exists over two million tons of fuel on earth in known deposits, and this without major efforts having been made to find more. And thorium is efficient. A single ton can provide a gigawatt of electricity for a year. One would require only 400 tons per year to meet the entire electricity needs of the USA. The known deposits in the USA (917,000 tons) would be sufficient to meet America's needs for 2000 years. And of course, there is also plenty more thorium the moon and on mars, and so on, in case anybody is worried. 

It looks like that the age of nuclear fission power isn't over, but has barely begun, which, with thorium now coming online, delivers what fusion had only promised, but has so far put farther and father out of sight. As I said, the promised 'utopia' is possible, because nuclear fission is a naturally occurring process. A fission reactor does not need to be powered, but powers itself and produces power. Thorium power is presently the leading edge nuclear power process for the immediate future, and on this line, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) is the leading edge technology.
(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor )

The LFTR is presently the cleanest, safest, and most efficient nuclear power reactor ever developed. It operates at high temperatures and at ambient air pressures, and can be scaled to any size required. India expects to supply 1/3rd of its entire electricity needs with thorium reactors in the near future.

Here is how the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) works.

1) One starts with a fluoride salt. In this reactor the salt will be heated so much that it melts.
2) Then one dissolves thorium fluoride in the liquid salt.
3) Some of the thorium-232 is irradiated and absorbs neutrons, whereby it turns into Uranium-233.
4) The Uranium-233 fissions and produces heat plus more neutrons, some of which charge 232 up to 233, and so on.

The resulting fission products are relatively benign and short-lived compared to those of a traditional fission reactor.

Advantages include:
1) There is no pressure in the reactor system, so that it cannot explode – unlike traditional nuclear reactors which operate as a high pressure steam boiler.
2) The fuel fabrication is easier. The thorium fuel does not need to be shaped into pellets, it is dissolved into a liquid
3) The reactor can have fuel added and waste removed at any time online with normal operations
4) There are no weapons-grade materials involved
5) And best of all, thorium is abundant, and 97% of it gets converted to power in the reaction, (with uranium only 5% gets used)

In comparison, the current coal energy technology throws away over 10 times the energy it produces as electricity. This is not the result of poor thermodynamic efficiency. It is the result of a failure to recognize and use the energy value of the thorium that is thrown away as a waste product in this process. The amount of thorium that is present in surface mining coal waste is enormous. It, all by itself, would provide all the power human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special mining for thorium, or resort to the use of any other form or energy recovery. An average coal-burning 1 GW power plant produces about 13 tons of thorium per year. The thorium is recoverable from the power plant’s ash pile. And since one ton of thorium will produce 1 GW of electricity for a year in an efficient thorium cycle reactor, a coal plant wastes 13 times more than it produces. Stopping this waste, all by itself, would usher in a new renaissance.

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/12/01/how-a-liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactor-lftr-works/ (videos on LFTR)

It appears that the sky is no limit for us if we utilize the principles that the Universe is itself utilizing. And it promises us far more than that. It promises us infinite energy supplies if we care to tap into the plasma-electric power that pervades the galaxy and the Universe, which the Universe utilizes to power every sun, including our Sun.

The factor of false assumptions

Nuclear fusion-power development has been started on the assumption that every sun in the Universe is powered by nuclear fusion, and that if the sun can do it, so can we. However it is now also well known that our Sun not powered by a nuclear fusion furnace burning deep inside it, nor any other sun in the Universe, but that the solar heat and luminance is electrically powered with an electric-arc discharge process at the outer layer of its atmosphere (the photospheres). This process is easily replicated. The xenon flash lamp that the NIF is using 7,680 of, is operating on the electric-arc principle, which is an extremely efficient principle. That some nuclear fusion reactions are happening on the surface of the Sun is evident by the presence of the over 60 of the basic element that are known to exist in the Universe, that have been detected in the Sun's atmosphere. We have no evidence however, that the fusion reactions occurring on the Sun are contributing to the powering of the Sun. It is more likely that the fusion that is occurring in the photosphere is essentially a power-consuming fusion-process that binds the inflowing electric currents of protons and electrons into atomic structures, similar to what is happening in the star-forming region at the center of the galaxy.

As for the helium-3, it is far more likely that the helium-3 (which is an incomplete helium atom that we find abundantly on the moon), is a secondary product of the constructive-fusion process that is happening at the surface of the Sun. While helium-3 fusion should be possible to achieve in the vacuum of space, where high-speed kinetic acceleration is possible, it won't likely be possible in the atmosphere on Earth. Fusion caused propulsion in space is a natural process in the Universe, as in the case of cosmic radiation. Reflecting a natural process, helium-3 fusion for space propulsion to power high speed space travel, should be rather readily achievable, with research for it being conducted on the moon that offers perfect vacuum conditions. But this is not what it is currently promoted for. The helium-3 fusion story is promoted to keep the fast fading fantasy of an internally heated fusion-powered Sun alive, versus the externally heated electrically powered Sun. 

An extremely critical political purpose appears to be served by keeping the dream alive that there is such a thing as a fusion-powered Sun. The purpose behind keeping this dream alive, is to keep the related dream alive of an entropic Universe, a Universe that is winding down, in which every sun is self-consuming, exhausting its fuel, by which it is doomed. The so-created notion of entropy has long been exploited by the masters of empire as an excuse for expanding their dominance over mankind. It is being said evermore loudly now that everything that modern civilization is built on is bound to the natural process of entropy by which everything ends. For example, the principle of the sovereignty of nations and people is said to be "archaic" and to no longer apply, whereby it is now superceded by the power of imperial rule. Likewise the principle of fairness in trade is said to be archaic, to be superceded by controlled trade in the service on imperial power. Even the principle of honesty is said to be archaic, opening the door to ever-greater financial fraud, economic fraud, scientific fraud, cultural fraud, and so on. 

The train of the entropic notions had started slowly at first, when it was said that the Principle of Westphalia, on which modern civilization is founded, the Principle of the Advantage of the Other, that became the root for America's constitutional Principle of the General Welfare, is utterly archaic. Only the welfare of the rich matters now - so let the people die - the planet is over-populated by five billion people - genocide is what we need. These horrible notions of entropy, that all good things have become archaic and are winding down to oblivion, is being justified on the ground that the Universe itself is entropic and is winding down to oblivion, by which oblivion becomes evermore a natural thing. 

Earth bound Fusion Power - an unnatural pursuit

It is a self-evident fact that nuclear fusion power in not a natural process. No evidence exists that it is happening in the natural world of the Universe, as a power source. In fact, if it did exist there, it would be contrary to the nature of the Universe that is inherently constructive and developing, rather than destructive and self-consuming. All the blocking factors that have been experienced so far in attempting to develop fusion power systems, that have so far prevented the realization of any form of fusion-power production with a high-order realizable power gain, appear to be protective factors built into the design of the Universe. These blocking factors that stand against us, appear to be factors that inhibit inherently destructive reactions. These are factors, which, if they were not inhibited, could become self-escalating and universally convulsive. It appears that we may be trying to achieve a process that the Universe has intentionally created protective principles against, as a measure of its natural self-protection.

Nuclear fission power, in comparison, which we are able to easily exploit, involves a natural process. Nuclear fission is happening naturally in the crust of the Earth. Nor is it an entropic process. An entropic process is a naturally self-consuming process. In fact, it is a stabilizing process. Every element that we know to exist in the Universe, that is heavier than lead, decays to lead where it becomes stable. The Universe is extremely powerful in its design, but while it opens this door wide, it also limits itself against going too far to the point of becoming destructive to itself. The intentions of the principles of the Universe appear to be designed to promote vast developments, balanced with a fundamental stability throughout its systems. The human process of intelligence should logically be focused on implementing this already existing design in the human realm. In utilizing nuclear fission for power-production, we utilize a natural process that drains away excess energy that is produced as the driving factor in the creative process of constructive fusion that is powered by the Universe. Nuclear-fusion as a primary power source does not fall into this category. The Universe does not use it, except in a very limited form in nuclear fission where excess energy from the constructive fusion process is allowed to drain off. Natural nuclear fission furnishes a large portion of the internal heat of the Earth and its radiation into space. The power that may derived from helium-3 fusion for space propulsion, is actually caused by a nuclear-fusion initiated nuclear fission process

The dream of nuclear-fusion power as it is currently perceived is akin with unnatural energy systems for which no equivalent exists in the Universe, but which are currently pursued with great zeal as they consume a nation's economic power and thereby add up to genocide as the masters of empire have long stated they desire. Fusion power is largely promoted towards this end, and manned space-flight is prevented in order to prevent the development of natural energy resources that are freely available to us, both on the Earth and in space.
See: Green Genocide and then see Food From Mars in Three Days

In contrast with keeping mankind Earth-bound, the direct utilization of electric power that is flowing free in the Universe in filaments of electric power flowing in plasma that interconnects all galaxies like beads on a string, and powers them, and powers  every solar system within them ( which is also the power that powers the Sun) is free for everyone and is certainly enough to meet all of our puny little needs on our tiny planet, and on any planet that we choose to colonize. The Universe is a universe of power, and this power is free for us all to experience.

A galaxy cluster in the Capodimonte Deep Field - The European Space Agency 

Click here to view the Capodimonte Deep Field
a view of 35,000 galaxies

The Universe is immensely energetic, and the power for it is electric in nature. Electric power, not only powers every one of the billions of clusters of galaxies like one shown above, including our galaxy in one of the clusters, but it also surrounds the Earth and every planet in every one of the several hundred billion solar systems within it. 

We have learned to use electric power on Earth by generating it ourselves. The next natural step would be to tap into the universal power grid that also powers our Sun and utilize its boundless abundance. That's obviously the most efficient way, second to none, to power our world. Our following this course would represent a mindful blending of our culture into the design of the Universe as a step of moving forward with it.

See: Absolute Power - Solar Power
See:The Electric Universe

And so it will happen. Whatever is natural will happen, because intelligence is after all a natural process, and mankind is a highly intelligent species. It may even be that the big plasma engine, that the LHC accelerator is by design, will serve us one day as a facilitator for creating a plasma channel to the (electric) plasma sphere and the ionosphere, that are surrounding the Earth and are our interface with the galactic electric currents. Then, why would we even bother with the fusion-power attempts when a boundless electric power resources lies within the natural system, and within our capability to take a hold of?

Even space travel would benefit. Electricity is a 'fuel' that one doesn't need to carry if it is everywhere present in space. It is electric interaction that causes the solar winds to be accelerated to 500 km/second and faster. Electrodynamic propulsion may yet get us to Mars quickly, and enable us to reach beyond it. 

Utilizing Natural Science?

By giving up 'willful' science, and focusing science onto the natural processes of the Universe, we might gain the Universe

Electric power may also give us access to the minerals in rocks that are locked up in molecular bonds. Molecular bonds may appear unbreakable, but if this was so we would not exist. The fact is, molecular bonds are routinely separated in nature, in plants, for example with the chlorophyll molecule

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll

The chlorophyll is essentially a tiny ring of chlorine atoms with an magnesium ion at the center, and side rings protruding from it that function like tuned antennas for the absorption of certain wavelengths of sunlight. Chlorophyll molecules are specifically arranged in and around pigment protein complexes called photosystems that contain up to several hundred molecules that absorb light and transfer the light energy by resonance energy transfer to a specific chlorophyll pair in the reaction center of the photosystems. The function of the reaction center chlorophyll is to use the energy absorbed for a process of charge separation in which the chlorophyll donates an electron into a series of molecular intermediates called an electron transport chain. The complex operation, for example involves the oxidation of water into O2 and H+ through several intermediates. The electron flow produced by the reaction center chlorophyll is used to shuttle H+ ions across a thylakoid membrane, leaving behind free oxygen gas while setting up a chemiosmotic potential for a reduction process that also reduces CO2 into sugars and other biosynthetic products.

The point is that if the reduction of molecules by means of controlled ionization happens in the natural world with such efficiency and universal certainty that it supports all live on our planet, we should certainly be able to apply the same principle for the reduction of rocks into their constituent elements, especially silicates, oxygen, and metals.  A hundred tons of rock in the crust of the Earth typically contain 15 tones of aluminum, 6 tons of iron, and 3 tons of magnesium, and a ton of titanium, and for course other metals as well. It is generally believed that only the extreme temperatures that cause nuclear fusion can separate molecular bonds, but the principles that are already established and are routinely utilized in the natural world indicate that ionization processes will likely be able to achieve whatever molecular reduction we desire, and this much more readily by utilizing the natural principle for it that the universe has already established. How powerful electric forces can be is graphically illustrated in the America's Grand Canyon. Evidence suggests that the Grand Canyon was excavated by electric force in distant time by a very large electric-discharge event. ( see: Sep 29, 2008 The Grand Canyon: Part One - Oct 01, 2008 The Grand Canyon: Part Two ) If electric forces can cause such a  massive 'eradication' of rock, the much gentler ionization of rock for molecular reduction should be possible.

The point is that if mankind suffers a fundamental lack, the lack is located in itself as a lack in the discernment of natural principles, and is not the result of natural limits. It appears that we are beginning to learn this lesson.  Thus, the potential lays before us to utilize the principle of molecular reduction with an ionization process that is already widely demonstrated throughout the Universe of life by the chlorophyll's reduction process. All the metals that we use today have had their beginning in the molecular reduction processes that are imbedded in the processes of life, much of which is powered electrically.

The sky may pose NO limit

If we become sensitive to the principles the Universe is using, a lot of surprises tend to be happening. One surprise unfolds that opens up a whole new vista when we begin to combine two naturally occurring principles. The electric-arc phenomenon involves a kinetic heat production process. The above mentioned "crossfire fuser" involves an application of the same kind of kinetic process to achieve fusion, which is known to occur in the arc-process that heats up the sun. A limited amount of nuclear fusion is suspected to occur within the photosphere of the sun as the result of the kinetic energies involved. 

The inventor of the "crossfire fuser" proposes that helium-3 ions (or hydrogen-1,lithium-6, lithium-7, or boron-11, or combinations of them)  are electromagnetically and electrostatically accelerated to a mere 600KeV and collided from 6 directions for a heat burst of 7 billion degrees, sufficient for fusion, which he proposes would result in an (aneutronic) energy production that consists up to 99% of neutral atoms endowed with high kinetic energy. He suggests that a near steady state operation can thereby be achieved, which would be ideal for electricity generating systems, and also for space propulsion, such as for a moon shuttle. If this kind of system proves to be achievable - as it should be, since it is based on naturally occurring processes - its greatest potential would then most likely not be found in electricity generation, which would not be needed by then, but would likely be found in it becoming a power source for biological applications, such as enhancing the biotic system for increased food production, or for medical healing applications, space travel propulsion, and other sundry uses, not the least of which would likely be the molecular reduction of rocks for gaining access to the metals and silicates within them, and so forth. 

The nature of sovereignty

It appears that the human mind is sovereign only to the degree that it finds in itself the reflection of the Intelligence that reflected throughout the Universe in every detail. On this basis we become co-creators with the Universe. On this basis we may also break the SE-barrier (the Self-Empowerment barrier) and gain our freedom from empire, because there exists no principle in the Universe that supports the notion of empire. However, there exists an universally-empowering principle that is reflected everywhere in life. Life is self-empowering. Empire has no role to play in the development of life and civilization, and consequently nothing good has ever come out of it. Mankind has the power as human beings to lay aside pursuits that are not supported by universal principles, and pursue processes that are supported by such principles, such as the sovereignty of the individual, of a culture, of a nation, with the nature of the sovereignty itself reflecting the principles that harmonize all aspects of human living towards the most efficient and productive modes of meeting the human need and fulfilling the human potential.

The final question, the MOST basic question is: Entropy or Anti-Entropy

Whether we utilize the resources and the principles that the universe has laid at our feet, is determined by our answer as to where we locate ourselves as human beings and our perception of the Universe. Will our hands and minds be shackled by axioms of entropy that we bow our heads to and submit ourselves to, or will we see in the Universe a powerful moving anti-entropy that we then can also see reflected in us? That's the heart of the question of Entropy or Anti-Entropy.

Continue with: Anti-entropy