Nuclear Fusion Ignition: Even less tritium?
There’s a lot of recent excitement from the breakthrough at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF):
The facility used its set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. The pulse of energy caused the capsule to collapse, creating temperatures only seen in stars and thermonuclear weapons, and the hydrogen isotopes fused into helium, releasing additional energy and creating a cascade of fusion reactions.
Ooh, much excitement for the possibilities of cheap clean energy.
Oi, but this does make me think tritium is going to be even more rare going forward. My poor naked trit slots.