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Kioer t1_j0431f6 wrote

Reply to comment by isleepinahammock in National Ignition Facility (NIF) announces net positive energy fusion experiment by Robo-Connery

Lasers shoot photons my man. There is no feasible way to transmute lower Z elements into higher Z elements with a laser. It is simply not possible. You might be able to induce beta decay on some isotopes but not at a scale to produce any measurable quantity of SNM

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isleepinahammock t1_j045ate wrote

Fusion reactions can be triggered by lasers, and the fusion reaction emits most of its energy as high-energy neutrons. Literally the entire basis of fusion reactors is transmuting lower-Z elements to higher-Z elements.

Yes, hitting a nucleus with a photon will not cause it to gain new nucleons. However, intense laser light can cause nuclei to collide with sufficient energy to fuse. That's literally the entire basis for the fusion processes discussed here.

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Kioer t1_j04b6al wrote

Just due to binding energy fusion does not apply to elements larger than iron. To create any of those we need neutron or proton capture. And if you're creating this massive state of the art laser array to create fusion to produce neutrons why not just build a neutron source to begin with? There are thousands of high flux neutron beams all over the world. Just build one of those for about 1/1000000 of the price or better yet just purchase one from a commercial supplier.

I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but proliferation of nuclear material is the least of the problems with fusion. It is just entirely unfeasible and way way way more expensive and technologically advanced than any other method.

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m-in t1_j075dpf wrote

Lasers don’t directly induce fusion. They take some other “working fluid” like gold plasma and dump energy into it. That then can fuse something else that’s the actual nuclear energy source. Of course dumping a bunch of photons close to the visible spectrum (UV and IR are not far at all) will not cause anything to fuse on its own - not even if the photons had unceasingly high energies AFAIK.

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