Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be like in 2014

Re:Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be lik... by dllu on Tuesday August 27, 2013 @10:30PM (#6287680)

1. The National Ignition Facility [1] recently reported record amounts of energy produced by laser-based fusion, but it is more of a research facility than a power plant.

2. Do the betavoltaics [2] in some early pacemakers and the small reactor on spacecraft and the Mars Science Laboratory count as radioactive batteries? But I am assuming that, since betavoltaic pacemakers and nuclear spacecraft have been around since Asimov's time, they probably don't count.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaics

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Re:Isaac Asimov's predictions for what the world will be lik... by morpher on Wednesday August 28, 2013 @12:42AM (#6288075)

The wikipedia page doesn't seem to have any information about "record amounts of energy produced" at NIF. The closest thing I've found is a press release[1] that mentions "highest [neutron] yield achieved so far from a layered DT implosion". Neutron production should be proportional to the number of fusion events (and thus also the energy released). But, its odd that they don't claim this specifically.

[1] https://lasers.llnl.gov/newsroom/project_status/index.php

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