News North Korea carries out a nuclear fusion

[SiberianTiger]

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article427918.ece

North Korea has successfully carried out a nuclear fusion reaction, its official news agency said on Wednesday. The breakthrough announced by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) would be a technical step forward from the nuclear fission reactions which Pyongyang has already tested.


“The successful nuclear fusion marks a great event that demonstrated the rapidly developing cutting—edge science and technology of the DPRK (North Korea),” the KCNAreport said. Nuclear fusion, where atoms are compressed together, is far more technically demanding than nuclear fission, where they are split apart to release energy. It could potentially lead to the production of more powerful nuclear weapons.


Research scientist Yang Hyung, of the South Korean National Fusion Research Institute in Taejon, said he did not think that North Korea had the necessary technology or resources for a fusion reaction. The announcement came amid renewed efforts to convince North Korea to return to the table of the six—party talks which aim to put an end to its nuclear arms programme. Pyongyang walked out of the talks, which include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and two Koreas, in April 2009 over UN—imposed economic sanctions.

What can it be in reality?

 

[TJohns]

Real fusion has been achieved in research labs for quite a while now.

"Sustained" reactions...now that's a different deal!

 

[SiberianTiger]

Real fusion has been achieved in research labs for quite a while now.

"Sustained" reactions...now that's a different deal!

AFAIK, they can't use a lab laser sparkler as a weapon. Why in the heaven they needed a fusion reaction? Does producing one in a lab really helps to make an H-bomb?

 

[Urwumpe]

AFAIK, they can't use a lab laser sparkler as a weapon. Why in the heaven they needed a fusion reaction? Does producing one in a lab really helps to make an H-bomb?

Not really, except for basic research for fusion reactions.

Fusors are already widespread even in hobby circles and are capable of fusion reactions, they are just far away from break-even, even some orders of magnitude further than tokamaks or stellerators.

The trick question for building a H-Bomb is making sure that enough energy is projected at the secondary and the secondary (the fusion fuel) is kept compressed together long enough to have fusion. This is not really trivial, as you can imagine (While the primary already explodes inside the bomb, the secondary has to be more or less intact).

If the secondary is not holding together long enough, you just have a tiny nuclear explosion. Bad enough.

 

[cjp]

What can it be in reality?

Great leader googles a bit on nuclear stuff
Great leader stumbles upon a nuclear fusion website
Great leader asks scientist what this is about
Scientist explains a bit about fusion as power source
Great leader says "I want that, and you're responsible for making it within 6 months"
Scientist thinks "OMG I'm so ****"
Scientist gives orders for building some impressive-looking devices

6 months later:
Great leader asks scientist whether the project is on schedule
Scientist says "uhmmm, well..."
Great leader says "what!??"
Scientist says "of course it's on schedule. Let me give a demonstration."
Scientist clicks some buttons and turns a handle, and suddenly a lot of lights turn on
Scientist says "you see?"
Great leader says "fantastic!"
Great leader informs press about the great news.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Great leader googles a bit on nuclear stuff
Great leader stumbles upon a nuclear fusion website
Great leader asks scientist what this is about
Scientist explains a bit about fusion as power source
Great leader says "I want that, and you're responsible for making it within 6 months"
Scientist thinks "OMG I'm so ****"
Scientist gives orders for building some impressive-looking devices

6 months later:
Great leader asks scientist whether the project is on schedule
Scientist says "uhmmm, well..."
Great leader says "what!??"
Scientist says "of course it's on schedule. Let me give a demonstration."
Scientist clicks some buttons and turns a handle, and suddenly a lot of lights turn on
Scientist says "you see?"
Great leader says "fantastic!"
Great leader informs press about the great news.

I've always assumed this is what happens for most of the things North Korea does.

 

[Ghostrider]

I've always assumed this is what happens for most of the things North Korea does.

Sounds like an episode of The Lost Islands...