The United States is entering a “new era” of nuclear fusion after scientists announced they are constantly replicating the reaction.
If this technology is mastered, it could provide the world with a limitless source of clean energy.
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) spent the past year firing nearly 200 lasers at peppercorn-sized hydrogen capsules, heating them to more than 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.
In the world's first experiment last December, the team produced a nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it used, a process called “ignition.”
The team announced that they had repeated the results three more times in the past year, pushing the world another step closer to what could be a solution to the climate crisis.
The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is pictured above. The system uses 192 laser beams that converge at the center of this giant ball to explode a small pellet of hydrogen fuel.
Scientists have been trying for decades to harness fusion energy, the same basic process that powers the sun.
One attempt by the team in California resulted in a record power increase of 89 percent — 35 percent more than the first ignition one year earlier.
The ultimate goal is to generate energy in the same way that the sun generates heat by pushing hydrogen atoms close together so that they combine to form helium, releasing torrents of energy.
Without carbon emissions, one cup of this substance could power an average-sized home for hundreds of years.
Nuclear fission occurs when a neutron collides with a larger atom, forcing it to get excited and split into two smaller atoms.
The laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) contains 192 lasers that fire beams at frozen grains of isotopes contained within a diamond capsule suspended in a gold cylinder called a holoraum.
The lab's National Ignition Facility (NIF) contains 192 lasers that fire beams at frozen grains of isotopes contained within a diamond capsule suspended in a gold cylinder called a holraum.
The capsules are heated to about 100 million degrees to create pressure inside them greater than the pressure inside the Sun's core.
The resulting implosion causes isotopes to fuse, producing helium and copious amounts of energy, scientists shared. nature.
The first successful attempt was on December 5, 2022, generating about 54 percent more power than was put in.
The fusion reaction produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy, roughly 120% of the 2.1 megajoules of energy in the laser.
The team achieved a record on July 30, with an increase of 85 percent, and two more attempts were carried out in October.
Fusion during the event generated about 3.88 megajoules of fusion energy, 89% more than the first achievement in December.
Two more tests were conducted in June and September, but researchers said the power output was not “sufficient to confirm ignition.”
“I feel very good,” said Richard Towne, a physicist who heads the inertial fusion science program at LLNL. I think we should all be proud of this achievement.
The $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility was initially created to test nuclear weapons by simulating explosions, but its focus has now shifted to advancing fusion energy research.
Researchers around the world have been working on this technology for decades, trying different approaches.
The energy of the NIF's 192 beams is directed into a golden cylinder called a hohlraum, which is about the size of a dime. A small capsule inside the holoaraum contains atoms of deuterium (hydrogen with one neutron) and tritium (hydrogen with two neutrons) that fuel the ignition process.
The team announced that they had achieved ignition on four of its last six attempts, creating the same basic processes inside the Sun that convert hydrogen into helium to produce nuclear fusion.
However, no other laboratory has been able to achieve what LLNL has achieved in its experiments.
Governments around the world have found new interest in nuclear fusion amid concerns about the impact of climate change and the security of energy supplies.
Clean energy was also on the agenda of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) earlier this month.
US climate envoy John Kerry said: “We are closer than ever to a reality based on nuclear fusion.”
At the same time, yes, there are significant scientific and engineering challenges.
“Careful thinking and thoughtful policy will be crucial in dealing with this.”
(tags for translation) Daily Mail