American scientists have announced a major breakthrough that will pave the way for advancements in the future of clean power.
The experiment took place at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the achievement and termed it a game-changer for efforts to achieve a net-zero carbon economy. NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby described it as a “historic day” in science.
Historic achievement
“The pursuit of fusion ignition in the laboratory is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled by humanity, and achieving it is a triumph of science, engineering, and most of all, people,” LLNL Director Dr. Kim Budil said.
“This is a historic, innovative achievement that builds on the contributions of generations of Livermore scientists,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “This promising breakthrough could help fuel a brighter clean energy future for the United States and humanity,” he said.
“This monumental scientific breakthrough is a milestone for the future of clean energy,” according to U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (CA).
Experiment explained
The world’s largest and highest-energy laser system at National Ignition Facility (NIF) used its set of 192 laser beams to deliver 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet energy to a tiny fuel pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium to create fusion ignition on December 5, 2022. The reaction generated a record-breaking energy output of 3.15 MJ which is around 54% more than the energy that went into the reaction.
In simple words, the scientists “shot a bunch of lasers at a pellet of fuel, and more energy was released from that fusion ignition than the energy of the lasers going in,” said White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar.
What is nuclear fusion?
A nuclear fusion reaction is based on the assumption that light and small atoms such as hydrogen fuse and transform into bigger ones while releasing a large amount of energy, particularly in the form of heat.
Nuclear fusion is the process that gives the Sun its energy. Fusion is the process by which two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus, releasing a large amount of energy.
The recent experiment results prove that a thermonuclear fusion reaction — the same reaction that powers the sun and stars — can be reproduced in the laboratory and result in a net energy gain.
Why is nuclear fusion so important?
- Potential benefits are enormous clean, carbon-free, abundant reliable energy to meet the world’s energy demands.
- The energy-producing technique is much safer than nuclear fission since fusion can’t create runaway reactions.
- It doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste or greenhouse gas emissions.
- The fuel for fusion primarily uses heavy hydrogen, which can be easily found in seawater, and lithium, which means fuel supplies are abundantly available.
What breakthrough means for clean energy?
Scientists hope the experiment could eventually provide huge quantities of clean energy to the world.
Tammy Ma, who leads the Laboratory’s Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Institutional Initiative, said ignition “lays the groundwork” for the feasibility of inertial fusion energy and creates a roadmap for reaching even higher energy gains. “Developing an economically attractive approach to fusion energy is a grand scientific and engineering challenge — without a doubt, it will be a monumental undertaking,” Ma said.
Nuclear fusion does not rely on fossil fuels like oil or gas, and produces none of the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. Most fusion experiments use relatively abundant materials found on Earth – hydrogen, and lithium.
The breakthrough will pave the way for advancements in the future of clean power, according to officials.
“Ignition allows us to replicate for the first time certain conditions that are found only in the stars and the sun,″ Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at a news conference in Washington. “This milestone moves us one significant step closer” to having zero-carbon fusion energy “powering our society.”
Building reactors that can repeatedly and reliably produce a significant amount of energy won’t be an easy task. There is still a lot to be done before we could see fusion energy in commercial applications.
U.S. DOE unveiled a 10-year strategy earlier this year for developing commercial fusion energy that included a $50 million funding opportunity to support the design of a pilot magnetic fusion plant.