For the first time in history, American scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California have successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that resulted in the production of a net gain in energy, that is, more energy than they invested.
This was confirmed to CNN by a source familiar with the project, and the portal states that the US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce this breakthrough in science on Tuesday. The result of the experiment would be a huge step in the decades-long quest to unleash an infinite source of clean energy that could help end dependence on fossil fuels.
Fusion and fission
For decades, researchers have tried to recreate nuclear fusion, replicating the energy that powers the Sun. Namely, nuclear fusion is a process that replicates the same energy that powers the Sun. It happens when several atomic nuclei join together, forming one heavier nucleus. This process generates a huge amount of energy (depending on the mass of the nuclei involved in it) as heat. In contrast, nuclear fission is the process of splitting a larger atom into two or more smaller ones. It’s the kind of energy that powers nuclear reactors around the world today. As with fusion, the heat created by splitting atoms is also used to generate energy.
A glass of deuterium to power the house
Nuclear fusion does not carry the same safety risks, and the materials used to power it have a significantly shorter radioactive half-life than fission.
Scientists around the world have studied nuclear fusion for decades in hopes of recreating it with a new source that provides boundless energy without the carbon and nuclear waste made by current nuclear reactors. Fusion projects mainly use the elements deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen.
Unlike coal, you only need a small amount of hydrogen, which is the most abundant in the universe. Hydrogen is found in water, so the things that generate this energy are wildly unlimited and clean – Julio Friedman, chief scientist of “Carbon Direct” and former chief energy technologist of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, told CNN.
How could nuclear fusion turn on the lights?
There are two main ways of generating nuclear fusion, but both have the same result. The fusion of two atoms creates a huge amount of heat, which is the key to energy production. That heat can be used to heat water, create steam, and turn a turbine to produce power – much like nuclear fission generates power.
The big challenge in “taming” fusion energy is keeping it going long enough to power power grids and heating systems around the globe. A successful American breakthrough on that front is a big deal, but it’s still far less than what’s needed to generate enough energy to run one power plant, let alone tens of thousands of them.
It is about what is needed to boil 10 kettles of water. To turn it into a power plant, we need to create a larger energy gain, significantly larger – Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of King’s College London’s Center for Inertial Fusion Studies, told CNN.
Next steps
Scientists and experts now need to figure out how to produce much more energy than nuclear fusion on a much larger scale. At the same time, they need to figure out how to reduce the cost of nuclear fusion so that it can be used commercially.
Scientists will also need to harvest the energy produced by fusion and transfer it to the power grid as electricity. It will take years and possibly decades before fusion can produce unlimited amounts of clean energy, while scientists are in a race against time in the fight against climate change.
This will not meaningfully contribute to the reduction of harmful gases in the next 20-30 years. This is the difference between lighting a match and building a gas turbine – said Friedman.
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