Scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have made a potentially significant advance in nuclear fusion power that could lead to a near-limitless, clean source of energy.
The United States Department of Energy is set to release an official statement on Tuesday to confirm the "major scientific breakthrough" that researchers have been attempting to create to replicate the energy that powers the Sun.
Hope for Nuclear Fusion
The Financial Times reported that the scientific advance involves the NIF using giant lasers to create conditions that briefly copy the explosions of nuclear weapons. The government official who spoke anonymously to discuss the result said that the fusion experiment achieved ignition in which the fusion energy generated is equivalent to the laser energy that started the reaction.
A scientist who is familiar with the results confirmed that NIF has indeed achieved ignition, which would improve the ability of the country to maintain its nuclear weapons without nuclear testing. It could help set the stage for future progress that could lead to laser fusion to provide a clean source of energy.
The findings are not yet publicly announced, but physicists and other scientists who study nuclear fusion are excited about the news. Retired plans physicist Stephen Bodner, who has long been a critic of NIF, told The New York Times in an email that a scientists friend told him that Livermore had exceeded the energy gain of one last week and would be announcing the results on Tuesday, which deserves commendations for reaching their goal.
This is the first time scientists successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that resulted in a net energy gain, unlike previous experiments. But there are more steps to take before it can become commercially viable. Scientists have to prove that they can create more energy than they started with to say that their study is successful.
How Will Nuclear Fusion Power Benefit the People?
According to CNN, fusing two atoms generate huge amounts of heat that holds the key to producing energy, which can be used to warm water that create steam and turn turbines to generate power much like how nuclear fission produces energy. However, the big challenge in nuclear fusion is sustaining it long enough to power electric grids and heating systems around the globe.
That is why the recent results at the NIF are a major breakthrough as it brings scientists one step closer to nuclear fusion. But it is still on a far smaller scale than what the world needs to generate enough energy that could run thousands of power plants.
Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Center for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College in London, explained that the recent breakthrough is equal to the energy needed to boil 10 kettles of water. But they need to make a larger gain in energy to turn it into a power station.
Scientists are now trying to figure out how to produce much more energy from nuclear fusion on a larger scale and eventually reduce the cost so that it can be used commercially. They also need to harvest the energy from the fusion reaction and transfer it to the power grid as electricity, which will likely take decades before it can be promoted as an unlimited source of clean energy.
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