A U.S. government-funded laboratory generated net energy during a recent nuclear fusion experiment, a first in a controlled fusion environment and a major achievement on the path to abundant, carbon emissions-free commercial fusion energy.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility announced Tuesday the achievement of “ignition” using laser energy, meaning the energy output from the fusion reaction exceeded the amount put in. The experiment, which occurred on Dec. 5, yielded 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy output, surpassing the 2.05 megajoules of energy put into the reaction by the laser.
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var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_70940067", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1203496"} }); ","_id":"00000185-0bca-d1e2-abcf-9ffb1e740000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedTHE VERY BASICS OF THE FUSION ‘BREAKTHROUGH’
It’s a major development that will “go down in the history books,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Tuesday. A number of companies around the world hope to harness and commercialize the result to generate carbon-free electricity. Ignition has been the next domino to fall because, without demonstrating ignition, fusion cannot be economically viable.
In the new breakthrough, the experiment generated some 154% of the energy in the lasers. Scientists at the lab performed a similar experiment at the facility last year, where the laser generated 70% of the energy used to trigger the reaction.
“We have had a theoretical understanding of fusion for over a century, but the journey from knowing to doing can be long and arduous,” said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, President Joe Biden’s chief adviser for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Today’s milestone shows what we can do with perseverance.”
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Fusion differs fundamentally from fission, the nuclear process by which the world’s currently operating nuclear power plants generate electricity. Fusion combines atoms, while fission splits them.
Nuclear fission and fusion are especially valuable to governments’ climate change mitigation efforts because they generate thermal energy without producing greenhouse gas emissions, as does the combustion of fossil fuels, making them a desirable alternative to coal and natural gas.
Nuclear sources also have the benefit of remaining “on” more consistently than renewable wind and solar, which are variable.
