Have we "Bottled the Sun"?
Major Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion
Fusion power stations – a distant dream still?
For the first time on Earth, a controlled fusion reaction has generated more power than it requires to run.
On December 5, researchers with the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, ignited controlled nuclear fusion that, resulted in the net production of energy. The fusion reactor generated a power output of 3.13 megajoules from a laser power output of 2.05 megajoules, which is a gain of aproximatelly 150%.
It is worth noting that there are two main research approaches aiming to achieve viable nuclear fusion. One uses magnetic fields to contain a plasma, while the other uses lasers. NIF uses the second approach, known as inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where a tiny capsule containing hydrogen fuel is blasted with lasers, causing it to heat up and rapidly expand.
There is a caveat however. To power the laser in the first place, 300 megajoules were drawn from the local electrical grid. The net energy gain achievement applied to the fusion reaction itself, not the total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project. For fusion to be viable, it will need to produce significantly more power and for longer periods. In principle, NIF could produce such a result once a day, but for this technology to be viable, a fusion power plant would need to do it 10 times a second. While this is a monumental breakthrough, the technology is not quite there yet. This moment represents a starting gun going off in a race against climate change.
Why is nuclear fusion important for the human race?
Think of nuclear power and you may imagine the worst — atomic bombs, reactors melting down and radioactive waste. But while its history is checkered, nuclear energy mostly operates out of sight, generating about 10% of the world’s total electricity and 29% of the world’s low-carbon power.
The Sun has fuelled life on Earth for billions of years, creating light and heat through nuclear fusion. Given that incredible power and longevity, it seems there can hardly be a better way to generate energy than by harnessing the same nuclear processes that occur in our own and other stars.
Nuclear fusion reactors aim to replicate this process by fusing hydrogen atoms to create helium, releasing energy in the form of heat. Sustaining this at scale has the potential to produce a safe, clean, almost inexhaustible power source and it appears that the „holy grail „of fusion can indeed be achieved.