CNN — A source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN that US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain for the first time in history.
Here’s what you need to know about this new type of nuclear energy that could one day power your lights and help us get off of fossil fuels.
What is nuclear fusion, and why is it important?
Nuclear fusion is a man-made process that produces the same energy that the sun does. Nuclear fusion occurs when two or more atoms fuse into one larger one, a process that produces enormous amounts of energy as heat.
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For decades, scientists around the world have been researching nuclear fusion in the hopes of recreating it with a new source of limitless, carbon-free energy – without the nuclear waste produced by current nuclear reactors. Deuterium and tritium, both hydrogen isotopes, are commonly used in fusion projects.
A glass of water containing deuterium and tritium could power a house for a year. Tritium is more rare and difficult to obtain, though it can be synthesized.
“Unlike coal, you only need a small amount of hydrogen, and it is the most abundant thing in the universe,” Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct and a former Lawrence Livermore chief energy technologist, told CNN. “Because hydrogen is found in water, the stuff that generates this energy is virtually limitless and clean.”
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What distinguishes fusion from nuclear fission?
Cooling towers and mushroom clouds may come to mind when people think of nuclear energy. But fusion is a completely different story.
Whereas fusion involves the joining of two or more atoms, fission involves the splitting of a larger atom into two or more smaller ones. Nuclear fission is the type of energy that currently powers nuclear reactors around the world. The heat generated by splitting atoms is used to generate energy in the same way that fusion is.
According to the Department of Energy, nuclear energy produces no emissions. However, it generates volatile radioactive waste that must be stored safely and poses safety risks. Although rare, nuclear meltdowns have occurred throughout history, with far-reaching and lethal consequences, such as at the Fukushima and Chernobyl reactors.
Nuclear fusion does not pose the same safety risks as fission, and the materials used to power it have a much shorter half-life.
How might nuclear fusion power one day turn on the lights in your house?
There are two primary methods for producing nuclear fusion, but both produce the same result. Fusing two atoms generates a tremendous amount of heat, which is essential for the production of energy. That heat can be used to heat water, generate steam, and turn turbines to generate electricity, similar to how nuclear fission generates energy.
The main challenge in harnessing fusion energy is keeping it going long enough to power electric grids and heating systems all over the world. The successful US breakthrough is significant, but it is still on a much smaller scale than what is required to generate enough energy to power one power plant, let alone tens of thousands.
The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provided this illustration of a target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. The beams compress and heat the target to the temperatures required for nuclear fusion to take place. (AP Photo/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provided this illustration of a target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. The beams compress and heat the target to the temperatures required for nuclear fusion to take place. (AP Photo/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
“It’s about the time it takes to boil 10 kettles of water,” said Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of Imperial College’s Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies. “In order to convert that into a power station, we need to make a larger gain in energy – significantly more.”
Why is the Department of Energy’s upcoming announcement about a fusion reaction that results in a net energy gain significant?
This is the first time scientists have successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction that results in a net energy gain rather than breaking even, as previous experiments have.
While many more steps must be taken before this can be commercially viable, scientists must demonstrate that they can generate more energy than they started with. It doesn’t make much sense to develop it otherwise.
“From an energy standpoint, it can’t be an energy source if you’re not getting out more energy than you’re putting in,” Friedmann told CNN. “Previous breakthroughs were significant, but they are not the same as generating energy that could one day be used on a larger scale.”
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Where does the fusion occur?
Several fusion projects are underway in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is located in France, and thirty-five countries are involved, including key members China, the United States, the European Union, Russia, India, Japan, and South Korea.
Much of the work is being done in the United States at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in a building the size of three football fields.
On Monday, December 12, 2022, the west gate entrance to the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, US. According to a person familiar with the research who requested anonymity to discuss results that have not yet been fully disclosed in public, researchers at the laboratory near San Francisco were able to produce a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images is the photographer.
On Monday, December 12, 2022, the west gate entrance to the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, US. According to a person familiar with the research who requested anonymity to discuss results that have not yet been fully disclosed in public, researchers at the laboratory near San Francisco were able to produce a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images is the photographer.
The National Ignition Facility project uses “thermonuclear inertial fusion” to generate energy from nuclear fusion. In practice, scientists in the United States fire pellets containing hydrogen fuel into a network of nearly 200 lasers, resulting in a series of extremely fast, repeated explosions at a rate of 50 times per second. Heat is extracted from the energy collected by neutrons and alpha particles.
To achieve the same result, scientists in the United Kingdom and France are using tokamaks, which are huge donut-shaped machines outfitted with massive magnets. After fuel is loaded into the tokamak, the magnets are activated and the temperature inside is increased exponentially to produce plasma.
Plasma must reach at least 150 million degrees Celsius, which is 10 times hotter than the sun’s core. The neutrons then escape the plasma, colliding with a “blanket” lining the tokamak’s walls and transferring their kinetic energy as heat.
What will be the next steps?
Scientists and experts must now figure out how to generate significantly more energy from nuclear fusion on a much larger scale.
Simultaneously, they must figure out how to reduce the cost of nuclear fusion so that it can be used commercially.
“Right now, we’re spending a lot of time and money on every experiment,” Chittenden explained. “We need to significantly reduce the cost.”
Scientists will also need to harvest the fusion energy and transfer it to the power grid as electricity. It will take years, if not decades, for fusion to be capable of producing infinite amounts of clean energy, and scientists are racing against the clock to combat climate change.
