US lab stands on threshold of key nuclear fusion goal
A US science institute is on the verge of achieving a longstanding goal in nuclear fusion research. The National Ignition Facility uses a powerful laser to heat and compress hydrogen fuel, initiating nuclear fusion reactions.
An experiment suggests the goal of “ignition”, where the energy released by fusion exceeds that delivered by the laser, is now within touching distance.
Harnessing fusion, the process that powers the Sun, could provide a limitless, clean energy source.
In a process called inertial confinement fusion, 192 beams from NIF’s laser – the highest-energy example in the world – are directed towards a peppercorn-sized capsule containing deuterium and tritium, the two isotopes of hydrogen which will be used in actual fusion power stations.
This compresses the fuel to 100 times the density of lead and heats it to 100 million degrees Celsius – hotter than the centre of the Sun. These conditions help kickstart thermonuclear fusion.
An experiment carried out on 8 August yielded 1.35 megajoules (MJ) of energy – around 70 percent of the laser energy delivered to the fuel capsule. Reaching ignition means getting a fusion yield that’s greater than the 1.9 MJ put in by the laser.
“This is a huge advance for fusion and for the entire fusion community,” Debbie Callahan, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which hosts NIF, told BBC News.
As a measure of progress, the yield from this month’s experiment is eight times NIF’s previous record, established in Spring 2021, and 25 times the yield from experiments carried out in 2018.
“The pace of improvement in energy output has been rapid, suggesting we may soon reach more energy milestones, such as exceeding the energy input from the lasers used to kick-start the process,” said Prof Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London.
NIF scientists also believe they have now achieved something called “burning plasma“, where the fusion reactions themselves provide the heat for more fusion. This is vital for making the process self-sustaining.
“Self-sustaining burn is essential to getting high yield,” Dr Callahan explained. “The burn wave has to propagate into the high density fuel in order to get a lot of fusion energy out. We believe this experiment is in this regime, although we are still doing analysis and simulations to be sure that we understand the result.“
As a next step, Dr Callahan said the experiments would be repeated. “That’s fundamental to experimental science. We need to understand how reproducible and how sensitive the results are to small changes,” she said. “After that, we do have ideas for how to improve on this design and we will start working on those next year.“
Prof Chittenden explained: “The mega-joule of energy released in the experiment is indeed impressive in fusion terms, but in practice this is equivalent to the energy required to boil a kettle.“
He added: “Far higher fusion energies can be achieved through ignition if we can work out how to hold the fuel together for longer, to allow more of it to burn. This will be the next horizon for inertial confinement fusion.“
Existing nuclear energy relies on a process called fission, where a heavy chemical element is split to produce lighter ones. Fusion works by combining two light elements to make a heavier one.
The interior of the target chamber. Image: Philip Saltonstall
Construction on the National Ignition Facility began in 1997 and was complete by 2009. The first experiments to test the laser’s power began in October 2010.
NIF’s other function is to help ensure the safety and reliability of America’s nuclear weapons stockpile. At times, scientists who want to use the huge laser for fusion have had their time squeezed by experiments geared towards national security.
But in 2013, the BBC reported that during experiments at NIF, the amount of energy released through fusion had exceeded the amount of energy absorbed by the fuel – a breakthrough and a first for any fusion facility in the world. Results from these tests were later published in the journal Nature.
NIF is one of several projects around the world geared towards advancing fusion research. They include the multi-billion-euro ITER facility, currently under construction in Cadarache, France.
ITER will take a different approach to the laser-driven fusion at NIF; the facility in southern France will use magnetic fields to contain hot plasma – electrically-charged gas. This concept is known as magnetic confinement fusion (MCF).
But building commercially viable fusion facilities that can provide energy to the grid will require another giant leap.
“Turning this concept into a renewable source of electrical energy is likely to be a long process and will involve overcoming substantial technical challenges, such as being able to re-create this experiment several times a second to produce a steady source of power,” said Prof Chittenden.
See more here: bbc.co.uk
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DeadHeartDiary
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“We’re almost there, all we need is more funding and your perpetual belief in bullshit while we peddle shit for fraud and laundering! But as a special bonus, we absolutely REQUIRE you to ignore the obvious.”
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DeadHeartDiary
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As an ANALogy. What has NASA done to you?
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DeadHeartDiary
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“Header image: Energy Vulture”
Jus super saiyan, again.
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DeadHeartDiary
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Let me put it this way. You could del bbc.* and nothing useful would be lost, AND you’d gain space for something meaningful.
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DeadHeartDiary
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del * bbc * . *
Apparently I dunno the formatting lexicon.
Boris Badenov
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In the latest experiment they’ve found that Covid 19 can easily be converted into BS which provides plenty of methane at a much lower cost to run gas powered plants at a fraction of the expense.
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stephen lord
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The goal of energy out equals energy in is deliberately misleading. The energy in is electricity but the energy out is heat. The heat must then be converted to electricity which requires a heat engine which is about 50% efficient. In addition there are losses for running the cooling system and balance of the plant plus transformer losses. it is also necessary to produce surplus heat and convert it to electricity for the plant to be useful. A realisti gola would b ethat the net electrical energy out fromm the plant equalled the energy to support fusion. This wouldmean a heat output 4 times the electrcial energy needed for fusion. That would require 7.6 MJ compared to the 1.35 achieved. Long way to go.
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Russell Haley
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It’s nearly impossible to trust any mainstream sciencey reporting. It’s not really scientific, it’s more like propaganda with some number thrown in to confuse people. Fusion, AI, Quantum Supremacy, The Cloud. All of it is propaganda.
I worked on some software that uses a Fast Fourier Transform and some other math to calculate a value that falls into a scale (nothing complicated, very standard processing). The system is hosted on a remote Windows Virtual Machine in Azure. I was told that we now call that “AI in the Cloud”.
I’ve been shown a number of products that use “real” AI (e.g. nueronets etc). I ask hard questions like “Can’t this be done with standard processing?” To which the answer has invariable been: “Yes, we could have.”
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Andy
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I’ve been following fusion research since the JET machine came online in 1992, the construction of the successor ITER in southern France, and the National Ignition Facility since 1997. I have no issue believing this article.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
In the midst of the hype I read: “An experiment carried out on 8 August yielded 1.35 megajoules (MJ) of energy – around 70 percent of the laser energy delivered to the fuel capsule.” So yes, I too believe this article and know that they not actually close to achieving practical, continuous, energy that is more than the energy put into creating controlled nuclear fusion.
Do not ignore the energy needed to produce the fuel being used in the experiment, “a peppercorn-sized capsule containing deuterium and tritium, the two isotopes of hydrogen which will be used in actual fusion power stations.”
And I believe the following is a problem even involved in the fusion process naturally occurring in the sun (stars). ““Far higher fusion energies can be achieved through ignition if we can work out how to hold the fuel together for longer, to allow more of it to burn. This will be the next horizon for inertial confinement fusion.“”
I am not sure you appreciate the great mass, size, (hence inertia) of the sun’s (star’s) matter. So we observed the sun’s “variable activity” while we cannot detect the a change in the intensity of its emission rate.
Finally I believe fusion will always be the result of an explosion and not like the controllable rate of fission observed before the first fission bomb was designed, constructed, and its fission explosion (a very fast reaction) created the first time it was tried.
I believe I remember reading that stars have been observed to blow themselves apart.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy
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Hi Jerry. My own personal feeling is that while the NIF may well be able to get to the ignition point, I’m not sure inertial confinement is the way forward. My own personal belief is the JET & ITER approach of magnetic confinement will ultimately prove the best way, with their doughnut-shaped tokamak designs. As I have a degree in particle physics, I am aware of the properties of stars 🙂
The tokamak approach contains the ‘explosion’ with powerful magnetic fields, in much the same way as a star’s size is determined by the balance between gravity trying to crush it into a smaller size, and the electroweak force trying to expand it.
When large stars run out of nuclear fuel, they sometimes die in a supernova explosion, and all the heavy elements they have synthesised are blown out into space, which according to the theories, then starts the next round of star formation.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
Do you believe continuous fusion reactions occur in Stars or are the fusion reactions very short lived explosions? Have you experienced that physicists tend not to respect chemists (even physical chemists) or vice versa??? I certainly have and you know what side I am on. We know Newton was a physicist but he was also an alchemist but he did not have the courage to enter the debate whether or not matter was endlessly divisible. Instead, he let a SCHOOL TEACHER, John Dalton, do that heavy lifting.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
Do you believe continuous fusion reactions occur in Stars or are the fusion reactions very short lived explosions? Have you experienced that physicists tend not to respect chemists (even physical chemists) or vice versa??? I certainly have and you know what side I am on. We know Newton was a physicist but he was also an alchemist but he did not have the courage to enter the debate whether or not matter was endlessly divisible. Instead, he let a SCHOOL TEACHER, John Dalton, do that heavy lifting.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply