Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Announces Fusion ‘Ignition’
Scientists managed to start the same chemical process that powers stars on August 8, 2021, by putting more electricity into a tiny gold capsule than the entire US electric system could handle.
It is extremely astonishing how the power of 192 laser beams sparked the same thermonuclear fire that fuels the Sun for a nanosecond.
The Sun produces energy by hurling hydrogen atoms together, generating helium in the process.
We are now closer than ever to being able to harness chemical reactions with enough force to power the Sun.
This is possible because fusion power technology has advanced.It’s also crucial to remember that the fusion process discovered by scientists was self-perpetuating, which means it continued once it started.
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom and release a massive quantity of energy. It is highly difficult to replicate the process in a lab setting, despite the fact that it happens regularly in nature.
This is mostly because a very high energy environment is needed to ensure the reaction proceeds. The experiment, conducted by the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, is described in three newly published papers—one in Physical Review Letters and two in Physical Review E.
The machine is vast, and focuses 192 laser beams onto a tiny spherical capsule of hydrogen, as seen in the header image.
A practical fusion reactor is still a long way off, despite the publications’ claims that scientists have achieved “ignition,” which suggests that nuclear fusion may be possible. Fusion power plants would produce a significant quantity of energy using fuel made of hydrogen from water if researchers were to successfully construct fully operational fusion power plants.
There would be no radiation risk as a result, and the only waste product would be the gas helium 3. Modern nuclear power plants, in contrast, use nuclear fission to create energy by separating the nuclei of heavy elements like uranium.
More over a quadrillion watts of power were used in the experiment from the previous year, a huge amount of energy that was only momentarily released.
Image: National Ignition Facility
The pioneering experiment, according to Omar Hurricane, the program’s lead scientist for inertial confinement fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is:
“The record shot represented a tremendous scientific achievement in fusion research, establishing that fusion ignition in the lab is feasible at NIF.”
”Achieving the ignition conditions has been a long-term goal for all inertial confinement fusion research,” the author stated, “and allows entry to a new experimental domain where alpha-particle self-heating outweighs all cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”
See more here fancy4work.com
Header image: Energy Vulture
Editor’s note: Lawrence Livermore has plowed millions into this facility since the early 1990’s, and can still only achieve ignition for a fraction of a second. Inertial Confinement is considered an outlier in fusion research, whereas the doughnut-shaped Tocamac configuration using Magnetic Confinement, as has been used successfully in the Joint European Torus in England since 1992, sustaining reactions for up to 30 seconds, and what will be done with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor being built in southern France, has a far greater chance of proving successful.
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Squidly
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Easy solution: just hook it up to one of those fancy bird beaters or sun catchers .. problem solved.
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JaKo
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I think I got it!
As the article’s picture caption says:“…the same chemical process that powers stars…” — there is the proof of our “Climate Change” is caused by the Big Star in our sky — I bet that rascal burns carbon when we don’t look!!
OTOH, as the Editor’s Note suggests: The success of our efforts to harness nuclear fusion is just a few years ahead — for the last 50+ years…
Cheers, JaKo
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Jerry Krause
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Hi JaKo,
The author of this article doesn’t seem to KNOW the difference between chemical reactions between elemental atoms and nuclear fission reactions of unstable nuclei of certain isotopes of certain elemental atoms and a reaction (a fusion) of two specific nuclei of two hydrogen atoms to form a nuclei of one helium atom.
The author of this article doesn’t seem to know the critical difference between the sun (a star) and the planet Jupiter whose elemental (hydrogen and helium) composition are similar. Which difference I believe you are aware and understand even if you do not state it in your comment. The difference is the great difference is in the mass of stars relative to that of Jupiter which in turn because of gravitation causes the density of these star’s gases to be locally (at certain times) to be great enough to begin to fuse two hydrogen nuclei together and this is the spark which initiates a uncontrollable nuclear fusion reaction which locally creates a large volume of gas whose density is much less than previous until the star relaxes to its former greater density.
At least, this is what I claim to SIMPLY UNDERSTAND.
Have a good day, Jerry
(Your e-mail address is incorrect) SUNMOD
PSI Administrator
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Editor,
Guess what!! This comment did not have to “await moderation) while a comment I submitted hours earlier still waiting to be posted. Must be the climate change..
Have a good day, Jerry
(Jerry you should understand that I haven’t done anything to you except to approve your comments that lands in the moderation bin, I did another spam check on your IP just now that shows a huge improvement thus maybe your problem is clearing up? ) SUNMOD
PSI Administrator
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JaKo
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Hi Jerry,
I knew you’d take that lure 😉
However, you took a bit of faith/science-based commentary to chip in.
The fact is, WE DO NOT KNOW HOW THE FUSION REACTION STARTS AND HOW IT IS SUSTAINED!!!
If you recall the famous movie, the aliens handily started the fusion in Jupiter — is that impossible???
I think, in the human/like history, the most useful phrase should be:
You know nothing, John Snow!”
Cheers, JakO
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