The goal of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction that generates energy in the sun. It’s the “Holy Grail” of carbon-free energy that scientists have been chasing since the 1950s. It’s still at least a decade – maybe decades – away from commercial use, but A.J The latest developments wrote a Washington Post.
Huge amounts of public and private money have been poured into the fusion race around the world, with the goal of eventually producing fusion power plants that can produce electricity without carbon dioxide emissions or radioactive waste, and use far fewer resources than solar and wind power. In addition to the technology’s climate benefits, its proponents say, it could help provide cheap electricity to poor nations around the world.
For most of us, it was just a matter of time
– said a prominent nuclear fusion scientist familiar with the work of the department of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the discovery was made.
The development was first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday, and the news was confirmed to The Washington Post by two people familiar with the research. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is scheduled to make the announcement on Tuesday.
The ministry and the laboratory declined to comment. A lab official said the researchers are still finalizing their analysis and won’t release any official information until Tuesday.
You may be able to make a net profit
Physicists are trying to make use of it A fusion reaction that supplies energy to the sunbut so far no group has been able to produce more energy from the reaction than it consumes—a milestone known as net energy gain or target gain, which will help demonstrate that the process can be a reliable and abundant alternative to fossil fuels and conventional nuclear power.
The federal government’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which uses a process called inertial fusion where a tiny pellet of hydrogen plasma is bombarded with the world’s largest laser, has been getting a net worth of energy in a fusion experiment over the past two weeks. said the In the Financial Times.
At a US government facility, the fusion reaction produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy, about 120 percent of the 2.1 megajoules from the laser, said people familiar with the results, adding that the data is still being analyzed.
Completely clean energy
Nuclear fusion relies on two atoms colliding at extremely high speeds and converting the reaction energy into electricity. Meanwhile, neither carbon dioxide nor radioactive waste is produced.
Scientists They’ve been experimenting with fusion reactions for decades, but they have not succeeded so far in creating a reaction that produces more energy than it consumes. Despite the significance of the current achievement, enormous engineering and scientific challenges remain for scientists.
To generate the net amount of energy, it was necessary to use one of the largest lasers in the world. More importantly, engineers have not yet developed tools that can affordably convert this reaction into electricity that can be fed into the power grid.
According to the scientists, building devices capable of producing fusion energy in large quantities would require materials that are extremely difficult to produce. At the same time, neutrons are produced during the reaction, which puts a huge load on the equipment and can be destroyed in the process.
The Biden administration is making fusion energy research a priority on its climate and energy agenda. In recent decades, the governments of the United States, Russia and various European countries have spent billions of dollars on development.
(Cover Photo: (Andrew Harrier/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
