Scientists in California shooting nearly 200 lasers at a cylinder holding a fuel capsule the size of a peppercorn have taken another step in the quest for fusion energy, which, if mastered, could provide the world with a near-limitless source of clean power.
Last year on a December morning, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California (LLNL) managed, in a world first, to produce a nuclear fusion reaction that released more energy than it used, in a process called “ignition.”
Now they say they have successfully replicated ignition at least three times this year, according to a December report from the LLNL. This marks another significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
The energy produced in December 2022 was small — it took around 2 megajoules to power the reaction, which released a total of 3.15 megajoules, enough to boil around 10 kettles of water. But it was sufficient to make it a successful ignition and to prove that laser fusion could create energy.
Since then, the scientists have done it several more times. On July 30, the NIF laser delivered a little over 2 megajoules to the target, which resulted in 3.88 megajoules of energy — their highest yield achieved to date, according to the report. Two subsequent experiments in October also delivered net gains.
Promising results, hopefully it can be made practical at a large scale.
That’s the next step hopefully! Building such facilities will probably be a big hurdle as well.
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The reporting here is misleading - the energy in/out number is only for the fusion product and the actual energy output by the lasers. It does not take into account the 400MJ capacitor banks that are used to actually power the lasers.
Why would you count that as part of breakeven? If it’s producing more than it’s consuming, once ignition is achieved it can power itself. How costly it is to start the process only affects how long a theoretical reactor would need to run to cover its ignition cost.
Ah, I think you are confusing ICF vs MCF systems. ICF devices do not (and probably can not) sustain fusion; that 400MJ is what the lasers consume every time the system is fired. Hence why I called it misleading - it must consume 400MJ to produce any output. Hence why ICF devices are used to simulate nuclear weapons while MCF are not. Essentially the NIF device is a reusable and reconfigurable implosion bomb.
I see. Thank you for the explanation!
Hate to bring down the mood, but this isn’t fusion as in “Fusion power will solve the world’s energy problems”. This is the other kind of fusion, as in “Fusion bombs”.
NIF research is entirely for the US Stockpile Stewardship program. Depressingly, the results from this experiment have absolutely no application to power-generating fusion research. Even the general research overlap in incredibly niche fields like plasma dynamics is microscopically small.
NIF does nothing good for the world.
The director of the site is always always clear on this fact. This is about stockpile maintenance while adhering to the test ban treaty, that is it.
If it helps nuclear power in some ancillary way, cool! But the people actually doing this are not thinking about that day to day, and the people asking for funding are not requesting it on that basis.
Read the article.
Listen. I know that pessimism is so widespread that we have to cling to whatever flotsam of hope we can find, but you’re clinging to one of the top-three most unabashedly evil institutions the US maintains.
There’s real progress and hope for fusion, Commonwealth Fusion being one I suggest you look into, but the NIF is not a group to cheer on.
Also, the article is misleading to the point that it might be intentional deception. NIF only hit ‘breakeven’ if you ignore, like this article has, the 400MJ consumed to charge the capacitor banks for this test shot. No fusion system to date has achieved breakeven. All this experiment has done is prove 3 times the discovery of a novel way of increasing yield in a fusion bomb.
You’ve convinced me
Easy to be pessimistic about fusion but there’s been a lot of positive news lately so, fingers crossed! Would be a game changer.
This is nuclear weapons research.
No it isn’t. Light-driven fusion has zero applicability to a bomb.
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but thats just not right.
NIF’s mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain. It achieved the first instance of scientific breakeven controlled fusion in an experiment on December 5, 2022, with an energy gain factor of 1.5.[1][2] It supports nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear explosions.[3]
Via wikipedia, emphasis mine
NIF is a key element of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program
Via the Lawrence Livermore National Labs website (link)
I see you like to cherry pick, because what you’re citing supports my argument better than yours.
I am being completely sincere when I ask this: what are you basing your argument on?
edit: wait hang on, both of those quotes start as the second sentence on both pages. not exactly cherry picking if it’s statement #2 from wikipedia…
Nuclear power and weapons have scientific overlap, news at 11
Almost none, in fact. There is a reason fusion power generation research is done entirely on MCF machines (I am ignoring fusors); ICF (like the NIF device) is completely unsuitable for power generation for an astounding number of reasons. All the usable contributions NIF has made to power research are either ancient or theyre in the realms of magnetohydrodynamics and electrical engineering (specifically, capacitor design).
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