American researchers have announced that for the first time they have achieved “net energy gain” in an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, meaning more energy was produced than was consumed for the experiment. This is the beginning of a long way, but in a few decades there will be power plants based on nuclear fusion.

This was also reported by the US Department of Energy. The experiment took place on December 5. The world’s largest laser system has simulated on a much smaller scale what happens inside the stars.

The net increase in energy was 50%. The historic experiment was conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where such experiments have been conducted since 2009 with increasingly large scale and increasingly encouraging results.

“This is a marvel of engineering that cannot be imagined,” the announcement of the achievement reads.

The first experiments in this field were made in the 50s of the 20th century. So it’s been more than six decades since researchers hoped this moment would arrive. It has arrived, but it’s just the beginning, with large-scale commercial deployment likely two to three decades away.

“Ignition” in technical terms is the moment when the energy produced exceeds the energy used to cause the reaction. Achieving this “ignition” point is extremely difficult, as it involves a large investment in equipment and the creation of temperatures in the millions of degrees. Many attempts have been made with no success prior to this announcement.

The findings, presented Tuesday, were obtained by the National Ignition Facility, which uses its 192 high-powered lasers to superheat hydrogen atoms to temperatures of more than 80 million degrees Celsius and subject them to pressures 100 billion times greater than Earth’s atmospheric pressure. . These extreme conditions lead to the creation of a state of matter called a plasma, where hydrogen atoms fuse together and release enormous amounts of energy.

Researchers, governments and investors hope that the day will come when nuclear fusion will become an alternative to polluting energy sources.

The experiment was conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a major laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE) that plays a critical role in maintaining the US nuclear arsenal. Consequently, LLNL plays a critical role in US national security and receives continued funding and attention.

The National Ignition Facility, part of LLNL, is where the performance took place, the NIF is a $3.5 billion high-energy laser research laboratory.

In addition to keeping the nuclear arsenal operational, the NIF also conducts research into nuclear fusion, the idea being to see if it is possible to produce vast amounts of energy through fusion experiments. , which significantly exceeds the energy spent on conducting experiments.

A promise that sounds good but is hard to keep

The most optimistic say that thanks to steps like the one announced on Tuesday, it will be possible to build power plants that could run on nuclear fusion in the future.

Its proponents consider nuclear fusion the “energy of the future” because it produces little waste and emits zero greenhouse gases. Theoretically, the most optimistic say that in 15-20 years, electricity for commercial use will be produced initially by thermonuclear plants. Other experts say that these projects will be viable only after 30 years.

Fission is a nuclear process currently used in nuclear power plants. Modern conventional nuclear power plants have systems in place to mitigate chain reactions to prevent accident scenarios, and strict safety measures are in place to address proliferation issues.

Many things stand in the way of the success of fusion power plants: the heat must be used sparingly, the lasers must operate at full power all the time (not just for short periods of time), and the amount of energy obtained from experiments must be thousands of times greater than what is currently achieved . In addition, it will work with gases at extremely high temperatures.

Various US companies testing nuclear fusion applications are estimated to have received more than $5 billion in funding in recent years.

A functional fusion-based power plant would have to have lasers capable of sending out pulses much faster, and new manufacturing processes would need to be developed for this power plant to be viable. And if it were possible, such a plant, according to modern technologies, would be huge and extremely expensive.

About nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion is the process in which two atomic nuclei react to form a new nucleus that is heavier (with more mass) than the original nuclei. Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars, where under extreme conditions and high temperatures, heavier elements are formed gradually, step by step, through repeated syntheses, as if by prescription.

Physicists have spent decades trying to recreate these extreme conditions in fusion reactors to produce energy. But there is still a lot of work, because even the most modern devices consume more energy than they produce.

If pushed hard enough, hydrogen nuclei can combine to form helium, releasing a lot of energy.

Fusion reactors are touted as the “Holy Grail” of energy production because fusion reactions pollute the environment very little and, if they worked, would be very efficient. It would take very few atoms to produce huge amounts of energy, and the result would be very little waste, and by no means anything as dangerous as the superheavy elements left over from fission reactors.

Generating electricity from fusion also produces no greenhouse gases and promises a reliable renewable energy source, provided the reactor fuel, hydrogen and deuterium, can be produced.