Fusion! No, Really This Time
The long and winding road to create fusion power has stretched from the 1950s until today. But there does seem to be a rather significant development.
The Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday that scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain — a major milestone in the decades-long, multibillion-dollar quest to develop a technology that provides unlimited, cheap, clean power.
The aim of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction through which energy is created on the sun. It is a “holy grail” of carbon-free power that scientists have been chasing since the 1950s. It is still at least a decade — maybe decades — away from commercial use, but the latest development is likely to be touted by the Biden administration as an affirmation of a massive investment by the government over the years.
Huge amounts of public and private funds have been funneled into the fusion race worldwide, with the aim of ultimately manufacturing fusion machinery that could bring electricity to the grid with no carbon footprint, no radioactive waste and far fewer resources than it takes to harness solar and wind power. Beyond the climate benefits, promoters say it could help bring cheap electricity to impoverished parts of the world.
“To most of us, this was only a matter of time,” said a senior fusion scientist familiar with the work of the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where the discovery was made.
Nuclear fusion power inches closer to reality
The development was first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday. It was confirmed by two people familiar with the research, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid getting ahead of the official announcement. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was slated to make the announcement Tuesday at a media event billed as the unveiling of “a major scientific breakthrough.”
The department and the lab declined to comment. A lab official said researchers there are still finalizing their analysis and will not be releasing any official findings before Tuesday.
The science of nuclear fusion relies on smashing two atoms together at incredibly high speeds and transforming the energy from that reaction into electricity that can power homes and offices without emitting carbon into the air or dumping radioactive waste into the environment.
In the decades scientists have been experimenting with fusion reactions, they had not until now been able to create one that produces more energy than it consumes. While the achievement is significant, there are still monumental engineering and scientific challenges ahead.
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Creating the net energy gain required engagement of one of the largest lasers in the world, and the resources needed to recreate the reaction on the scale required to make fusion practical for energy production are immense. More importantly, engineers have yet to develop machinery capable of affordably turning that reaction into electricity that can be practically deployed to the power grid.
Building devices that are large enough to create fusion power at scale, scientists say, would require materials that are extraordinarily difficult to produce. At the same time, the reaction creates neutrons that put a tremendous amount of stress on the equipment creating it, such that it can get destroyed in the process.
Yeah no I remember the “cold fusion breakthrough” of like 1988 that turned out to be a hoax, I refuse to get excited for this until there are actually effective reactors being installed.Report
Very nice. So, what, about a decade away?Report
Yep. Now we can comfortably say that fusion in only 10 years away. For the next 50 years…..Report
The last two paragraphs give the game away. *sad sigh*
It doesn’t matter if the math on the chalkboard says “energy out > energy in” unless we can harvest the energy out. Call me when “usable energy out > usable energy in” shows up.Report
Even worse, reports are that the measurement is laser output energy compared to fusion energy output. The current laser system is about 1% efficient, so measured in terms of electricity in they’re still about 100x short of breakeven.Report
Sleight of hand doesn’t work on physics damnit!Report
Here later in the afternoon, I am given to understand that this is a normal way of making the calculation, in order to separate the fusion physics from the efficiency of a particular laser technology. New high-power laser tech is supposed to provide a 10x gain in laser efficiency at some point in the not too distant future. But the NIF may not be funded to replace their lasers for a long time.
With my old systems analyst hat on, this is an example of why it’s hard to make predictions about future complex systems base on current technology. Another example: everyone assumes that the coolant used to keep the fusion reactor chamber walls from melting will be liquid lithium in the long run. Lots of advantages if you can make it work. But nobody’s ever done it at the necessary scale.Report
scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain
They’ve apparently never heard of the H-bomb.Report
Is this true? Serious question. The energy input for the fusion reaction is a fission bomb, and much/most of the total energy is a fission reaction driven by the high neutron flux of a fusion stage. Is the energy output of the fusion reaction greater than that of the fission first stage, or is it “merely” a side effect where the important part is the neutron flux?Report
Still, the fusion reaction is a net positive, no?Report
I don’t know, that’s what I was asking. AIUI, the design goal for the fusion stage in a thermonuclear weapon is not the energy released, it’s the neutron flux that causes a massive secondary fission reaction.
You swap some number of ~180 MeV fissions in order to get some number of ~14 MEV fusion neutrons each with the potential to cause an ~180 MeV fission. All in a complicated arrangement where geometry and microsecond timing matters. I don’t know whether the energy output of the fusion reactions without the magnifying effect of the second fission stage exceeds the energy output of the initial fission stage or not.
If you asked me to bet, I’d bet that the actual answer is classified at a level that they’re never going to tell me. I don’t know what sort of odd weapons security clearances you might hold :^)Report
It’s not something I’m allowed to discuss, of course.Report
That is a great question: I never considered that. As a tentative answer, a wikipedia article on ‘boosted fission weapon’ (evidently the more compact name used instead of fission-fusion-fission) claims less than 1% of the energy comes from the fusion itself.Report
It didn’t seem worth any more discussion last week, but after further reading the Tsar Bomba built by the Soviet Union omitted all the fissionable material except in the primary. Estimates are 97% of the 50 megaton energy release was from the fusion reactions. Side note: because of the high fusion yield the Tsar Bomba was, kiloton for kiloton, the lowest-fallout nuclear weapon ever detonated.
Anyway, credit to Mr. Schilling. There’s been at least one previous historical instance of Q>1.Report