Nuclear fusion – For the first time, more energy is produced than is needed

On Tuesday, US scientists announced that they had achieved one A “massive scientific achievement” in the field of nuclear fusionwhich is a method that could bring her one day A revolution in energy production on Earth.

In last week’s experiment, “more energy was produced by fusion than was consumed by lasers,” said the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.

According to the ministry, the experiment was conducted on December 5 and for the first time by LLNL scientists They managed to produce a net energy gain The fusion of two lighter hydrogen atoms into a heavier atom.

In the US experiment, which cost $3.5 billion, scientists heated a hydrogen capsule the size of a peppercorn using a laser. Generating power and heating only took a millionth of a second.

The energy generated by the experiment was about 3 megajoules of energy, compared to the 2 megajoules required. In practice, the energy is only enough to heat a few liters of water, an amount that seems very small, but which is nonetheless an important first step. Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, said the experiment was “a great example of what we can achieve with tenacity.”

Fusion is considered The most efficient and “cleanest” form of energy. It is the process that produces energy within the sun and all stars.

Nuclei of light elements, such as hydrogen, combine (fuse) to produce a huge amount of energy. Unlike nuclear reactors, fusion produces little radioactive waste and no greenhouse gases.

The big problem for which there is no satisfactory solution yet is how the merger can be implemented It requires enormous temperatures and pressuresin an easy and cheap way.

Nuclear scientists outside LLNL said the achievement is an important step, but much more needs to be done before fusion becomes commercially viable. Tony Raulston, a nuclear energy expert at the University of Cambridge, estimates that the energy production in the experiment was only 0.5% of the energy needed to start the laser in the first place. “Therefore, we can say that this result (…) is a success for science. But it is still very far from producing useful, abundant and clean energy.”

Electricity industry They welcomed this progress with cautionHowever, stressing that to achieve the transition in the field of energy, fusion should not slow down efforts to promote other alternatives, such as solar energy, wind energy and nuclear fission. It’s the first step that tells us, ‘Yeah, it’s not just a fantasy, it can be done, in theory,'” said Andrew Sunder, technology specialist at EPRI, a nonprofit energy research and development organization.

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