Nuclear fusion energy breakthrough

2022 - 12 - 14

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Image courtesy of "NPR"

The U.S. reaches a fusion power milestone. Will it be enough to ... (NPR)

The achievement came at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a $3.5 billion laser complex at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. For more ...

"This is a great demonstration of the possibility," Dasgupta says. By then most climate experts believe the world will have to have already made drastic cuts to carbon emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The United States has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1992, and the primary purpose of the NIF facility is to conduct very small-scale bangs that closely mimic nukes. In other words, even if the energy from the fusion reactions exceeds the energy from the lasers, it's still only around one percent of the total energy used. And getting economical power out of a fusion reactor is even tougher, says Roulstone. "You start with a little spark, and then the spark gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and then the burn propagates through." "I think the science is great," Roulstone says of the breakthrough. For more than a decade, NIF has struggled to meet its stated goal of producing a fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes. The shockwave from the diamond's destruction crushes the hydrogen atoms, causing them to fuse and release energy. It is designed to aim 192 beams onto a tiny cylinder of gold and depleted uranium. The energy out significantly exceeded the energy the lasers put in, according to sources familiar with the result. Will it be enough to save the planet?

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

Nuclear Fusion Energy Breakthrough: Video and How to Watch (The New York Times)

The Energy Department on Tuesday morning will present “a major scientific breakthrough” achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

It took place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which plays a key role in developing and maintaining the U.S. Among its numerous initiatives is the National Ignition Facility, or NIF. The mass of helium is slightly less than the original hydrogen atoms. Proponents said it also could advance fusion research, potentially leading to viable commercial power plants. Thus, by Einstein’s iconic E=mc² equation, that difference in mass is converted into a burst of energy. Fusion is the thermonuclear reaction that lights up the sun and other stars — the fusing of hydrogen atoms into helium.

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Image courtesy of "PBS NewsHour"

WATCH LIVE: Energy Department announces major breakthrough ... (PBS NewsHour)

The Department of Energy is planning an announcement for Tuesday about a "major scientific breakthrough" at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Whyte said the fuel has to be hotter than the center of the sun. President Joe Biden called the breakthrough a good example of the need to continue to invest in research and development. Previously, researchers at the National Ignition Facility, the division of Lawrence Livermore where the success took place, used 192 lasers and temperatures multiple times hotter than the center of the sun to create an extremely brief fusion reaction. For fusion to be viable, it will need to produce significantly more power and for longer. One approach to fusion turns hydrogen into plasma, an electrically charged gas, which is then controlled by humongous magnets. “You can’t say that you have a car.” “Look what’s going on from the Department of Energy on the nuclear front. “We should be pushing towards making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security.” Proponents of fusion hope that it could one day offer nearly limitless, carbon-free energy and displace fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. “This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon Net energy gain has been an elusive goal because fusion happens at such high temperatures and pressures that it is incredibly difficult to control. Producing energy that powers homes and businesses from fusion is still decades away.

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

US scientists confirm 'major breakthrough' in nuclear fusion (The Guardian)

Arati Prabhakar, Marvin Adams and US secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm, discuss the. 02:01.

Dr Mark Wenman, a reader in nuclear materials at Imperial College London, called the achievement a “fantastic scientific breakthrough – something we have not achieved in 70 years of trying”. “I understand that everyone wants to think of this as being the great solution to the energy crisis. However, the obstacles to be overcome to make anything like a commercial reactor are huge, and must not be underestimated.” The ones used in the US experiment cost tens of thousands of dollars, but for a viable power plant, they would need to cost pence. The implosion reaches speeds of 400km per second and causes the deuterium and tritium to fuse. The intense energy heats the container to more than 3m degrees celcius – hotter than the surface of the sun – and bathes a peppercorn-sized fuel pellet inside in X-rays.

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Image courtesy of "University of Miami"

What the breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy means (University of Miami)

Scientists have reportedly achieved a key milestone in nuclear fusion energy. University of Miami College of Engineering researcher Giacomo Po addresses ...

Materials modeling remains one of the fundamental tools to understand how the fusion environment alters the microstructure of materials and eventually degrades their properties. In tokamaks, the trick is that the hot plasma is confined not by structural materials directly, but by a powerful magnetic field that bends the plasma into the shape of a doughnut. In our research, we develop and use a multiscale computational framework to gain a fundamental understanding of how engineering materials respond in the nuclear fusion environment. In tokamaks, fusion happens when three plasma parameters reach their critical conditions, namely the plasma density, the plasma temperature, and the confinement time. “Clean, plentiful, and economical nuclear fusion is simply the ultimate energy source, and it possesses limitless potential to reshape the future of humankind. “Several startups are proposing fresh ideas that contribute to the commercial availability of fusion power,” he said.

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Image courtesy of "CBS News"

U.S. announces nuclear fusion energy breakthrough: "One of the ... (CBS News)

Nuclear fusion has been considered the holy grail of energy creation that some say could save humans from extinction.

Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York. "This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundance fusion energy powering our society." "We've known how to fuse atoms and generate energy. It combines two hydrogen atoms, which then makes helium and a whole lot of energy. energy secretary, said at a press conference, adding that researchers have been working on this for decades. The U.S.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

US scientists make major scientific breakthrough in nuclear fusion (ABC News)

For the first time, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California produce more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite ...

Containing it is an incredible challenge, he said. "Therefore, we can say that this result ... Tony Roulstone, a nuclear energy expert at the University of Cambridge, estimated that the energy output of the experiment was only 0.5 per cent of the energy that was needed to fire the lasers in the first place. The net energy gain achievement applied to the fusion reaction itself, not the total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project. Unlike other nuclear reactions, it doesn't create radioactive waste. Riccardo Betti, a professor at the University of Rochester and expert in laser fusion, said an announcement that net energy had been gained in a fusion reaction was significant.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

Scientific 'breakthrough' in nuclear fusion could launch new era of ... (ABC News)

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced they successfully maintained a nuclear fusion reaction, which could launch a new phase of ...

A fusion power plant could produce a lot of power from one facility and would emit no carbon, no air pollution, and generate very little waste compared to the nuclear power plants in use today. And so it could be you know, if a power plant can be made it would be incredibly positive," Dabbar said. Dabbar said nuclear fusion is essentially harnessing the power of the sun, or at least the same power that creates stars. The idea is frequently represented in science fiction coming to life, said Paul Dabbar, a distinguished visiting fellow at Columbia University and former Department of Energy undersecretary for science, who oversaw the national labs in his role at the department. Granholm and other officials emphasized that the announcement is also a benefit to US national security. "This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society," Granholm said.

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Image courtesy of "The Wall Street Journal"

What to Know About Nuclear-Fusion Energy and the Latest Scientific ... (The Wall Street Journal)

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., where the milestone known as fusion ignition was achieved, have been studying ...

[appeal of nuclear fusion to researchers](https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-scientists-set-nuclear-fusion-energy-world-record-11644440648?mod=article_inline), as well as investors and companies, stems from its [potential as a clean-energy alternative](https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-fusion-startup-lands-1-8-billion-as-investors-chase-star-power-11638334801?mod=article_inline) to sources that involve the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases. The broad [a breakthrough in research on nuclear fusion](https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough-reported-by-scientists-at-u-s-lab-11670944595?mod=article_inline), bringing them one step closer to possibly changing the future of clean energy.

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Image courtesy of "The Hill"

Five takeaways from the fusion energy breakthrough (The Hill)

The Biden administration has announced a breakthrough on nuclear fusion, fueling hopes of further progress toward clean energy. Nuclear fusion — the process ...

Fusion is “an essential process in modern nuclear weapons” and a milestone like this one was a strong argument for American military power, Adams noted. — and that American companies are the main recipients of international fusion funding. Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at a press conference. officials hinted at military applications. [requires a separate atomic explosion](https://www.iaea.org/topics/energy/fusion/faqs) to trigger ignition, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, fusion comes with its own drawbacks. Unlike traditional nuclear energy, called fission, fusion doesn’t generate radioactive waste that requires long-term storage. They put in 2.05 megajoules of energy and got out 3.15 megajoules. But while it is tempting to think of fusion in terms of a “race” between countries, the drive for fusion power is highly international and collaborative. [built the central solenoid magnet](https://www.usiter.org/us-hardware/central-solenoid) for the ITER tokamak — necessary to create the magnetic fields that power and control the superheated plasma during a fusion reaction, according to the U.S. [will be the largest fusion facility](https://www.iter.org/proj/ITERMilestones) in the world when it begins experiments in 2025, according to a statement. [generated 70 percent](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02338-4) of the energy it put into a fusion reaction last year.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

Nuclear fusion 'breakthrough': How scientists achieved it, and what it ... (ABC News)

An elusive goal in the global race to create clean, green nuclear energy has been achieved by US scientists. So how significant is the "breakthrough" ...

Finally, the size of the net energy gain needs to be much larger. Meanwhile, China is working on its own fusion project known as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). This is known as the "wall-plug efficiency" — or the amount of energy drawn from the grid that is deposited on the fusion fuel, versus the amount generated. "ITER has a goal of demonstrating break-even in the early 2030s," Professor Baldwin said. That's because although the reaction itself generated an excess of energy, significantly more energy was required to power the lasers that delivered energy to the reaction, said Ken Baldwin, a professor of physics at ANU. Professor Hole says it may be difficult to generate large-scale continuous power from the inertial confinement method used in the experiment, as it relies on pulses of energy, or creating a series of explosions. "There are a lot of steps needed to translate that from a lab experiment to a power plant." The other technique confines deuterium and tritium under extreme heat – hundreds of millions of degrees – in a magnetic field in a [52 megajoules of energy](/news/2022-02-10/nuclear-fusion-record-step-towards-low-carbon-energy/100818972) for five seconds – a record for the amount of energy extracted from nuclear fusion, although the result fell short of net energy gain. The latest experiments ramped up the energy output to 3.15 megajoules, which is more than the 2.05 megajoules of energy delivered by the lasers. The process of fission has been commercially viable for decades and is used in conventional nuclear power plants to generate about 10 per cent of the world's power. For decades, scientists have tried to harness fusion energy, which is the process of making energy using the same phenomenon that powers the Sun.

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